ABSTRACT
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in air or moist environment
without the use of soil or an aggregate medium. Aeroponic farming
offers numerous advantages over traditional farming, focusing on
enhancing agricultural efficiency while minimizing environmental
impact. This innovative approach involves the utilization of an
automatic system to closely monitor plant growth. The automated
aeroponic system operates on the principles of the Internet of Things
(IoT). Temperature measurements of the root chamber and the
required light intensity for the shoot system are captured using sensors.
Actuators are managed by a control system. The sensor data is
transmitted through the internet to a server, enabling convenient
monitoring for users. The system's prototype has been successfully
implemented, and it effectively provides access to all sensor data on the
cloud.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We would like to thank our very able Chief Principal for providing us
with computers for research and working tirelessly for facilitating us
with the opportunity of presenting our projects. I would also like to
thank Okata Phanuel our patron for building our exposure to more KSEF
videos. We would like to thank Mr. Olesso Noel for facilitating our
research on the internet. We would also like to thank Mr. Njuguna for
helping us to programs our microcontrollers.
Contents
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
Aeroponics is the process of growing plants in an air or
mist environment without use of soil or an aggregate
media. The word aeroponic is derived from the Latin
word ‘aero’ (air) and ‘ponic’ mean labour (work) (Farran
and Mingo-Castel, 2006). This is an alternative method
of soil-less culture in growth-controlled environments.
Techniques of growing plants without soil were first
developed in the 1920s by botanists who used primitive
aeroponics to study plant root structure; and the
technique has long been used as a research tool in root
physiology (Barker, 1922). In the early 1940s, the
technology was largely used as a research tool rather
than an economically feasible method of crop
production. Carter (1942) was the first researcher to
studied air culture growing and described a method of
growing plants in water mist to facilitate examination of
roots. Fifteen years after the study of Carter
(1942) and Went (1957) named the air-growing process
in spray culture as “aeroponics”. In modern horticulture,
different soil-less production techniques such as Nutrient
Film Techniques (Singh et al., 2010) and aeroponics
(Peterson and Krueger, 1968) have been developed.
Earlier works has shown good results with NFT for
potato tuber production (Wheeler et al., 1990; Wan et
al., 1994). However, tuber initiation was poorer in
nutrient solution without solid media than in porous
media (e.g. perlite or vermiculite). The tuberization
inhibitions of stolons immersed in a solution could be the
consequences of the lack of mechanical resistance
(Vreugdenhil and Struik, 1989). The utilization of
aeroponic systems for potato seed production is very
recent in Europe. Until 10 years ago, the use of these
technologies was limited almost everywhere in the world
and only some countries such as China or Korea were
using them for the commercial production of potato
quality seeds (Kim et al., 1999). Nowadays, aeroponics is
being applied successfully in South America (Mateus-
Rodriguez et al., 2012) and attempts are made to
introduce this technology also in some African countries
(Otazu, 2010).
The aeroponic culture technique is an optional device of
soil-less culture in growth-controlled environments such
as greenhouses. This method consists of enclosing
the root system in a dark chamber and supplying a
nutrient solution of mist device. This technique has been
applied successfully for the production of different
horticultural species including lettuce (Cho et al., 1996;
Gysi and von Allmen, 1997; He and Lee, 1988), tomato
(Biddinger et al., 1998), cucumber (Park et al., 1997) and
ornamental plants such as chrysanthemum (Molitor et
al., 1999) or poinsettia (Scoggins and Mills, 1998).
Aeroponic system has been applied successfully in Korea
for potato seed tuber production (Kang et al., 1996; Kim
et al., 1999). Aeroponic systems for potato pre-basic
seed production have been established following
increased demand for more efficient high quality
seed production methods (Kang et al., 1996). Therefore,
aeroponics or aerohydoponics have displaced
traditional hydroponic systems for minituber production
(Chang et al., 2012). Despite increasing interest in soil
less culture methods in commercial horticultural
production, little information is available for potatoes
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
The population of the world is expected to rise by 3 billion people.109
Hectares has been approximated to be used to feed the growing
population .Only 80% of earth’s arable land is suitable for farming .A
greater quantity of Hectares with optimum Ph is needed to feed the
rising population.
