Paper Introduction The automation of agricultural tasks has received an important stimulus, especially in the area of selective weed control where high precision is essential for the proper use of resources and the implementation of more efficient treatments. Autonomous agricultural systems incorporate and integrate perception systems for acquiring information from the environment, decision-making systems for… read more »
Introduction Crop protection is a key issue in farm management. It involves dealing with important risks and expensive pesticide products. Most of these products are to be applied by means of sprayers. Spraying techniques have been continuously evolving in recent decades. However, it is not only the sprayer itself, but everything related to the… read more »
Scientific Article Abstract[1] Site-specific application of agricultural chemicals including granular fertilizers is an effective way of resource saving and environmental protection. The objective of this research was to develop and to evaluate the performance of a map-based variable rate row crop granular fertilizer placement system. The applicator system consists of an AVR microcontroller for… read more »
Scientific Article Researchers at UC Davis and elsewhere have demonstrated the technical feasibility of using RTK-GPS technology to automatically create crop plant maps at planting (Sun et al., 2010; Perez-Ruiz, 2011). This paper describes the development and field evaluation of a completely automatic system for intra-row weed control in tomato fields. This system uses… read more »
Introduction Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant Humulus lupulus.[1] They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to which, in addition to bitterness, they impart floral, fruity, or citrus flavours and aromas.[2] Hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine. The hop plant is usually… read more »
Introduction Herbs have been widely used in food preparation, medicine and cosmetic industry. Knowing which herbs to be used would be very critical in these applications. Nevertheless, the current way of identification and determination of the types of herbs is still being done manually and prone to human error. Designing a convenient and automatic… read more »
Introduction Variable rate technology (VRT ) is used for the application of various agricultural inputs in order to respond adequately to the within-field variability of environmental factors like soil properties, incidence of pests and crop parameters[1]. In agricultural crop production, indiscriminate application of herbicides leads to environmental pollution and reduced quality of the agricultural… read more »
Introduction The selective hand-harvest of fresh market broccoli is labor-intensive and comprises about 35% of the total production costs[1]. Advanced technologies can reduce labor and at the same time increase the efficiency of harvesting procedures. Automated broccoli harvesters have been considered for many years, but changes in the labor picture have increased interest in… read more »
Introduction Haulm destruction before harvesting is often applied to reduce damage at harvest. Before harvesting haulm is pulled, cut or killed using chemicals. In general haulm destruction takes place 10-15 days before harvest. It is evident that a good skin formation after haulm destruction is quicker in a crop which is close to maturity,… read more »
Paper Introduction The stricter legislation within the European Union for the regulation of herbicides that are prone to leaching causes a greater economic burden on the agricultural industry through taxation. Owing to the increased economic burden, research in reducing herbicide usage has been prompted. High-resolution images from digital cameras support the studying of plant characteristics…. read more »