Employing Industry 4.0 to Supervise Soil Supplements and Estimate its Content

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the soil supplements collectively referred to as macronutrients, which are vital for crop growth, root development, and fungal resistance, along with other functions, in the soil. Every form of life on earth relies on the strength and composition of the soil. To analyse several criteria, which include the type of crop that should be sown during a specific crop season, crop yield, as well as the composition of these elements in the consumables, it is necessary to monitor the nutrient content in determining the soil fertility and giving that precise information to the farmers is more important. To compensate for minor deficits, fertilisers can be added to raise the numeric value of nutrients. But the challenge is that the quantity that should be added must be known accurately for better crop production. By employing Industry 4.0, accurate information can be obtained within a shorter amount of time. Here, this research work has developed a prototype for a system to automatically monitor the soil nutrients with microcontroller ESP8266. Additionally, the moisture, temperature, and humidity sensors that have been employed can assess the soil's temperature, humidity, and moisture content. The ThingSpeak server and the ThingView Free App were used to store the collected data. The primary objective behind this is an evaluation of the range of nutrients, moisture content, temperature, and humidity through which the data can be conveniently accessed and understood by farmers utilising mobile applications.