Microprocessor Based Agriculture Instrumentation

The credential part of this paper subjects the application of microprocessors in providing better measurement and automation systems in the field of agriculture. Agriculture being the world’s oldest and most enterprising industry requires improvements in quality evaluation and control of its products. And Indian economy being predominately agriculture based should make the best use of this technology to obtain best results.
Sustainable agriculture is the requirement of this century to maintain the sustainability so as to entertain the needs of population even under the limited land and other resource availability. It can be better defined as the one which over a long term enhances the environmental quality and farming community as a whole.
As electronic sensing devices, microprocessors provide a wide range of application in agriculture such as better management of fertilizers, measurement of moisture and nutrient content of soil, monitoring the crop environment. These sensors are also used for data acquisition of temperature, rainfall, wind, solar radiations etc. The information retrieved from these sensors are used for developing the response capability, integrating transmission and processing functions, and thus enabling farmers to minimize cost, maintain and improve product yield and quality and get more personal convenience.
Since it has been observed that electronic instrumentation is not fully used and so for future prospective, the farmer’s acceptance to microprocessor based agri-electronic instruments will have a better impact on agricultural industry.
Keywords: Sensors, Microprocessors, Agri-Electronic Instruments.