Transforming Community Gardens with Automated Irrigation

Access to fresh, locally grown food is essential for communities, but maintaining urban gardens can be challenging. Watering schedules often rely on manual effort, making it difficult to ensure consistent moisture levels. Overwatering wastes resources, while under-watering harms plant health. To solve this, innovative technology is stepping in to automate and optimize irrigation.

In this success story, we will describe how Touio’s Intellidrip solution, powered by TEKTELIC’s Micro Gateways and CLOVER Agriculture Sensors, is helping community gardens in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, improve irrigation efficiency and plant health while reducing manual effort.

The Challenge

Community gardens are important for urban environments, providing a space for residents to grow their own produce while building connections. However, keeping these gardens properly watered is a major challenge. Manual watering takes time, and weather conditions make it difficult to predict when and how much to water.

Without a reliable system, gardens risk losing plants due to overwatering or drought, leading to wasted resources and lower yields.

The Solution

To address this challenge, Touio developed Intellidrip, an automated irrigation system that makes watering smarter and more efficient. This solution, powered by TEKTELIC’s Micro Gateways and CLOVER Sensors, was first created by Ali Hosseini (Chief Executive Officer, Touio) while volunteering at a community garden during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, saw its potential and asked for it to be implemented in more gardens. Today, 11 community gardens use this technology to automate irrigation and optimize plant care.

The Intellidrip system includes:

• TEKTELIC Micro Gateways to provide strong, reliable wireless coverage for IoT sensors across large outdoor areas.
• TEKTELIC CLOVER Sensors to monitor soil moisture, temperature, air temperature, and humidity in real time, ensuring plants receive the right amount of water.
• LoRaWAN Valve Controllers to automatically adjust irrigation based on sensor data, reducing the need for manual watering.

The CLOVER sensor was chosen for its long battery life (up to 10 years), high-precision soil moisture detection, and robust performance in outdoor environments. Designed to withstand harsh conditions, it operates reliably in temperatures ranging from -40°C to +65°C and features an IP67 rating, ensuring durability against dust and water.

CLOVER provides accurate, real-time insights into soil health, allowing for precise irrigation control. This ensures that plants receive the optimal amount of water, reducing waste and improving crop yields with minimal human intervention.

Value & Impact

The Intellidrip system, powered by TEKTELIC’s IoT technology, has delivered significant benefits to community gardens in Mecklenburg County:

• Water Conservation: Automated watering prevents overwatering, helping to reduce water waste and lower costs.
• Healthier Plants: Consistent watering based on real-time data leads to stronger, more productive gardens.
• Less Manual Work: Garden volunteers and staff spend less time watering and more time on other important tasks.
• Scalability & Sustainability: With 11 gardens already using Intellidrip, the solution can easily expand to more urban farming projects.

Conclusion

By leveraging LoRaWAN® technology, this solution enables long-range, low-power connectivity, ensuring reliable data transmission from sensors to the cloud without requiring complex infrastructure.

Automated irrigation is transforming how community gardens manage water resources, making the process more efficient and reliable. Intellidrip provides a simple, efficient, and scalable way to improve plant health while reducing manual effort. As more urban farming initiatives adopt smart solutions, the future of sustainable agriculture looks promising.

TEKTELIC and Touio continue working together to expand this technology, bringing smarter irrigation to even more communities in the future.

Partner’s contacts

Ali Hosseini

Chief Executive Officer, Founder, Touio

www.touio.com