GRD Journals- Global Research and Development Journal for Engineering | Volume 4 | Issue 10 | September 2019

ISSN: 2455-5703

Soil Testing and its Application in Crop

Production Improvement
Mr. Vikram M. Kakade
Assistant professor
Department of Electronics & Telecommunication Engineering
PRMCEAM, Badnera / SGB Amravati University

Abstract
Continuous cropping without any proper measurement and provisioning of soil nutrient may affect the life of the crop. Soil nutrient
measurement is greatly required for proper plant growth and effective fertilization. Moisture content present in the soil must be
checked properly. Today manually turning ON and OFF of the motor pumps lead to wastage of water and insufficient supply of
fertilizers. The objective of this proposed work is to provide an automated system for fertilization based upon the soil testing using
pH sensor and interfaced with the Arduino. With the help of pH value the macronutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorous and
potassium are determined in the soil. This automated system would minimize the time and human intervention to irrigate and
fertilize crops. The amount of fertilizers need to be supported to soil is sprinkled by the automated fertilization system. The farmer
also gets a feedback from display about the status of the farm.
Keywords- Ph, NPK Measurement, Soil Moisture, Water Level, Arduino, Fertilizer, Power Supply

I. INTRODUCTION
Indian economy is based on agriculture and the climatic conditions are isotropic and are not able to meet the needs of agricultural
resources. The main reason is the lack of rains and sanctity of land reservoir water and overused of fertilizers so these parameters
are to be monitored and controlled. This saves the farmers time, money and it cuts out intermediators who tend to buy low from
farmers and sell high to end consumers. The status of a soil is said with respect to its ability to supply elements essential for plant
growth without a toxic concentration of any element. Thus, soil fertility focuses on an adequate and balanced supply of elements
or nutrients to satisfy the needs of plants. A soil test is a process by which elements (phosphorus, potassium, nitogen and zinc) are
chemically removed from the soil and measured for their "plant available" content within the sample. The quantity of available
nutrients in the sample determines the amount of fertilizer that is recommended. Farmer does not test his land before feeding
fertilisers. The automated fertilization unit increases the profitability of crop production and reduces potentially negative
environmental impacts. In addition, fertigation reduces fluctuations of soil solution salinity due to fertilizers, thereby improving
soil solution conditions particularly for salt sensitive crops. In general, with fertigation protection of soil and water from fertilizers
on a sustainable basis can be achieved. Quantity of NPK decides crop type and plant growth status and decides about the quantity
of fertilizer to be used is further dependent on present contents of NPK nutrients in the soil.

II. LITERATURE SURVEY

The survey says that the system deals only about automatic irrigation, manual fertilizer spraying without testing of soil. Soil testing
is not done by farmers. So farmers feed the fertilizers as it is in the field without any proper knowledge. Mostly fertilizers are feed
in agriculture land manually by the farmers. The main drawbacks are feeding fertilizers manually will spoil the crops. If the
fertilizers level is high then the crop will be damaged and make a loss to the farmers. After feeding of fertilizers the water should
be supplied to the agriculture land. Manual intervention while operating motor is a major drawback.
The proposed system of manual fertilization without proper soil testing decreases the crop production and manual
fertilization may lead some over fertilization which also effect on crop. The proposed system is for the soil testing by using meter
but there is not any automatic fertilization system and on filed soil testing. Manual motor turn on and off leads to water wastage
and improper soil test reduces the crop production.

A. Plan of Work of Our System

The aim of our project is to reduce the soil testing effort of farmer to send soil to testing centre as we provide on field soil testing.
And automatic fertilization reduce the effort of manually turning on and off motor and also reduce wastage of water and over
fertilization.
The Arduino based estimation of soil parameter and automated fertilization.
Our project system can be measure ph value by ph sensor and form ph value we measure other content that are nitrogen,
phosphorous and potassium.

All rights reserved by www.grdjournals.com 37

 Soil Testing and its Application in Crop Production Improvement
(GRDJE/ Volume 4 / Issue 10 / 008)

Sensors: here we are using three sensor that are ph sensor, DHT11 sensor and soil moisture sensor that measure soil content and
water content of soil.
Arduino module: Arduino mega is used as the decision making in the proposed system. When sensor send value to Arduino then
Arduino send it to output part where relay is connect for fertilization.
After comparing threshold values in Arduino then Arduino give signal to relay for fertilization.
Relay module: It get start.

