CHAPTER 1

PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

This chapter presents the background of the study, statement of the problem, conceptual

framework/paradigm, scope and delimitation, constraints used in the study, and operational definition

of terms.

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

In places where rain isn’t regular, there’s no adequate water supply, and most farmers grow a water-

hungry crops, they need to come up with a solution−and that is irrigation. Irrigation is the artificial

application of water to land for the purpose of agricultural production. (Agriculture Victoria, 2017)

Irrigation system is an important component of the agricultural system because it elevates land

productivity by providing sufficient water to crops to increase yield and ensure the stability of

production, even under extreme weather conditions. (Agrimag, 2018) However, there are various types

of irrigation systems used, which is attributed to: variation of soil types, varying topography of the land,

accessibility of power sources, availability of water, sources of water, size of the area being irrigated,

farm water storage capacity and availability of labor/financial resources.

There are different types of irrigation system depending on water resources, size of the system and

water application method. Three main water sources exist: surface water, groundwater, and recycled

wastewater. Irrigation system run from small-on-farm arrangements-using a local water supply-to vast

regional schemes that involve thousands of farms and are controlled by governmental authorities.

(SARE, 2012) Irrigation methods include the following: flood or furrow irrigation, is used where the

topography is flat and level. The water from an irrigation pump or canal is turned into the supply, or
head, ditch at the higher end of the field. It is released or siphoned into one or more checks and allowed

to flow slowly downslope, spreading evenly and uniformly over each entire check as it advances toward

the lower end. (J.Mcmahon, 2002) Sprinkler irrigation is a method of providing rainfall-like irrigation to

the crops. Water is distributed through a system of pipes usually by pumping. Spray heads at the outlets

distribute the water over the entire soil surface. Sprinklers provide efficient coverage for small to large

areas and are suitable for all types of crops. (Stauffer, et. al 2019) Drip or trickle irrigation is a planned

irrigation system in which water is applied directly to the Root Zone of plants by means of applicators

(orifices, emitters, porous tubing, perforated pipe, etc.) operated under low pressure with the

applicators being placed either on or below the surface of the ground. (USGS, 2015) Unfortunately,

these existing systems has several limitations: uncontrollable water source resulting to over-watering or

under-watering, time consuming method prolonging the farming process, water wastage which may

lead to water scarcity especially in drought areas, absence of soil nutrients resulting to unhealthy crops,

and increased operational costs. (Agriculture Victoria, 2017)

Over the years, these irrigation systems have been enhanced and developed to its best potential

providing an efficient and convenient way of farming. One of this innovation is the automatic irrigation

system which includes the use of a device to operate irrigation systems so the change of flow of water

from the source to one bay, or set of bays, to another can occur in the absence of the irrigator.

Automation can be used in a number of ways; to start and stop irrigation through supply channel

outlets, start and stop pumps, to cut off the flow of water from one irrigation area− either a bay or a

section of channel and directing the water to another area. These changes occur automatically without

any direct manual effort, but the irrigator may need to spend time preparing the system at the start of

the irrigation and maintaining the components so it works properly. (Agriculture Victoria, 2017)
 In Missouri USA, a new approach to better irrigation management comes from a University of

Missouri (MU) smartphone app. It’s called the Crop Water Use App, it will estimate for farmers the best

time to irrigate. The app creates an interactive website just for you to enroll and manage your fields. You

can give it with a push pin in Google maps, says Gene Stevens of the University of Missouri’s Delta

Research Center, where the app was developed. It estimates evapotranspiration based on solar

radiation, wind, temperature, and humidity readings from the MU weather station network. The app

uses soil mapping from the NCRS database to estimate water-holding capacity. (Johnston, 2017)

However, this mobile application is not for the Philippine setting as the app only works in Missouri and a

few surrounding locations.

In Italy, as one of the major kiwi producer around the world, an Italian company named FAMOSA that

works on technology-based support for agriculture developed a wireless sensor networks in a kiwi

plantation with Sigfox to develop accurate irrigation strategies for farmers. For this project, the company

installed a wireless sensor to monitor soil status to plan irrigation in a kiwi orchard. The information

collected by the sensor has been sent to esiFARM, FAMOSA’s platform, that includes Sigfox technology.

Farmers can get valuable information to schedule irrigation timing to avoid stress conditions, which is

fundamental on kiwi plants. (Libelium, 2017) This project is again not for Philippine setting because the

coverage is already diffused in Italy so it’s not available everywhere and the implementation is costly so

it’s not ideal for small-scale farmers in the country.

Here in the Philippines, as an agricultural country with a land area of 30 million hectares, 47 % of

which is agricultural land ―Department of Agriculture, farming has been a main source of living for most

Filipinos. According to World Bank, as of 2017, 27.7 % of the Filipino workforce employs in the

agriculture. Irrigation is a necessity for Filipino farmers as we are a country with two seasons, the dry

and wet season. According to National Irrigation Administration (NIA), there are three types of irrigation
systems in the Philippines: national irrigation system (NIS) are large and medium irrigation schemes

basically operated and maintained by NIA where beneficiaries are charged with an irrigation service fee

for the services rendered in the delivery of water, communal irrigation system (CIS) are the small-scale

schemes and constructed with the participation of farmer-beneficiaries thru their irrigators and private

irrigation systems (PIS) are those constructed, operated and maintained by private individuals or groups

without the technical assistance by NIA.

