HydroNutriGuard: A Mobile-Based Hydroponics Nutrient Tracker with Recommender System for Lettuce

Abstract

This project focuses on developing and evaluating a mobile-based application to have an efficient and timely way of tracking remotely the nutritional content of the hydroponics solution for lettuce. The researchers designed an IoT-based sensor to detect the values of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium(K), and water solution levels, which are among the hydroponic nutrients that are very vital to monitor to properly manage the hydroponic nutrient system. The NPK values acquired by the sensor were transmitted to the cloud server, which then displayed in the mobile application in a graphical format with color coding for the growers to easily interpret the result and recommend a solution if it detected a nutrient deficiency. Moreover, when the ultrasonic sensor detects that the hydroponics have reached the critical level of water for the plants to grow, it will automatically pump water solution from the reservoir. The mobile application was initially evaluated by 17 horticulture students and 2 agriculture faculty members who studied hydroponics with field exposure and manually checked the nutrients in the greenhouse through readily available devices in the market. It was also tested and evaluated using the mobile application acceptance model and obtained a grand mean of 3.93. This implies that the mobile application met the needs and expectations of the evaluators, hence, it is believed that using the mobile app ensures that the nutrient levels are well-guarded and maintained at optimal levels.