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ThesisItem Restricted Development of customized automated fertigation system for soilless media in protected cultivation(Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, 2021) Pandey, Kusum; Singh, K. G.A study was undertaken for the development of a low-cost customized automated fertigation system for the closed soilless system under protected conditions and tested for cucumber crop grown in different soilless media under naturally ventilated polyhouse at Dr. S. D. Khepar Laboratories of the Department of Soil and Water Engineering, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana. This system consisted of mainly four units i.e. controller unit, sensor unit, fertigation unit, and pipeline unit. The controller unit comprises the programmable logic controller (PLC) which is used to automate the whole fertigation process i.e. to prepare and supply the fresh nutrient solution to the crop and reuse the drained nutrient solution after making the balance solution through the filtration from the polyhouse. The developed system was calibrated for dozing pumps, EC, pH sensors precision analysis, and time taken by the dozing pump with their respective treatments. The experiment was set in a factorial split-plot design included 9 treatments each under the developed automated and conventional fertigation systems with three fertigation levels viz. T1 = 100% fresh solution, T2 = 90% fresh solution with 10% leachate and T3 = 80% fresh solution with 20% leachate. Cucumber hybrid Multistar were planted under three different substrates of cocopeat i.e. S1 = 50% cocopeat with 50% cocochips, S2 = 70% cocopeat with 30% cocochips and S3 = 100% cocopeat in three replicates during three growing seasons. The performance of the system was measured by crop growth parameters (vine length, leaf area index, stem diameter, leaf chlorophyll content), yield parameters (fruit weight, fruit length, fruit diameter, yield per plant), and quality parameters (vitamin C, total phenol content, antioxidant capacity, total chlorophyll content, firmness). The economic analysis was carried out for a developed automated system with 50% subsidy on polyhouse and without subsidy and compared with conventional fertigation system. Customized automated fertigation system recorded significantly higher 17.1%, 10.8%, and 12.1% fruit yield per plant as compared to the conventional fertigation system in seasons 1, 2, and 3 respectively. Out of three different growing media, all the plant growth, yield, and quality parameters were recorded significantly higher under substrate S2 followed by S3 and S1. Among the fertigation treatments, T1 recorded significantly higher all the plant growth parameters as compared to T2 and T3 while there was no significant difference found in the fruit yield and quality parameters. For a customized automated fertigated system, BCR was found 2.16 & 2.19 (with subsidy) and 1.73 & 1.77 (without subsidy) for years 1 and 2. While, for conventional fertigation system, BCR was 1.89 & 2.0 (with subsidy) and 1.45 &1.59 (without subsidy) for years 1 and 2 respectively. Overall, the developed customized automated fertigation system crop grown under substrate S2 and with fertigation treatment T3 is recommended for achieving a statistically similar yield.
