IoT-Based Systems for Soil Nutrients Assessment in Horticulture

Abstract

Soil nutrients assessment has great importance in horticulture. Implementation of an information system for horticulture faces many challenges: (i) great spatial variability within farms (e.g., hilly topography); (ii) different soil properties (e.g., different water holding capacity, different content in sand, sit, clay, and soil organic matter, different pH, and different permeability) for different cultivated plants; (iii) different soil nutrient uptake by different cultivated plants; (iv) small size of monoculture; and (v) great variety of farm components, agroecological zone, and socio-economic factors. Advances in information and communication technologies enable creation of low cost, efficient information systems that would improve resources management and increase productivity and sustainability of horticultural farms. We present an information system based on different sensing capability, Internet of Things, and mobile application for horticultural farms. An overview on different techniques and technologies for soil fertility evaluation is also presented. The results obtained in a botanical garden that simulates the diversity of environment and plant diversity of a horticultural farm are discussed considering the challenges identified in the literature and field research. The study provides a theoretical basis and technical support for the development of technologies that enable horticultural farmers to improve resources management.

Designing and modeling an IoT-based software system for land suitability assessment use case

“…Postolache et al ( 2023 ) found that there is no large-scale or commercially available IoT system for horticulture and then proposed an IoT-based system for soil fertility evaluation in horticultural farms to aid in detecting plant stress and improve irrigation and fertilization decision process which needs not only the current value of soil nutrient but the historical nutrient data. The sensing nodes sense some soil and climate parameters and use Wi-Fi or LoRa for communication.…”

A Model of a Smart Garden Using the Integration of a Set of Components

“…These solutions are mainly focused in the field of automating the irrigation process [15], [16]. Building a smart irrigation system requires a set of electronic devices that can be controlled by humans as well as communication with each other.…”

Investigating the Sorption/Desorption of the Cationic Herbicide Paraquat in Clay Minerals Using Batch and Electro–Ultrafiltration Techniques

“…Under low-energy extraction conditions, the loosely bound, easily exchangeable forms of the compound are prevailingly extracted. In high-energy conditions, the strongly retained and part of the selectively retained exchangeable forms of the compound are also extracted [31,32].…”