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Cited by 86Irrigation Practices and Water ManagementSmart Agriculture and AIEngineering and Agricultural Innovations

Efficient IoT-Based Control for a Smart Subsurface Irrigation System to Enhance Irrigation Management of Date Palm

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Mohammed, Maged, Riad, Khaled, Alqahtani, Nashi·2021·Sensors
DOI 10.3390/s21123942PMC PMC8228936
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Abstract

Drought is the most severe problem for agricultural production, and the intensity of this problem is increasing in most cultivated areas around the world. Hence improving water productivity is the primary purpose of sustainable agriculture. This study aimed to use cloud IoT solutions to control a modern subsurface irrigation system for improving irrigation management of date palms in arid regions. To achieve this goal, we designed, constructed, and validated the performance of a fully automated controlled subsurface irrigation system (CSIS) to monitor and control the irrigation water amount remotely. The CSIS is based on an autonomous sensors network to instantly collect the climatic parameters and volumetric soil water content in the study area. Therefore, we employed the ThingSpeak cloud platform to host sensor readings, perform algorithmic analysis, instant visualize the live data, create event-based alerts to the user, and send instructions to the IoT devices. The validation of the CSIS proved that automatically irrigating date palm trees controlled by the sensor-based irrigation scheduling (S-BIS) is more efficient than the time-based irrigation scheduling (T-BIS). The S-BIS provided the date palm with the optimum irrigation water amount at the opportune time directly in the functional root zone. Generally, the S-BIS and T-BIS of CSIS reduced the applied irrigation water amount by 64.1% and 61.2%, respectively, compared with traditional surface irrigation (TSI). The total annual amount of applied irrigation water for CSIS with S-BIS method, CSIS with T-BIS method, and TSI was 21.04, 22.76, and 58.71 m3 palm−1, respectively. The water productivity at the CSIS with S-BIS (1.783 kg m−3) and T-BIS (1.44 kg m−3) methods was significantly higher compared to the TSI (0.531 kg m−3). The CSIS with the S-BIS method kept the volumetric water content in the functional root zone next to the field capacity compared to the T-BIS method. The deigned CSIS with the S-BIS method characterized by the positive impact on the irrigation water management and enhancement on fruit yield of the date palm is quite proper for date palm irrigation in the arid regions.

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  • The sensors used in the study (DHT22 temperature/RH, DX-250 pH, LM35 temperature, VH400 volumetric soil moisture, MQ-135 air quality, and FUT3101 light intensity) were calibrated using the same techniques described in previous studies to ensure their accuracy.

    “The sensors used in this study, i.e., the digital DHT22 temperature and RH sensor, the analog DX-250 pH sensor, the analog LM35 temperature sensor, the analog VH400 volumetric soil moisture content sensor, the analog MQ-135 air quality sensor, and the FUT3101 light intensity sensor module were calibrated using the same techniques described in previous studies [48,60,66] to ensure their accuracy”

    From Design and Evaluation of a Smart Ex Vitro Acclimatization System for Tissue Culture Plantlets (2022) · cites this paper as [48]

    Section 2.3 describes calibrating a volumetric water-content sensor against measured soil water content, and Section 3.1 identifies it as the VH400 and reports its calibration curve. The paper uses DHT11 rather than DHT22 sensors and does not describe calibration techniques for the listed pH, LM35, air-quality, or FUT3101 light sensors. It therefore supports the VH400 example, but not the full set of sensor-specific techniques attributed to it. (LLM, conf=0.86)

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References 36 · Cited by 86

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Authors
Mohammed, M., Riad, K., & Alqahtani, N.
Affiliations
  • King Faisal University (SA)
  • Zagazig University (EG)
Corresponding author
Mohammed, Maged
ORCID
Venue
Sensors
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2021-06-08
Volume
21
Issue
12
Pages
3942
ISSN
1424-8220 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3390/s21123942
PMC
PMC8228936
OpenAlex
W3171809304
Cited by
86
References
36
Citations by year
2026: 12 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 5
FWCI
8.17
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Sensors (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
Date Palm Research Center of Excellence (DPRC), King Faisal University (KFU), Saudi Arabia, funded this study; through financing the research project number DPRC-1-2020. (DPRC-1-2020)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Irrigation Practices and Water Management
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Smart Agriculture and AI
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Aquatic Science › Engineering and Agricultural Innovations
Keywords
subirrigation, date palm, water productivity, soil moisture monitoring, arid regions, drought, fruit yield
MeSH terms
Agriculture, Desert Climate, Soil, Water, Agricultural Irrigation, Phoeniceae

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