The fuzzy decision-making method of irrigation amount based on ET and soil water potentioal

Precision irrigation is an important practice in water-saving agriculture cropping system, which allows producers to maximize their productivity while saving water. While the accurate irrigation amount is difficult to obtain as the impact factor was too much. In order to solve this problem, a fuzzy decision-making method of irrigation amount based on ET and soil water potential was designed in this paper. And the soil water potential and crop evapotranspiration (ET) were selected as input variables of the fuzzy controller. The wireless sensor network (WSN) was used to transmit the irrigation control signal including the soil water potential signal and the relative humidity, air temperature, solar radiation, wind velocity and so on. The soil water potential and crop evapotranspiration whose calculation formula using the FAO56 Penman-Monteith equation were taken as two input variables of fuzzy controller, and the multiple-factor control rule database was established for the fuzzy irrigation control system. The test results show that the method and system has many advantages, such as economic, practical, with high communication reliability and control accuracy.