Maintaining soil fertility is essential for the prosperity and sustainability of any agricultural system. With the rise in population and increase in food demand, soil fertility management is essential. Lack of resources and improper soil management was the main cause of the problem resulting in soil degradation and nutrient, hence a decrease in productivity.

Accordingly, the objective of the project will be, to estimate the soil fertility on a real-time basis and to give suggestions regarding the suitable crop to be grown on a particular land along with fertilizer and compost usage. This project will educate the farmers about the variety of crops that can be grown on the soil which can have several financial and environmental benefits.

The project will provide crop advisory to the farmers by taking various factors such as weather conditions, soil nutrients, moisture levels and land type into consideration. The whole system will consist of a Hardware Device, Cloud Database and a Mobile Application and a Website. The Hardware device will be integrated with Soil Nutrient Sensors that will detect the macronutrients such as Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium along with Soil pH, through the principle of Electrical conductivity. The device will also record real-time soil moisture, atmospheric temperature and humidity levels, rainfall, wind and light intensities which will be fed to the Cloud for further analysis. Later on, the collected data will be analyzed in the Cloud and a list of suitable crops that could produce better yield will be provided along with the amount of fertilizer to be used according to the crop type. In the Mobile application, climatic conditions and other geographical features along with the detailed soil nutrient report will be displayed on a real-time basis. Farmers will also be notified to perform soil tests regularly over a particular period, and the required amount of fertilizer will be suggested. It will also connect the farmers to agricultural experts for providing support and improving their overall yield.

Through this project, we are trying to break the rice-wheat monocultural practices which in turn reduces the pressure on the water table as rice and wheat, which are among the most water-consuming crops. Also, as the farmers would get a better understanding of the type and amount of fertilisers that can be used in the soil, this could lead to a reduction in soil and groundwater pollution. Variation in cropping patterns can also increase the income of farmers and improve their financial condition. Lastly, as the buffer stocks are filled with a variety of crops, the prices of these crops will go down in the market and benefit the consumers as well.

Project Proposal

1. High-level project introduction and performance expectation

2. Block Diagram

3. Expected sustainability results, projected resource savings