III. BLOCK DIAGRAM

Fig. 1: Functional Block Diagram of the project

A. Proposed Work
The aim of our project is to increase the production of crop by measuring nutrients, ph value and moisture of soil and reduce the
human effort of fertilization by automatic fertilization. In above figure show the basic block diagram of the Arduino based soil
parameter testing and improvement of crop by automatic fertilization. Our project system can be measure the soil content like
nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium , ph value, water content and display it on screen , it also reduce human effort of fertilization and
improve crop production by automatic fertilization .
Power Supply: - Power supply given by solar panel or from regulated power supply.
Ph sensor: A smart sensor that takes direct measurements of soil pH and send these data to controller. Mainly pH level in the soil
determines the NPK status of the soil. The relationship with the pH and NPK is given in below table
DHT11: The temperature of the field for irrigation purpose is measured by using DHT11.
Humidity Sensor: Irrigation techniques like drip irrigation need accurate moisture content for plants. So moisture level must be
monitored at frequent intervals and this could be achieved by using humidity sensor.
BC547: To ON a motor BC547 is used. Based on the clock pulse generated in the microcontroller the transistor will on the relay
and the relay circuit will on the motor.
Relays: To start the motor relays are used. If the controller gives an signal then the normally open will be converted into an closed
loop and NC will be normally closed if there is no trigger signal from the micro controller then the circuit will be in the closed
loop and if the controller signal is triggered then the relay changed its position to normally open and then the circuit will be in the
open state and there will not be any current flow in the circuit.
Pump motor: Water is fed throughout the farm using pump motor. It forms as an irrigation unit.
Table 1: NPK relation to pH
Nitrogen Phosphorous Potassium
pH Value
Content Content Content
4.5(extremely
30% 23% 33%
acidic)
5(very strong
53% 34% 52%
acid)
5.5(Strong
77% 48% 77%
acid)
6(Medium
89% 52% 100%
acid)
7(Neutral) 100% 100% 100%

All rights reserved by www.grdjournals.com 38

 Soil Testing and its Application in Crop Production Improvement
(GRDJE/ Volume 4 / Issue 10 / 008)

B. Arduino based Technology

Arduino mega Technology is used in this system. The Arduino Mega 2560 is a microcontroller board based on the ATmega2560.
 It has 54 digital input/output pins (of which 15 can be used as PWM outputs), 16 analog inputs, 4 UARTs (hardware serial
ports),
 It has 16 MHz crystal oscillator.
 It has USB connection and a power jack.
 It has ICSP header, mostly ICSP is a AVRtiny programming header for Arduino consisting of MOSI, MISO, SCK, RESET,
VCC, GND.
 It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable or power it
with a AC-to-DC adapter or battery to get started. The Mega 2560 board is compatible with most shields designed for the Uno.
 The Mega 2560 is an update to the Arduino Mega, which it replaces.
 The MEGA 2560 is designed for more complex projects, this gives your projects plenty of room and opportunities.

C. Exact Outcome of the System

 Improvement in crop production.
 Use automated sprinkle system to reduce wastage of water and over fertilization.
 Continuously monitoring soil nutrients and moisture in soil and display on screen.
 Reduces the time of testing soil in soil testing centre.

IV. ADVANTAGES AND APPLICATION

A. Advantages
 Continuous monitoring of soil can be done.
 Due to automatic fertilization crop production get increases.
 Device can be implement on farm.
 Simple Circuit.
 Low cost maintenance.
 Automatic operation

B. Application
 Main application is to monitor the soil continuously.
 This can also be used to reduce the wastage of fertilizer and water using automatic fertilization.
 This can use for crop production improvement.

V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE

This proposed system suggested the fertilizer details to farmer in a way that farmer could feed the land in an even manner and
without any deficiency to crops. The farmer could get all the proper information about the details of the soil including pH and
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium levels. This avoids over dosage of fertilizers and it is user-friendly to farmers. This proposed
system could be further enhanced by using advance technology. This system could be utilise on a larger scale, on large agricultural
fields apart from small farm lands.
It could also be implemented for various varieties of soils and its respective crops.

REFERENCES
[1] Akshay Badhe , Sandeep Kharadkar & Rushikesh Ware , ” iot based smart agriculture and soil nutrient detection system ,” international journal on future
revolution in computer science & communication engineering ,vol. 04
[2] J.Indirapriyadharshini , G.Gokul & V.Swathi, ” on the go soil nutrient identification and automated fertigation system,” international journal of pure and
applied mathematics, vol. 118
[3] Salve Akshay B , Sagar Sonali & Patne Mahesh, ”soil nutrient identification using arduino and electrochemical sensor,” international research journal of
engineering and technology , vol. 05

All rights reserved by www.grdjournals.com 39