ET-Based Smart Irrigation System with irrigation postponement Algorithm for Lycopersicon Esculentum or Tomato plant

Agriculture alone consumes an estimate of seventy percent of the amount of freshwater worldwide. In the year 2009, the total water withdrawal for agriculture alone in the Philippines was estimated to be 88 percent recorded by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) . However, as an agricultural country, the country has poor irrigation systems. Poor irrigation systems negatively affect farmers as the misuse of resources can quickly deplete the reservoirs which can be burdensome when El Niño comes. To aid the major problem mentioned, the researchers proposes a solution through this study. This study was conducted to produce an automated irrigation system which uses the concept of evapotranspiration to aid in irrigation postponement for Lycopersicon Esculentum, also known as Tomato and describe how implementation of evapotranspiration on smart farming can impact plant growth and water consumption since there is little to no application of evapotranspiration is used in the country. The researchers used raspberry pi loaded with basic postponement algorithm developed under python programming language and evapotranspiration through Hargreaves-Samani equation. Two planters with two seeds of tomatoes were planted in where one of the planters is grown through traditional method of farming and one grown with the aid of the proposed system. Two-tailed T-Test was used to interpret the data attained. Based from the statistical treatment used, it is proven that that there is no significant effect on the plant growth when proposed system is implemented and there is a 76.86 percent water consumption reduction.