Due to the increased global warming and climate change being experienced in our world
today, local weather conditions have become so unpredictable and increasingly severe. This
has resulted in a major setback to some agricultural practices especially farming. To
overcome this constraint, irrigation comes to play; thus, the importance of irrigation to
farming in the 21st century cannot be overemphasised. Again, because of the desire to
produce food throughout the year for both consumption and export, dry season farming has
become increasingly popular. This type of farming requires a managed system of irrigation.
This paper shows the design and implementation of an automatic solar powered irrigation
system that monitors and automatically manages the soil moisture level of a specified area
using a soil moisture sensor to read soil moisture levels and a C language programmed
microcontroller to read the sensor values and output level in a digital readout on an LCD as
well as control the water pump that supplies water to the soil when moisture levels fall below
the programmed threshold. The system was designed to be powered by a battery which is
charged by a solar panel.
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