Construction of a Wind Speed and Direction Monitoring Station for Agricultural Applications in Jigawa State

Knowledge of wind speed and direction is critical for pesticide spraying management, greenhouse ventilation control, and crop disease forecasting in agricultural settings in Jigawa State, North West Nigeria. However, commercial meteorological stations are too expensive for smallholder farmers and local agricultural extension services. This project presents the construction of a low-cost wind monitoring station employing a cup anemometer for wind speed measurement and a wind vane potentiometer for direction sensing. An Arduino Uno microcontroller reads the anemometer pulse frequency to compute wind speed in metres per second and reads the vane potentiometer voltage to determine wind direction in degrees from North. Measurements are logged at five-minute intervals to a microSD card module and displayed on a 16x2 LCD. The station was installed at the Dutse Agricultural Development Programme farm in Jigawa and operated continuously for three months. Wind speed data was validated against readings from a portable Kestrel 5000 weather meter placed 2 metres from the monitoring station. Mean absolute error for wind speed was 0.38 metres per second, and directional accuracy was within 11 degrees on average. The logged data was used by the ADP extension team to advise farmers on optimal timing for aerial herbicide application on a trial plot basis. System cost was approximately 18,000 Naira, and power consumption was low enough for operation on a single 10-watt solar panel. The study recommends expansion to a multi-parameter weather station adding rainfall and radiation sensors. Keywords: wind monitoring, anemometer, agricultural meteorology, weather station, Jigawa State