Agriculture

A system was designed and fabricated to grade apples automatically based on their size using machine vision, in this study. The device included unites to single out, orient and grade apples. A cylinder container with circular hole in bottom which was equipped with agitator was built to single out the apples. This mechanism delivered apples to orientation unit, one by one. Two wooden rails with a specific form which was located on the ramp via adequate slope was used to orient the apples during rolling. After the orientation, apples were placed below the camera to take its photo. The photos were transferred to computer for image processing to determine the grade of apples based on their size. A belt conveyor carries the apples and set them in appropriate place regards to their grade. As a final point, the wind spray valve is opened and the apple is pushed to the marked box. In order to evaluate the constructed system, 10 red and golden delicious apples of each grade were chosen and the completely randomized design test was conducted. The results demonstrated that the most time consumed related to image processing. Almost%85 of apples were properly oriented in the orientation unit and graded correctly. The overall system performance was appropriate, thus the system can be used to grade apples automatically.

The CENTURY 4.0 Model have many variables that can be simulated. One of them is microbial respiration. In soil carbon studies there are three principal parts: total organic carbon, CO2-C and CO2. They are used to quantify soil carbon storage, microbial biomass and microbial respiration respectively. Soil total carbon comes from photosynthesis, translocation, decomposition, mineralisation processes. Soil CO2-C gives basic mass of microbial communities while soil CO2 is indicator of microbial respiratory activities. They are complimentary and supplementary approaches to virtual soil health. They are strong indicators of life in the soil media. The CENTURY 4.0 Model has additional benefit of simulating microbial respiration. In this study measured and simulated soil microbial respiration was compared in a Hanslope Soil under different land management practices. The simulated results started with ages record of 59.6 g m-2 y-1 soil respiratory rate to as low as 0.001 g m-1 y-1 in other periods of perturbations and human civilisation that impinged on natural processes of soil regeneration.

The effects of dewaxing on the physico-chemical properties of some brands of vegetable oil have been investigated. Five (5) brands of crude vegetable oil including soybean oil (SO), beniseed oil (BO),cottonseed oil (CSO) and palm kernel oil (PKO) were used for these investigations. The physico-chemical properties and the wax contents were determined before and after the dewaxing operation. The wax contents (ppm), saponification numbers, % free fatty acid contents, slip melting points (0C) of the oil samples were reduced while the iodine values of the oil samples increased after the dewaxing operation. The dewaxed oil samples showed good abilities to withstand refrigerator temperature.

Despite that plantain marketing could be used as one of the economic options of breaking the vicious circle of poverty in Nigeria, studies seems not to have existed on the marketing of processed plantain in Umuahia South Local Government Area of Abia State, Nigeria. The study employed a combination of multistage and purposive random sampling techniques to collect data from 120 marketers. In line with the specific objectives, the data generated were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of the analysis revealed that about 67% of the marketers were females who are within the active mean productive age of 32 years. It further showed that plantain are being processed into chips, flour, beverages, plantain ball, pastry, roasted plantain with plantain chips, plantain pastry, and roasted plantain being the most marketed processed plantain in the area. Meanwhile, the identified marketing activities performed by the marketers include advertisement, promotion, packaging, and after sells service in which case, the coefficients of advertisement and promotion (x?) were negatively signed and statistically significant at 5% level; and the coefficients of packaging (X?) and after sells service being positively signed and statistically significant at 1% level. Using the Benefit-Costs-Ratio analysis to determine the return to investment, it was observed that the most economically viable options of marketing plantain is by processing and selling roasted planting, plantain chips, plantain beverages, plantain pastry, plantain flour, and plantain balls. The study recommended for the provision of adequate marketing infrastructures by government and other NGOs to enable marketers make good returns from the marketing of processed plantain within the area.

A field experiment was carried out at the experimental Station of National Research Centre – El-Nubarya district, El-Behera Governorate, Egypt during two seasons of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012 to study the effect of drought stress (2504, 2003 and 1502 m3/fed/Season) (100 % IR, 80 % IR and 60 % IR) and four foliar application levels of ascorbic acid (AA) (0.0, 100, 200 and 300 mg/L) and their interaction on yield, irrigations water use efficiency of wheat, protein content and protein yield under newly reclaimed sandy soil conditions Results indicated that water irrigation requirement varied significantly in all studied characters. The water irrigation requirement of (80 % IR) produced high grain yield per faddan and insignificantly outyielded the water irrigation requirements of (100 % IR). Increasing foliar application levels of ascorbic acid significantly increased grain and straw yields per plant and per faddan as well as protein content, protein yield, plant height, spike length, seed index, number of spikelet’s per spike and water use efficiency. Results indicated that the interaction between water irrigation requirements and foliar application levels of ascorbic acid had significant effect on all studied characters. The interaction between the water irrigation requirements of (80% IR) and (300 mg/L) foliar application level of ascorbic acid gave the highest values of grain, straw and protein yields per faddan, water use efficiency and significantly outyielded the other all interactions. This means that we can save 20 % of irrigation water by using 80 % IR to irrigate the new lands under the conditions of this trail.

