Plant Speaking Approach for Automatic Fertigation System in Greenhouse

Abstract

Nowadays, many vegetables are grown inside greenhouses in which environment is controlled and nutrition can be supplied through water supply using electrical pump, namely fertigation. Dosage of nutrition in water for many vegetable plants are also known so that by controling water supply all the needs for the plants to grow are available. Furthermore, water supply can be controlled using electrical pump which is activated according to the plants condition. ln order to supply water and nutrition in the right amount and time, plants condition can be observed using a CCD camera attached to image processing facilities. ln this study, plants development during their growing periode are observed. Three populations of tomato plants, with less, enough, and exceeded nutrition in water, are captured using a CCD camera every three days, and the images were analyzed using a developed computer program for the height of plants. The result showed that the development of the plants can be monitored using this method. After that, the respon of plant growth in the same condition was monitored, and the respon was used as input for the fertigation sysfem to turn electrical pump automatically on and off, so the fertigation system could maintain the growth of the plants.