Would you be interested in an intelligent irrigation system?

I've done the survey but I thought questions one and two were impossible to answer.

How often I water and how long it takes varies wildly depending on time of year and weather conditions.
As you say your system would work on soil moisture, if you can do that, questions one and two are irrelevant, arn't they?

Hope you can make it work, but somehow I think it would be best aimed at the professional growers, I for one, kind of like going round watering, I get to see all my plants on a daily basis in the summer months.

If you just sit back and let them get on with it, I cant see the point in growing them in the first place.
But then I'm not really normal.

 

You make a couple of good points. Questions 1 and 2 are there so I can try to get a general idea of how much time this system will actually save you from watering if you get it up and running. This, as you say - may vary wildly depending on the season and so on.

I'm hoping to aim this at novice growers too. If you go abroad and have nobody to water your plants while you're at home... wouldn't you agree this would be a bit handy where a timer based system will fail (in case it rains and so on)? I've personally faced the problem a lot of times.

Ahh, and plants will still need loads of care. Watering is only one part

I can also see this being useful in local garden centers too - they often used timer based systems to water plants with very different needs, so you see some plants prospering and some plants dying there. They have employees to take care of the plants too but still have this problem. Maybe the employees are careless, but this place is very big.

 

Hi Davste, I've filled in the questionaire but it was difficult to know how to answer. I've answered from a greenhouse point of view as I'm never likely to need a system like this on an island that has high rainfall.

I wish you luck with it and please give us a progress report as many members will be interested to know how it develops.

 

Will do, and once it's done (don't expect it too soon though, it will take around 6 months to a year), I'll offer it to everyone who helped at cost price (meaning just the cost it took me to buy the actual hardware, excluding labor and time it took me to make the software). I may ship a free alpha version to someone to test it for me

 

Yes I can see it being very useful to anyone who goes away for periods during the summer.
But cost will be the stumbling block to most people I tend to think.

 

We all realise these things take time so that's not a problem, and a generous offer from you, thanks.

 

Only thing is that when I do my watering in the greenhouse I also do my humidity raising buckets and the misting too, so I'll still be needed..................

 

Myself I would find it VERY beneficial, Though again depending on the cost AND how techinical it would be to setup and use

Good luck and hope you Major in it

Jack McH