原创 Agricultural Electronics Part 2

Part 2 of this article discusses the possibilities to address the following parts with the help of electronics:

1. Remote borewell operation

Today the borewell starters sense the presence of three or single phase power and turn on the borewell pump automatically. Unless there is an operator present, to channel the water or water a different sector of the farm, water output of up to 100 to 300 liters per minute will continue to flow mostly to undesirable sectors.

Sectors: Let me explain what this is. Say you have a 3 acre of farm. This three acres will be divided into say three sectors. Each sector will be watered once in three days based on many factors.

Remote borewell operation will also entail watering of sectors based on need. The water will get diverted each day to sector that needs it the most. This diversion of water may not even need any operator intervention. The valves will close electronically and the water will be fed to the secor that needs it the most.

Remote Borewell operation can happen with the help of a basic cell phone if required or can happen based on a simple embedded computer dedicated to farming needs. Availability of power is communicated  to the central computer based in the farm and to a cell phone. operator can override the computer's decision based on a call he or she would make into the central computer.

2. Drip Irrigation

Compared to conventional forms of irrigation (50-60% water delivery efficiency), drip irrigation has a water delivery efficiency of 90%. This means one would need lot less water to efficiently irrigate the same extent of land. All state governments have extensive money set aside for farmers to undertake drip irrigation projects. Subsidies of 75-85% are made available to farmers.

Both inline drip for inline crop like tomatoes, vines, beans, etc.and microtube based drips are available in the market today.

If interested, we can talk about the drip irrigation designs.

3. Moisture sensing before watering

The sectors will have moisture sensors installed. These moisture sensors can be powered from a lead acid battery that can be charged using a small local solar panel during the day. Many moisture sensors can be powered from one battery. This configuration depends on how far apart the sectors are. Running power & signal wires from one sector to the other over a distance of over 50 feet is not recommended for many reasons.

All these moisture sensors will talk to the central computer wirelessly. This will give the central computer the required information of which sector would need watering. Watering of the sector will also depend on the crop/sunshine info for the sector.

4. Crop based metered watering

For example beans will not need the same amout of water as bananas. This is what I mean by crop based watering. again crop/sunshine/moisture info will all be processed by the central embedded computer that will take the judicious call on how the watering will happen by turning various electronic valves on and off before the borewell starts to pump water.

5. Alternative Energy to drive water pumps

Drip irrigation adoption will drive down the sizes of the borewell pumps that are used to pump water. Coupled with the central embedded computing system just described, the watering will happen more efficiently. So instead of using 5HP, 3 phase motor/pump combo, we can try 2 or 3 hp single phase pump. This single phase power can be had from solar panels directly or combination of wind and solar that can store the required energy in deep cycle lead acid batteries. Inverters designed to drive inductive loads can drive the pumps when needed.

6. Educating the farmers and helping them adopt will have the biggest impact.

the large scale awareness about "water resource management" is markdly absent in our community and this awareness is even lower amongst farmers. Water tables are receding, borewells that used to have water at 60-75 feet are now at 220 feet. Many of them have completely dried up and many farmers have given up year long farming and have resorted to monsoon based farming only.

Drip irrigation could be the first step towards water resource management. Watering when the sun is down, during night etc will require proper availability of power which can be harnessed alternately; this is the second step.

Just availability of government funds will not help any one win this battle and we will all be loosers. Usage of these funds through proper adminstration where it is requiredwill help bring the needed awareness.

Please let me know if any of the readers have any interest in knowing how the "Agricultural Electronics" system functions. I will be happy to discuss in detail.

Ram

END.