Design and development of a drip irrigation system

Abstract

Nowadays agriculture is done everywhere and not just limited to farm lands. Residents of individual houses, apartments are growing wide variety of plants and many households sometimes neglect regular watering of the plants due to busy schedule and water large amounts in a single instances. This paper describes the design and development of the prototype of a small-scale drip irrigation system which is made up of three main components namely, Drip Flow regulator, Bottle holder and Ground support module which is simple to set-up with no hassle of piping systems and requires less maintenance. This product ensures the plants to be nurtured and watered on a regular basis with appropriate amounts of hydration and also allows to set-up a nutrient delivery system. The working mechanism of the flow regulator is by using a simple yet effective method of threaded nut and bolt design where the inlet of water is obstructed by the regulator when fastened and released accordingly to control the flow and drip of the water, additionally the bottle holder is designed such that, it can also incorporate non-standardized bottle sizes as well as regular beverage bottles and provides a universal fit. The potential applications of this drip irrigation component is for window plants, potted plants, garden plants, grown by individual house, apartment residents and office spaces and it has a lot of scope for use in the market and can be mass manufactured by using Plastic Injection Die methods.