Flood discharge is one of important factors in designs and hydrological works. Because of non-facilities and non-hydrometric equipment in basins without statistics or with deficient statistics especially in small watersheds, estimation of maximum instantaneous flood discharge is one of main problems in watershed projects. In this stud with the aim of determination of acceptable method to estimate maximum instantaneous flood discharge in small watersheds, two methods one base to basin area and other based to physiographical feature and precipitation were studied. The results showed that among methods related to basin area, Horton method with residual sum of squares 2.8(RMSE=2.8) and among methods related to basin- physiographical feature and precipitation, curve number with RMSE=20.6 had least error .so, determined as the best methods. FHWA method because of having most amount of RMSE=5924.5 had the least efficiency for determination of peak discharge in this area.

The effect of drying behavior on drying rate and quality characteristics of potato slices in a vacuum- infrared drying system was studied. In this work, the effect of the infrared radiation powers (100, 150 and 200 W) and vacuum levels (20, 80, 140 mm [Hg] and atmosphere pressure) at different thickness (1, 2 and 3 mm) on drying rate, shrinkage percentage and rehydration capacity were investigated. From the study, it was concluded that IR power level has significant effects to processing time and drying rate.The processing time reduced,while drying rates were higher with increased in IR power. Drying rate curve of potato slices at initially time of drying because of surface moisture evaporation in the ascending phase and afterward due to the start of influence of water from within of material to surface descending phase occurs. Also shrinkage percentage increased with increase of sample thickness. In other words, shrinkage was decreased at different thickness with increase of infrared radiation power and vacuum level. It was found that the long period of drying and increase of sample thickness may have contributed to a decrease in rehydration capacity. However, rehydration capacity at temperature 100°C for 3 min was more than temperature 25°C in duration 12 min.

Patterns of crop diversification of modern agricultural technology, especially during the period of the Green Revolution in the late sixties and early seventies, there is a continuous surge for diversified agriculture in terms of crops, primarily on economic considerations. Indian agriculture is increasingly getting influenced more and more by economic factors. This need not be surprising because irrigation expansion, infrastructure development, penetration of rural markets, development and spread of short duration and drought resistant crop technologies have all contributed to minimizing the role of non- economic factors in crop choice of even small farmers. What is liberalization and globalization policies are also going to further strengthen the role of price related economic incentives in determining crop composition both at the micro and macro levels. Obviously, such a changing economic environment will also ensure that government price and trade policies will become still more powerful instruments for directing area allocation decisions of farmers, aligning thereby the crop pattern changes in line with the changing demand-supply conditions. In a condition where agricultural growth results more from productivity improvement than from area expansion, the increasing role that price related economic incentives play in crop choice can also pave the way for the next stage of agricultural evolution where growth originates more and more from value- added productions.

Kashan playa, Located in the west of Central Desert of Iran, has been subjected to severe desertification problems. Most of these problems are due to human activities, overgrazing, sand dune mobility, soil salinity and ground water depletion. Monitoring desertification, land degradation and land cover requires rapid and accurate procedures. Remotely sensed satellite technology allows land degradation processes to be monitored over time. Two Landsat TM/ETM+ satellite images for 12 years period (1990-2002) with field observations were provided basic information for mapping of the extend and monitoring of the Kashan playa in central desert of Iran. Several change detection techniques such as image differencing, vegetation change analysis, principal component analysis and classification comparison have been applied to the data. Maximum Likelihood classification analysis showed a kappa coefficient accuracy of 86% and 82% for the TM and ETM+ images. Results revealed that about 35 % of the study area mostly salty lands and fixed sand dune has been rapidly changed. The overall rate changes of the desert lands and vegetation are about 7275 and 62 ha year^-1 respectively.

Tree height-diameter relationship can be used as an important input component in forest growth and yield models and description of stand dynamics. Five non-linear growth functions were fitted to tree height-diameter data of 21 years old Gmelina arborea plantation in Ibadan, South west Nigeria. The data consisted of three sets: 2004, 2008 and 2011 on total tree height and diameter at breast height (dbh). According to the model statistics, the five growth functions fitted the data equally well, but resulted in different asymptote estimates. Modified exponential fit was observed to give the best fit for the three data sets based on least square error, coefficient of determination and significance. The models are: Ht = (R2 = 36.21%), Ht = (R2 = 37.53%) and Ht = (R2 = 34.74%) for 2004, 2008 and 2011 data sets. The predicted values follow the same nonlinear pattern and formed close to the line of best fit without much outlier. The result of this study revealed that the ability of dbh in determining height is not strong enough based on the model’s goodness of fit and the model’s ability for predictive purposes. Hence, more variables such as age, crown area and soil fertility were recommended to be incorporated in future prediction of the tree height in the study area. Also, the potential tree height-diameter equations should be evaluated and validated for their predictive capabilities across a range of tree diameters. This useful information can help forest researchers and managers to select and apply the appropriate models.