Arduino Automated Irrigation and Fertigation System with IoT Interface for Tomato Garden

The study aimed to address the negative impact of drought and inflation on tomato growth and horticulturists by developing an Arduino-based automated irrigation and fertigation system with a graphical user interface (GUI). The objectives were: (1) to design and implement an irrigation and fertigation prototype and control. (2) to create a Graphical User Interface (GUI) showing sensor readings. (3) to apply the fertilization baseline and test and compare the tomato plant height of the proposed with the traditional setup. (4) to measure the water and fertilizer savings of the proposed setup compared to the traditional setup. The system, controlled by Arduino Mega 2560 and connected to the internet via ESP8266 Wi-Fi, utilized solenoid valves to regulate water and fertilizer flow. The experiment compared a 4-square-foot proposed setup to a traditional one, with cherry tomatoes on loam soil. It was concluded that the researchers do not reject the null hypothesis because the estimated t-stat, -0.00072, is larger than -2.23 and less than 2.23. The p-value, which is 0.9994, is greater than 0.05. Thus, there is no difference between the proposed and traditional setup's tomato plant heights. Furthermore, the proposed setup and prototype saved 34553 mL and 119 mL of water and fertilizer and reduced water and fertilizer consumption by 61.3% and 53.3%. The prototype's electricity consumption cost for six weeks of 24-hour usage is 53 pesos.