Low-cost plant watering system | Fusion - WeRIndia

Watering plants is one of the most important tasks if you want to maintain a garden or a farm. To make the plant watering process simple, Biju Jalal from Kottayam, Kerala created a low-cost irrigation system.

This system is easy to install with which around 10 plants can be watered. This watering system is ideal for grow bags.

Besides, it prevents insects and pests that damage the plant. Biju Jalal worked as an accountant in the UAE.

He returned to Kerala in 2010 and started farming. He set up a terrace garden with 20 grow bags for vegetables including tomatoes, carrots, green chillies, and fruits like papaya.

As he set up the plants on the terrace, he had to come upstairs and water the plants at least twice a day.

He then decided to use a wick irrigation system to water plants. In the wick irrigation system, a bucket is filled with water and covered with a tray which has a hole in the middle.

A thick cotton wick is placed through the hole. One end of the wick is placed in the water and the other end is kept through the grow bag.

Thus, this wick irrigation system consumes less amount of water as the plant takes only the required amount of water.

However, the buckets should be continuously filled with water to make sure of the uninterrupted water flow to the plants.

Biju wanted to make this system more efficient. Hence, he connected the buckets with PVC pipes horizontally to a water hose. And thus, he avoided the refilling of water in the buckets.

Whenever he finds the buckets running out of the water, he simply turns on the hose to refill the bucket. The PVC pipes are interconnected and provide an equal amount of water to all the buckets.

He then upgraded the product by adding a low-cost valve to the system to automatically pump water when it is connected to a water tank.

One unit of this wick irrigation system with 10 interconnected buckets costs around ₹3,000.

Image Reference: Thebetterindia