Soilless Technology Course (Fertigation & Hydroponics) and Application of IoT Systems

Royal Park Hotel, UNITEN, 8–10 July 2025 (Tuesday–Thursday) –Laboratory of Climate-Smart Food Crop Production, Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Food Security (ITAFoS), UPM, in collaboration with Empirenet Ventures Training & Consultancy, the Faculty of Agriculture, UPM, and the Smart Agriculture Programme, MARDI Serdang Engineering Research Centre, organized the Soilless Technology Course (Fertigation & Hydroponics) and Application of the Internet of Things (IoT) System (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Banner for Soilless Technology Course and IoT System Application

This course aims to provide exposure to 20 participants, who are secondary technical school educators, on fertigation and hydroponic planting systems as well as the application of the Internet of Things (IoT), specifically for food crop cultivation. The participants consist of 6 from the state of Kedah, 7 from Johor, 5 from Melaka, and 2 from Selangor (Figure 2).

Figure 2. The course participants consist of technical secondary school educators from Peninsular Malaysia

Participants were given exposure to the fundamentals of fertigation and hydroponic systems, preparation of compost media in planting polybags, and the management of pests and diseases for a sustainable and holistic fertigation and hydroponic system. Hands-on activities and demonstrations were also conducted at Farm 15, Faculty of Agriculture, UPM, as well as the Smart Agriculture Programme at the MARDI Engineering Research Centre in Serdang, to further strengthen participants' readiness in adopting this technology (Figure 3 & 4).

Figure 3. Hands-on and demonstration activities of the course at Farm 15, Faculty of Agriculture, UPM.

Figure 4. Hands-on and demonstration activities of the course at the Smart Agriculture Programme, MARDI Engineering Research Centre, Serdang.

At the end of the course, certificates of participation were presented, and each state was provided with a complete set of soilless farming technology systems to be brought back to their respective schools for the implementation of the knowledge gained during the course.

Prepared by;

Zulkarami Berahim, PhD.,

Project Leader/Coordinator

Soilless Technology and System Application Course (IoT)

Laboratory of Climate-Smart Food Crop Production

Institute of Tropical Agriculture and Food Security (ITAFoS), UPM

14^th July 2025 (Monday)

Date of Input: 18/07/2025 | Updated: 18/07/2025 | noorbaiti