Solar powered Pesticide Sprayer

We have discussed lots of agricultural projects on this blog.This post is part of that series. Farming is one of the most oldest and important business ever done by humans but in most parts of the world it is done in traditional way. Though, farmers are adapting to changing times but their are many more things that's need to be done.

Why ?

At present time we use Power sprayer in two stroke petrol engine which pollutes our environment. It requires regular maintenance and filter cleaning regularly. It costs around Rs.70 / hr or $ 0.96 / hr. As demand of energy increasing, its cost is increasing too.  As we have seen example of Tractors, Motors electrical pump, Technology is being useful for improving production

How to build this project?

Their are two ways you can do it. First one is from the scratch where we build each and everything ourselves and learn basics of motor, blower and solar power technology and second way is where we avoid reinventing the wheel instead of that focus on our task in hand which is building pesticide sprayer which runs with the help of solar power.

How ?

First method:
Prepare design of your sprayer using computer aided tool( CAD). You will require following materials for building this project:
Solar Panel Battery

Blower 

DC Motor 

Adjusting 

Screw 

Connecting wires 

Second method:
You will need 82 W 12 V electric motor of around 1kg weight. Connect this motor with Li-ion battery which is further connected with solar panel. It would cost you around Rs.70 / hour which is at par with petrol powered sprayer.

Farm Ponds

We all know that water is precious and with growing population and their needs, fresh water is getting even more worth full with each passing day.Main uses of fresh water are drinking,washing and in Agriculture.Each year irrigation requires large amount of water and one of the main source of this water is rain. This makes rain water harvesting a top priority for farmers in every country from east to west.


Why we need farm ponds?

Most of the farmers all around the world heavily depends upon rain for their agricultural needs.Crops are very sensitive and two or three delays of watering can have devastating impact on crop production. Farm ponds help them to become somewhat independent and they can timely give water to their crop irrespective of time of rain.It also helps to improve ground water significantly.Farms ponds with drip irrigation would play great role in water management.


Indirect Advantages:

Water saved here can be used somewhere else ex. industries, households etc.
Less dependence on ground water which eventually increase it.
More production,less price of food grains for poor.
More area can be covered in agriculture where due to lack of water resources farming is almost impossible.

How it can be done?

It can be done using Farm Ponds. Farm ponds are artificial ponds dig inside the farm to harvest rain water.
Construction of Farm Pond Manually( Example):
Approximate
Top Cross section of Pond = 27 m * 27 m
Bottom cross section of Pond = 23 m * 23 m
Depth of Pond = 3 m
Side slope = 1 :1

Hydroponics System

Hydroponics is a method to grow plants without soil.As demand of food is increasing, we need to find ways to grow vegetables and fruits in whatever way possible.

Why do we need Hydroponics way of irrigation?

Limitation of land ,weather dependence and transportation cost are the factors because of which we should shift our focus from traditional methods to Hydroponic.Further more, we can grow more than one crop in same  bag has great economic benefits.Research done by University of Florida found that this way of irrigation has profitable too.

In the colder part of the world,it is difficult to grow plants in winter because of lack of sunlight and harsh weather conditions.This method can be used to mitigate these cumbersome problems.
Advantages:
No need of Pesticide and Insecticides
No Soil Required
Crops are easily to transfer
More plants per unit area.
Water stays in the system and reusable.

Procedure:

Do it yourself at home  : This page contains method and procedure required.

Related PDF:

Tulip Hydroponics (1.08 MB)
Master thesis of Hydroponic greenhouse production of fresh market Basil ( 1.49 MB)




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Mechanical Sprayer

If you know about farming, pests cause more damages to crop in comparison to any other factor. One of the solutions for this problem is spraying pesticides. Pesticides have their advantages as well as disadvantages. Which type of pesticides is good for nature is altogether different topic and we would discuss about them later. All we know is spraying pesticides is one of the most pertinent things in farming.

I hope you have seen people spraying in the farms; they use electrical or fossil fuel sprayer to spray pesticides on the field. Today, we will talk about alternatives such as mechanical sprayer.

What is mechanical sprayer?

It is a machine which is used to spray pesticides on crops using concepts of hydraulics as shown in video.

Concept:

We discussed Pascal law in our post Hydraulic Car lift. We would use same concept here. Mechanical Sprayer consists of small cart, drum, pipe and sprayer itself. It works like a steam engine but in exactly opposite way. Here, when we move cart forward, wheels of cart revolves and push piston in downwards direction. This downward motion of piston push pressure on water and as a result it comes out from the sprayer.

Related Posts:

Wind Powered Drip Irrigation System
Bicycle Sprayer 

Wind Powered Drip Irrigation

Whenever, I visit any nearby farm land, one thing I notice mostly is its dependence on continuous water supply. Some areas have sufficient water but in most of the places, I found that they are heavily dependent on ground water and rain. Moreover, many people still use traditional methods of irrigation due to which large amount of water get wasted.


Agriculture has become very vital with continuous increase in world population. Population affects agriculture from both ends, firstly by creating shortage of land to create houses and industries for new generation and secondly by increasing food demand.

For shortage of water, drip irrigation is widely popular. But, it depends greatly on electricity. This electricity is either provided by government or produced by fossil fuel generators. In my opinion, both ways are costly and pollute our environment too.

What’s the solution?

When problem is of that large scale, it can’t be solved by one solution.Therefore I decided to write series of project ideas related to this topic in coming months. Today, my focus is on drip irrigation using wind power.
By analyzing all facts, I found that to increase production,we need to utilize every available resource and for that we need to shift our focus to the land which is bare because of water shortages.To use these lands, we need water. We should save water using drip irrigation at places where it is available at abundant and divert it into water scarce areas.

How we can do that?

• 1. Promoting drip irrigation to all the places irrespective of water shortage or not : In last 10 years, drip irrigation has become very popular and affordable too. Governments in many countries started to give subsidies to make it more attractive.
• 2. Using renewable sources of energy in agriculture: In my opinion, if we use renewable energy, like wind, to power our pump. It would make drip irrigation more popular in areas where electricity is not easily accessible and fossil fuels are too costly.

How?

Before, I tell you anything, you should know about how drip irrigation works?

These video would help you understand that:


My solution is very simple. I am suggesting you to just replace pump used in this system with windmill pump. These pumps use wind energy to pump water out. Read more at windmill pump project.

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