Using Internet of Things for Monitoring and Control in Mushroom Production

Abstract

For centuries, edible mushrooms have been cultivated, eaten and appreciated for their taste, medicinal value, economic and ecological benefits. In the recent past, production of mushrooms has been steadily increasing and it is expected that it will increase further in the future due to a corresponding increase in market demand. The structures currently in use for the cultivation of mushrooms provide the optimum conditions for their growth. The qualities that farmers must pay attention to during cultivation of mushrooms include temperatures between 180C and 240C, relative humidity of above 75 per cent and optimum carbon dioxide levels at the different stages of its growth. The common trend among farmers is the use of manual forms of monitoring and control of the stated parameters which are not effective when large scale production is desired. The rising demand brings about the need to have production of mushrooms on a large scale, and this in turn presents the problem of monitoring and controlling the aforementioned parameters. Manual methods prove inefficient for this purpose and therefore modern and automated methods become desirable. We propose use of a system that employs Internet of Things in monitoring, managing and control of the key parameters necessary for production. The proposed system will consist of multiple sensors which will collect data pertaining to the parameters, feed the data to a processing system and eventually transmit the data for monitoring and controlling actions to be effected. The system will be capable to regulate and ensure the required temperature and Humidity is optimally maintained automatically. It is expected that the implementation of this system would aid in offsetting any discrepancies that may arise between the current conditions and the expected conditions in the mushroom cultivation structure. Keywords—Internet of Things, Monitoring and controlling, Mushroom production, Sensors.