Smart Drip Irrigation Monitoring and Control System for Melon Cultivation Based on ESP32 and Using Blynk Application

Abstract

Melon cultivation often faces obstacles in maintaining optimal soil moisture and efficient water use due to conventional irrigation methods which tend to be manual, imprecise, and time-consuming. This research aims to develop an intelligent drip irrigation monitoring and control system to automate watering and optimize soil moisture in melon cultivation. The system was developed using the Research and Development (R&D) method with an Internet of Things (IoT) approach consisting of a soil moisture sensor as input, an ESP32 microcontroller as the control center, and a water pump as an actuator. Implementation was carried out by integrating a capacitive sensor to read soil conditions in real-time, which was then processed by the ESP32 to automatically activate the water pump through a relay module based on a specified threshold, and utilizing the Blynk application as a remote monitoring and control interface. System evaluation was carried out based on sensor reading accuracy, control response speed, and water use efficiency. The results showed that the system was able to maintain soil moisture in the optimal range of 60-80% for melon plants with a sensor reading accuracy reaching 97.5%. Furthermore, the system successfully increased water efficiency by 45% compared to manual watering methods, and achieved an average response time of 2.5 seconds for sending data to the Blynk application. These results demonstrate that the ESP32- and Blynk-based IoT approach effectively helps farmers optimize melon cultivation with greater efficiency, precision, and remote monitoring.