Students bring smart agriculture out ... island

Controlled by smartphones applied in Tho Chu island district, not only help people improve production but also show the love of students with their home islands.

This precious heart of 5 students is Tran Nhat Nam, Nguyen Van Hung, Le Hoai Phong, Hoang Minh Thuan and Nguyen Thanh Phong, and a student of information technology, HCM City Industry and Trade College.

Group members are designing products.(Photo: NVCC).

Competitive price

Tran Nhat Nam, the leader of the research team, said that the agricultural model of the group can be applied to many forms of cultivation such as hydroponics, aeroponics, etc. The system will use foam as a support for growing plants.

'With, there are many methods to make the substrate for trees such as coconut fiber, tablets and foam . If using coconut fiber as a substrate, the plant is prone to fungus, coir fibers fall into the solution or clog the system. Pump system provides nutrients. Tablets are too expensive and cannot be reused. Therefore, the group chooses the medium of foam and is cheap and helps less risk of disease ' - Nam said.

Accordingly, seeds are placed directly on the substrate on the system. After that, the control system will directly adjust the light, temperature, humidity and nutrients with each stage of the plant's development (these parameters will be set by agricultural experts).

During the operation of the system, the user can monitor directly or control by smartphone, computer, or touch screen right at the farm.

'Products with low investment costs (about 1.5 million VND / set of equipment) should be highly applicable and commercialized. The product is perfect for both hardware and software so the system is synchronized to provide stability. In addition, the group has selected quality components to bring durability and competitive prices for products, 'said Hoang Minh Thuan, a member of the group.

The first vegetable beds grow well in suitable environments.(Photo: NVCC).

Bring vegetables out . island

Le Hoai Phong, a member of the group shared, the biggest difficulty of the group when doing this product is the experience of caring for plants.

All team members are specialized IT students so there is absolutely no experience in caring for and nurturing plants. Since there was no experience nor knowledge of agriculture, there were many failures.

Sometimes the group has to break down a complete model because the design makes the tree unable to survive. The team overcome by reading more documents, learning more experiences, trying to find ways to fix system errors and finally the group had a stable and effective system.

To gain experience, the group read materials from the internet, met gardeners to learn and also conducted a lot of tree planting experiments with the system.

The members of the group took souvenir photos when participating in the Euréka Scientific Research Student Contest.(Photo: NVCC).

After the experiments the group gradually drew experience to take better care of the plants. Not only the experiments, the group has applied the system to reality through the project 'Sea Island Vegetable Garden'. The project is implemented in Tho Chu island district, Kien Giang province from August 2017.

'During the experiment in a melon orchard grown in a 100m ² greenhouse, the system gave very stable productivity. People living there said that melon grows well and does not get sick ' - Phong gladly shared.

In addition, the group is contacting other groups with agricultural expertise to cooperate and build specifications for a more suitable, higher-productivity system.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Tu, a lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology, Ho Chi Minh City Industrial and Commercial College, highly appreciated the group's system because the members have created relatively complete products and can apply immediately.

'However, the group needs to have many updates on software and hardware to increase the efficiency of the system. The group should cooperate with other student groups with specialization in agriculture to have appropriate environmental parameters ' - Mr. Tu shared.