IoT to inculcate Smart Farming and Soil Nutrient Retention

The humongous growth in technology has opened new and innovative doors for agriculture and made it more significant and popular. With the advent of technology there is a huge shift towards smart farming that will help in meeting the global market demands. More and More companies and researches have been directed towards Internet of Things (IoT) that makes human intervention minimal and thus helps in maneuvering towards increased production, efficiency and meeting huge global market demands. In our project we focus on one of the main elements of a plant growth that is effective nutrient management. Out of the many important nutrient needed for an effective plant growth we focus on the three Macronutrient of utmost importance namely-Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium or NPK. The project involves measuring NPK values, pH level of soil during the preparation and/ or development stages using the RGB color sensor (TCS3200) that performs light intensity absorbed and thus compares the colors against NPK, Moisture sensor that gauges the volumetric content of water within the soil. All these sensors connected to the NodeMCU and the data is transmitted to cloud UI where we analyze it against pre-researched database. We also use an OpenCV plant weed recognition tool to identify the weed growth based on the irregularities in the pattern observed inthe form of pictures or videos. This is done for its effective removal in the initial stages of plant growth to ensure a healthy plant.