Among the provinces in Ilocos Region, Pangasinan shared the highest number of farms, 137.6

thousand, covering 160.7 thousand hectares of agricultural land. In fact, the total farms for the province

accounted for 49.7 percent of the total farms in the Region I. (PSA, 2004) According to NIA, Agno River

Irrigation System Extension Project (ARISEP) is located in Tomana, Rosales, Pangasinan providing a large

irrigation scheme on eight towns of the 6 th district of Pangasinan, namely: Natividad, San Nicolas, San

Quintin, Sta. Maria, Tayug, Balungao, Umingan and Rosales. This is one of NIA’s largest project serving

12,894 hectares and benefiting 10,577 farmers. (NIA, 2019) The province has 87,000 hectares of

irrigated land with 40,000 ha drawing water from San Roque Dam in San Manuel town, the rest use

communal irrigation system which water comes from creeks, rivers and underground. (Inquirer.net,

2019) Other farmers relies on private irrigation system.

Several research studies on Automatic Irrigation System have been conducted in the country. An

Electronics Engineering student from Nueva Ecija University of Science and Technology conducted a

research on 2016 entitled “Design of a Prototype Automatic Plant Irrigation Control System,” which

involves the design and development of a prototype automatic plant irrigation control system with the

use of Arduino microcontroller and soil moisture sensor. It was tested with the assumption of three soil

conditions which is dry, slightly wet and wet with a LED indicator. The basis for the description of the soil

was from the input values programmed in the microcontroller. The Arduino uno is used for easy
connection to a jumper cable that can be directly connected to the microcontroller. The prototype

automatic plant irrigation control system is a valuable tool for the farmers in their plant irrigation

activity. (Florencondia, 2016)

Another version of this research is done by the Electronics Engineering students of Lyceum of the

Philippines-Laguna entitled, “Automatic Soil Moisture Sensing Water Irrigation System with Water Level

Indicator” the design is almost the same but this time the system includes water level indicator on the

water source. However, the system still requires a manual refill of the water tank to store and establish

adequate amount of water, the researchers recommend the that the research may be used as reference

for further development of the design. (Ecija et. al., 2015)

Given these two existing research, there are still modifications that can be applied to improve the

design project. The inadequate automation of irrigation system in the country which may help farmers

lessen the workload and promote better farming prompted the researchers to conduct a research

project entitled, “Micro-controller Based Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture Content.”

This research wants to provide access to our small-scale farmers to low-cost irrigation system focusing

on the automation of irrigating the soil through a soil moisture sensor as its basis, provide a water tank

level indicator and an automatic on and off of the water pump to fill the water reservoir. Even so, the

researchers considered the recommendations given by previous studies, as deemed applicable to the

design of the system.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM:

The main problem of the study is about the design and construction of a microcontroller-based

automatic irrigation system on sensing soil moisture content. The researchers ought to answer the

following questions:
 1. How would the microcontroller-based Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture

Content operate in terms of;

a. Sensing the soil moisture content,

b. Indicating the water level of container,

c. Automatic water pump on and off,

d. Indicating the low-battery level, and

e. Irrigation control?

2. What were the minimum hardware requirements for the design and construction of the project

in terms of:

a. Electronic components, and

b. Casing?

3. How would the microcontroller be programmed for the following functions:

a. Sensing the soil moisture content,

b. Indicating the water level of container,

c. Automatic water pump on and off,

d. Indicating the low-battery level, and

e. Irrigation control?

4. What were the testing procedure needed to ensure the proper functionality of the project?

5. What are the maintenance procedures needed to ensure the functionality of the project?

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK/ PARADIGM

 The conceptual framework shows the organization of key concepts essential in the analysis, design

and construction of the Microcontroller-based Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture

Content. The researchers followed the input-process-output paradigm as an aid for system analysis,

design and construction of the project. The paradigm of the study is found on the next page.

INPUT

Electronic concepts needed for the operation of the Microcontroller-based

Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture Content in terms of:
Sensing soil moisture content,
Indicating the water level of container,
Automatic water pump on and off,
Indicating the low-battery level, and
Irrigation control.

Minimum hardware requirements for the design and construction of the project
in terms of:
Electronic components, and
Casing.

Program instructions of the microcontroller to accomplish:

Sensing soil moisture content,
Indicating the water level of container,
Automatic on and off,
Indicating the low-battery level, and
Irrigation control.

PROCESS

Testing procedures needed to ensure the proper functionality of the project.

Structuring, programming, testing and verifying, and demonstrating the functionality of
the project.
 OUTPUT

Operational Microcontroller-based Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil

Moisture Content.
User’s manual of the functional project with maintenance procedures.

