## 5 Experimental Results
### Monitoring of Environmental Parameters
Watering is an essential aspect in agriculture, either by relying on rainfall and/or irrigation. Figure 15 demonstrates the rainfall reading from its relevant sensor in a period from March 2020 to March 2021 in Medening, Tunisia. As can be seen from the experimental results, autumn and early winter months (September to January) represent peak values due to high rainfall with average floats between 14 and 20 mm, whereas the rest of the year with average floats around 2-6 mm. Hence, smart actions can be considered based on rainfall data such as the following:  
* Before irrigation using automated dripping and sprinkling, check the soil moisture in the root zone at several locations;
* Estimate the amount of water needed to bring the soil to field capacity to save resources;
* High and concentrated rainfall might destroy some types of crops; thus, rain sensors would give precaution measures to farmers (e.g. use temporary greenhouses to protect crops);
* Improve water-use efficiency via controlling irrigating status based on rainfall level;
* Plantings and quarterly grains that are suggested for the Medening area in case of high-level rainfall conditions are orange and lemon. Figure 16: Experimental results gained from the S-LIB-M003 solar radiation sensor. Figure 15: Experimental results gained from the S-RGB-M002 rain gauge sensor. Solar radiation has vital importance for crop growth, yield, prevention of pests and diseases, and quality enhancement in agricultural products, where eaves absorb sunlight and use it as the energy source for photosynthesis. Figure 16 shows the solar radiation reading from its relevant sensor in a period from March 2020 to March 2021 in Medenine, Tunisia. Experimental results indicate that the average radiation floats between 400 and 1000 W/m\({}^{2}\); in winter readings display around 400 W/m\({}^{2}\), while autumn readings show around 600-800 W/m\({}^{2}\), and summer readings show around 1000 W/m\({}^{2}\). Therefore, smart actions can be considered based on solar radiation data such as the following:  
* Providing valuable data on solar light intensity and duration since plants do not absorb all sunlight, due to reflection, possible damage leaves, and respiration requirements of photosynthesis;
* Farmers are advised to consider greenhouses to protect plants from the high light intensity in open fields during summer;
* Adjust irrigation using automated dripping and sprinkling based on the solar radiation measurements since the temperature is usually linked to the actual amount of sunshine;
* Using solar panels for powering the weather station leads to energy efficiency;
* Farmers are advised to seed (e.g., wheat seeded) early spring since seeding earlier can provide crops a yield advantage;
* Plantings and quarterly grains that are suggested for the Medenine area in case of middle-range of solar radiation conditions are beans, pineapple, lettuce, and raspberries. To sum up, the more we understand the relationships between the monitored crops their surrounding climate, the better we can plan and design stronger cropping practices. The proposed design in this paper emphasizes automated and real-time monitoring of the environmental parameters and making wise decisions and actions, either automated or human-made sets of actions, which, in turn, lead to vegetative growth, root growth, water uptake, saved resources, and flowering. Moreover, these sets of actions would support smart decisions for precision agriculture during four seasons and hence increase crop productivity. Figure 17 shows sensing temperature, humidity, soil moisture, rain level, and solar radiation in 24 h on 15 September 2020 as representative experimental results in a short period of time. Clearly, temperature and humidity readings show similar characteristics during summertime such as in September. The solar radiation line graph shows a spike value at around 12.30 afternoon. Rainfall and soil moisture show a positive correlation. Figure 17: _Cont._