Water an idea! Engineering student to help your garden grow better

Bengaluru: Young students develop prototypes of several unique projects, but fail to take them to the next level and exploit them commercially. But here is an exception. Meet Antony Jenitter, a sixth semester student of telecommunication engineering at CMR Institute of Technology, who has developed an Intelligent Watering System for farmers and gardeners and has already sold 27 systems to indoor gardening projects. He is now working with SAP Labs to develop outdoor solutions.

The system reduces wastage of water, employs the most technical method to water plants, gardens, farms etc, and uses water in the most conventional and sustainable way.

Jenitter has named the device Irrigatronics, which is an intelligent system ideal for small private gardens (including lawns, terrace gardens, etc.) and also large gardens, which are difficult to maintain.

Irrigatronics uses an integrated circuit or IC that monitors the soil moisture level constantly, reduces human intervention and uses optimum quantities of water. “It provides technical solutions and products to exploit water in an efficient way. With this, the problem of irregular watering of large gardens and inefficient use of water are tackled,” he explained.

“The idea initially was to help farmers, who are in need of proper irrigation systems, and to avoid wastage of water. I had to drop the idea as the funding required was huge. I then realised that it could be implemented in urban areas to meet the water requirements of small gardens, kitchen gardens, pots etc. We are trying to implement the system at CMRIT,” he said.

“The device saves anywhere between 65 and 75 percent of the water that you normally use with other, more conventional methods. It also improves the growth of plants. That is because when plants, crops and lawns are watered with smaller amounts of water over a longer period of time, they grow faster as it is the ideal condition for growth. It also helps contain weeds,” he said.