fairfolio
Saved Projects

MINIMIZING IRRIGATION WATER APPLICATION and MAXIMIZING CROP YIELD of SPINACH (Spinacia oleracea) THROUGH the USE of BIOCHAR and a HOME-MADE PUMP CONTROLLER on a RASPBERRY Pi

CSEF · 2023 Plant Biology Fourth Award

Pasha Kinnoree · 8

Overview

Water is one of the most valuable natural resources in our planet. According to Environmental Protection Agency (2017), due to climate change, the western part of the United States is getting less precipitation and that leads to less availability of fresh water. Agriculture uses about 70% of all available fresh water worldwide (World Bank, 2020). These facts directs to the question- is there any way to minimize water use by improving soil’s ability to hold more water? To answer this question, this project was designed to examine if soil amendment and soil moisture sensor based automated pump controller can help minimize irrigation water application and maximize crop yield. Biochar, a product that helps to improve soil water holding capacity in addition to other nutrient benefits were considered for this project. This experiment was designed including real time monitoring with soil moisture sensors using a home-made pump controller on a Raspberry Pi to minimize water use for winter spinach (Spinacia oleracea). The hypothesis for this project was “Biochar and controlled irrigation system together can help to improve soil water holding capacity and nutrient retention in soil to grow vegetable better with less water”. After thorough literature review the experiment was designed. All the necessary materials were gathered that includes winter spinach seeds, three soil moisture sensors (ACEIRMC), an area inside the home garden to accommodate three 2ft*10ft size experiment and control plots, biochar & garden soil, soil testing kit, a data collection laptop (field computer), raspberry pi, ribbon cable, 40 pin breakout board, breadboard, relay module, jumper wires, HDMI monitor, two mini pumps, & small reservoir. Three research plots: one for control and two for experiment, all same size (2ft. * 10 ft.) were established in the backyard home garden. Soil sample were collected from all three plots before any soil amendment were made and were tested with soil testing kit for soil pH and major nutrient content (N, P, & K), Biochar was applied to the 2nd experiment plot soil. A low pressure drip irrigation system was installed in the experiment plots but the control plot was irrigated manually. One soil moisture sensor and one small pump with a small water reservoir was installed in each of the two experiment plots. Sensors were calibrated before installing. A control system was developed using Python programming language on Raspberry Pi to gather soil moisture data using the sensors and then based on a logic turn the pump on or off for irrigation in both the experiment plots. For the control plot, manual irrigation was scheduled based on the theoretical water need for the plant per literature review. Soil sample was collected at the end of the experiment from each plot and tested with soil testing kit again for soil pH and nutrients (N, P & K). Plant growth and development was monitored by taking measurements of plant height, width (diameter at the top of the plant), and number of leaves etc. Statistical analysis was done to observe the differences between experiment plots & control plot. A 27.1% water saving was possible utilizing the combination of soil amendment with biochar and soil moisture based automated pump controller. Calculations also shows that using the control system and biochar aproximately 67,635 and 136,328 gallons/acre/season water savings are possible respectively for pump controller only and pump controller with biochar to commercially irrigate an acre of spinach. Physical data shows that the spinach in the experiment plot are in general healthier than the control plot. The result of this experiment provided helpful data to prevent waste of our limited water resources for agricultural use and also help improve crop yield.

Source coverage

This record comes from a published award list, not a complete project archive. Its abstract comes from CSEF's public project showcase as archived by the Internet Archive before judging (https://web.archive.org/web/20230401224130/https://ca-csef.zfairs.com/showcase/ShowcaseInfo?f=838e60b7-ea75-46e8-865c-fde4864244b3); the version presented may differ.

Awards (1)

Competition history

  • CSEF 2023 Plant Biology · Entry J1810

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google