Smart Agrocare: Automated Irrigation and Soil Nutrition Monitoring

Abstract

India's agrarian sector, while central to its economic foundation, continues to grapple with inefficient water management and inadequate soil monitoring. This paper introduces Smart AgroCare, an IoT-based precision farming solution developed to address irrigation inefficiency and soil nutrient degradation in smallholder sugarcane cultivation. An ESP32 microcontroller serves as the processing core, coordinating inputs from eight heterogeneous sensors — including NPK, pH, soil moisture, temperature, float switches, and motor protection sensors — to autonomously regulate a single-phase irrigation pump. Processed readings are rendered locally on a 16×2 LCD module and remotely via a cloud-hosted React-based web interface. Data transmission is handled through MQTT messaging and HTTP REST protocols, while external integrations with OpenWeatherMap and Google Gemini AI enhance the system's predictive and advisory capabilities. A structured 21-day field evaluation conducted in October–November 2025 at Manjari (Bk), Pune, achieved water savings between 34% and 37%, a directional crop yield improvement of approximately 12%, and demonstrated full system reliability — all at a hardware cost below ₹10,000.