The input of the study consisted of the operation the design system needed to execute, the minimum

hardware requirements, the project demand in its design and construction, and the program

instructions the project imposed to follow.

Meanwhile, the process covered the planning stage, designing phase, structuring level, programming

period, testing and verifying, and demonstrating time of the functionality of the project.

The output of the research is a functional Microcontroller-based Automatic Irrigation System on

Sensing Soil Moisture Content and a comprehensive yet concise manual operation with maintenance

procedures.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION

The project focused on the design and constructing of an automatic irrigation system based on a

microcontroller with a soil moisture sensor which will determine the moisture condition of the soil. The

system can automatically detect if the soil-moisture is below the minimum allowable limit, it will trigger

the system if watering is needed then the water will be maintained at the constant level to ensure that

plants are not affected by moisture stress during the critical growing of it.

The proposed system uses an ARDUINO Uno that simplifies the working of microcontroller

programming compared to other programming tools. Whenever there is a variation in soil moisture

content of the soil these sensors will determine the change and will give an interrupt signal to
microcontroller and will send signal to the relay driver that will activate the water tank and will control

the right amount of water to release.

This automatic irrigation system also includes a water level indicator in the water tank which will

determine the water level condition either high or low. When the water level is low, a signal will be sent

to the microcontroller and will send a signal to the relay driver that will activate the water pump and will

control until the water reaches the high level.

Whenever the system is switched on or off the water pump, the LCD screen indicates the status of

water pump and soil moisture.

The project is limited to be used by small-scale farms, it focuses primarily on the soil moisture content

as the basis for the irrigation system, there’ll be no other sensor used. Maintenance of the system still

requires human intervention to ensure irrigation on course. The sensor is sensitive to weather condition

which may interrupt the effectiveness of the soil moisture sensor, thus it still needs human monitoring

to ensure the effectiveness of the sensor.

CONSTRAINTS USED IN THE STUDY

This section defines the constraints used in the design and construction of the project in terms of the

standards in the electronics engineering field, economic constraints, ethical considerations in testing and

the health and safety parameters concerning the users.

In terms of the standard in the field, the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) C95, 6-

2002 (R2007) under the rules and oversight of the IEEE Standards Association Standards Board, the

International Committee on Electromagnetic Safety (ICES) is responsible for development of standards

for the safe use of electromagnetic energy in the range of 0 Hz to 300 GHz relative to;
1. The potential hazards of exposure of humans, volatile materials, and explosive devices to such energy,

2. Standards for products that emit electromagnetic energy by design or as a by-product of their

operation, and

3. Standards for environmental limits.

In terms of economic constraints, all of the components and devices we used in this project are

properly chosen to minimize the cost for the small time farmers based to the previous studies.

In terms of the ethical considerations in testing, it was established that the farmers would be given

proper education of how to use it in their farming with the aid of a manual guide.

In terms of the health and safety parameters concerning the users they won’t be exposed to any

harm or risk because the system is carefully designed and made to its best potential. However, they can

withdraw from the testing period if they see any harm on their crops.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The Microcontroller-Based Automatic Irrigation System on Sensing Soil Moisture Content is significant

because of its low-cost implementation, this will help small-scale farmers in utilizing their crops without

monitoring the soil condition manually. It will also lessen the labor intensive required in farming

providing a better estate for the farmers. If implemented, this will also promote water reservation and

lessen excessive water use in farming which is very timely in our current situation with our water

resources. If the project is installed and programmed properly it can also provide a beneficial

development with the existing irrigation system in our country.

 Furthermore, the principle can be extended to create fully automated gardens and farmlands as the

scope of the study is for private and small scale irrigation systems.

The successful construction and operation of the microcontroller-based system was beneficial to the

researchers in applying and enhancing their gained knowledge and skills in the field of Electronics

Engineering for creation of innovative technology that could help make our farmers life easy and provide

an accessible project for the benefit of many.

This study can also serve as a future reference for students who wants to conduct a research related

to the topic or to further enhance the current study.

OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

This section defines the different terms used in this project study. Even so, some other terms not

included have the same definition from dictionaries and other references. The following terms are

defined as how they are used in the study:

Irrigation – a system of supplying (land) with water by means of artificial canals, ditches, etc., especially

to promote the growth of food crops.

Automatic Irrigation System – refers to the operation of the system with no or just a minimum of

manual intervention beside the surveillance.

Irrigator – one who irrigates land to supply it with water in order to help crops grow.

National Irrigation System (NIA) – is a government-owned and controlled corporation primarily

responsible for irrigation development and management in the Philippines.

Casing – it is the covering or housing where the whole system is to be placed.

Electronic Components − these refers to any basic discrete device or physical entity used in an

electronic system essential to the operation of the whole system.

Soil Moisture Sensor − measure the volumetric water content in soil.

Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) – is a flat panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that

uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals.

Arduino Uno – is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega328P (datasheet). It has 14 digital

input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 Analog inputs, a 16 MHz quartz crystal, a

USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and a reset button.