Design of a Cloud-based Monitoring System for Potential Leaves Decomposition for Manures

The agriculture sector is important to the economic growth of agriculture-inclined countries like South Africa. Issues regarding agriculture may not only directly affect consumers, but cause the increase in food price. This may further affect the price control policy on food. This paper discusses soil manuring as one of the problems faced in optimum food productivity. Since leaves droppings could be decomposed to fertilize the soil, the need to understand the factors that may affect the process or outcome is important, hence our project. We designed a compact monitoring circuit using the Redboard and GSM/GPRS module. Three TCS3200 color sensors were used to detect leaves droppings, giving a large coverage area. The colors detected were categorized to numbers, for possible data analysis. Other sensors were used to collect parameters for possible factors that may affect decomposition. We measured soil moisture, soil temperature, ambient temperature, relative humidity, and dew point. Our Heroku-deployed developed cloud platform was synced to the monitoring circuit for remote monitoring. Our whole project embraced a continuous real-time monitoring from the site to the cloud platform.