The rudiments of integrated water and fertilizer management have existed since ancient times. The ancients dissolved manure in water and irrigated the farmland, relying on experience to achieve simultaneous application of water and fertilizer, but without standardized equipment and quantitative control. Modern integrated water and fertilizer machines have undergone a century of evolution, upgrading from simple fertilization devices to IoT intelligent control systems, with clear development trajectories both domestically and internationally.
Foreign technology originated in the early 20th century, with Europe and the United States taking the lead in conducting research on nutrient solution cultivation, laying a theoretical foundation for precise water and fertilizer ratio. In the 1960s, Israel developed the first generation of water and fertilizer injection equipment based on drip irrigation technology, utilizing pipeline pressure to achieve simultaneous delivery of fertilizer and water, officially establishing the modern fertigation technology system. In the 1970s, plastic pipes became popular, and pressure differential fertilization tanks and venturi fertilizer suction devices were widely applied. They relied on water pressure and negative pressure for passive fertilizer suction. Despite their simple structure, they were unable to stably control the concentration of fertilizer solution and were classified as extensive manual equipment with low fertilizer utilization rates. Subsequently, proportional fertilizer injection pumps emerged, relying on motors to quantitatively add base solution, entering a semi-automatic control stage, and significantly improving the stability of fertilization.
The development of integrated water and fertilizer applicators in China began in 1974, when foreign drip irrigation and fertilization equipment was introduced, initiating technical trials and domestic research and development. In the 1980s and 1990s, domestic imitations of simple pressure differential fertilization devices were mainly tested in small-scale pilot projects in greenhouses, and were only used for small-scale vegetable cultivation in greenhouses, without being widely promoted. After 1996, breakthroughs were made in drip irrigation under cotton mulching film combined with water and fertilizer application in Xinjiang, and the equipment was brought out of greenhouses and into the fields. Domestic fertilizer injection pump models were gradually mass-produced, suitable for orchards and open-air economic crop cultivation scenarios.
Since 2006, the industry has entered a period of intelligent transformation, with equipment equipped with EC and pH online sensors to monitor fertilizer concentration in real time and automatically adjust the amount of fertilizer injected, forming a closed-loop precision control system. With the integration of Internet of Things technology, the water and fertilizer integrated machine is connected to the cloud platform, supporting remote formula setting, zoned irrigation, and data traceability via mobile phones. It can automatically switch water and fertilizer schemes based on soil moisture content and crop growth stages. Under the support of national policies on reducing fertilizer use and promoting water-saving agriculture, the equipment covers all planting scenarios such as greenhouses, orchards, fields, and seedling cultivation, with domestic models surpassing imported equipment in terms of cost-effectiveness and adaptability.
Nowadays, integrated water and fertilizer machines are being upgraded towards modularization, lightweight, and artificial intelligence. By combining multi-dimensional data from meteorology and soil, they can autonomously decide on fertilization schemes. These machines have evolved from being mere irrigation and fertilization tools into core terminals for smart agricultural field management, becoming indispensable core equipment for the green and low-carbon transformation of modern agriculture.