2017 ASHS Annual Conference

Continuous monitoring of root-zone environment provides farmers with useful information, which can improve the quality and productivity of crops grown in greenhouses. The objective of this study was to develop a root-zone environmental measurement system using a low-cost microcontroller with open-source software. Root-zone environmental parameters to be measured were temperature, electrical conductivity (EC) and water content. Sensors were used the load-cell and GS3 soil moisture. The GS3 measures water content, root-zone temperature, and EC independently. An Arduino Uno R3 consisted of a USB interface for communicating with a computer, 6 analog inputs, 14 digital input/output pins. A load-cell sensor was connected to the digital pins 2 and 3. A GS3 sensor was connected to the digital pin 4. The sketches were programmed with the Arduino Software (IDE). A measurement system including the Arduino board, sensors, and accessories was inexpensively developed. Data for the environmental parameters in a greenhouse were obtained using this system without any problems. We could expect that the Arduino using open-source software will be efficiently used for monitoring root-zone environments.