An automatic irrigation control system has
been designed to facilitate the automatic supply of
adequate of water from a reservoir to field or
domestic crops in all agricultural seasons. One of the
objectives of this work is to see how human control
could be removed from irrigation and also to
optimize the use of water in the process. The method
employed is to continuously monitor the soil moisture
level to decide whether irrigation is needed, and how
much water is needed in the soil. A pumping
mechanism is used to deliver the needed amount of
water to the soil. The work can be grouped into four
subsystems namely; power supply, sensing unit,
control unit and pumping subsystems which make up
the automatic irrigation control system. A moisture
sensor was constructed to model the electrical
resistance of the soil; a regulated 12 volts power
supply unit was constructed to power the system; the
control circuit was implemented using operational
amplifier and timer; and the pumping subsystem
consisting of a submersible low-noise micro water
pump was constructed using a small dc-operated
motor. System response tests were carried out to
determine the time taken for the system to irrigate
potted samples of different soil types having different
levels of dryness. The results obtained showed that
sandy soils require less water than loamy soils and
clay soils require the most water for irrigation.
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