China is a country with a long agricultural history, and agriculture plays an important role in the entire national economy. Since the reform and opening up in the 1980s, China’s agriculture has developed rapidly, feeding 22% of the world’s population with limited arable land, and creating remarkable achievements.
There is a pain point in the development of facility agriculture in China. At present, nutrient solution or pesticide in facility horticulture production is mainly manually prepared in large pools, which occupies a large area, has low efficiency, high cost, and is time-consuming and laborious, seriously restricting the development of facility agriculture in China.
There are some water and fertilizer irrigation equipment or pesticide application equipment, but they are independent equipment. The former uses the traditional Venturi fertilizer applicator, so the precision of water and fertilizer and irrigation volume cannot be accurately controlled, which violates the principle of precise control in the facility gardening production; The latter uses manual spraying, and it is difficult to grasp the timing and accuracy of spraying, which not only causes environmental pollution, but also poses a great threat to the health of operators due to the close contact between pesticides and operators.
In order to solve this problem, some scholars have designed an integrated intelligent equipment of water, fertilizer and medicine, which can meet the requirements of greenhouse horticulture for fertilizer matching, drug matching, root and leaf fertilization. The equipment is mainly composed of main pump, peristaltic pump, EC, pH sensor and other parts, which can be used for fertilizer or medicine dispensing in irrigation pipelines.
The source water enters the pipe of the fertilizer applicator from the inlet through the function of the main pump, and the pressure sensor monitors the water pressure; When the peristaltic pump is working, it drives the roller to squeeze the hose through the rotation of the stepping motor to discharge the air or liquid in the hose to generate negative pressure, so as to absorb the liquid at one end of the hose, pump the mother liquor (fertilizer liquor, medicine liquor or acid liquor with high concentration) into the pipeline according to the set mixing proportion, and the pipeline mixer will mix the mother liquor with the source water evenly to further dilute the mother liquor; EC sensor and pH sensor monitor the conductivity and pH of the mixed solution, and adjust the speed of the peristaltic pump according to the conductivity and pH; The solenoid valve corresponding to the irrigation area is opened, and the mixed liquid is discharged by the pump from the corresponding outlet.
Why does the water fertilizer medicine integrated intelligent equipment choose the peristaltic pump? First of all, because the flow accuracy of the peristaltic pump is high, the speed can be adjusted, and the flow can be controlled by controlling the motor speed of the peristaltic pump. The proportion of water and fertilizer medicine is also accurate, which is easy to achieve accurate control of water and fertilizer medicine. Secondly, the peristaltic pump can be cascaded with other equipment. Driven by the same control system, the peristaltic pump can be linked with other equipment, making the operation easier and more convenient. The peristaltic pump also has the characteristics of simple structure and low maintenance cost. Because the peristaltic pump has simple structure, no valves, and only hoses are wearing parts, it can effectively save maintenance time in the later operation of the equipment.
The water fertilizer medicine integrated intelligent equipment has high precision, saves time and labor, and can be used and prepared on the spot without large water tank. It has significant effects on water saving, fertilizer saving, medicine saving, production increase, labor saving and cost saving, and economic benefit improvement, which is of great significance to the development of facility agriculture in China.