The goal of this study was to apply artificial neural networks to predict rain-fed wheat yield using meteorological data a few days to few months before harvesting. The climatic observation data used; were mean of daily minimum and maximum temperature, extreme of daily minimum and maximum temperature, sum of daily rainfall, number of rainy days, sum of daily sun hours, mean of daily wind speed,...

A method was developed for scaling-up the AFRCWHEAT2 model of phenological development from the site to the continental scale. Four issues were addressed in this methodology: (i) the estimation of daily climatic data from monthly values, (ii) the estimation of spatially variable sowing dates, (iii) the simulation of multiple cultivars, and (iv) the validation of broad-scale models. Three method...

Microorganisms associated with Vitis vinifera (grapevine) can affect its growth, health and grape quality. The aim of this study was to unravel the biodiversity of the bacterial rhizosphere microbiota of grapevine in an integrated pest management vineyard located in Piedmont, Italy. Comparison between the microbial community structure in the bulk and rhizosphere soil (variable: space) were perf...

Knowing the current phenological state of an agricultural crop is a powerful tool for precision farming applications. In the past, it has been estimated with remote sensing data by exploiting time series of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), but always at the end of the campaign and only providing results for some key states. In this work, a new dynamical framework is proposed to pr...

knowledge on habitat characteristics and nature of regional vegetation inrangelands is a prerequisite for any planning and proper range management along withsustainable development of renewable natural resources. rangelands in southern andwestern highlands of kashan, iran are of good vegetation diversity but unfortunately,palatable and desirable species are endangered in recent years. this rese...

This paper investigates a simplified polarimetric decomposition for soil moisture retrieval over agricultural fields. In order to overcome the coherent superposition of the backscattering contributions from vegetation and underlying soils, a simplification of an existing polarimetric decomposition is proposed in this study. It aims to retrieve the soil moisture by using only the surface scatter...

Hedysarum flexuosum L. is an important forage legume with high nutritive value. The determination of forage production in natural habitats is the most important factor for grazing management. Studies on its habitat characteristics and distribution are scarce. This research was conducted in order to evaluate the extent of pheno-morphological diversity in natural populations of Hedys...

Directional effects introduce a variability in reflectance and vegetation index determination, especially when large field-of-view sensors are used (e.g., Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer - MODIS). In this study, we evaluated directional effects on MODIS reflectance and four vegetation indices (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index - NDVI; Enhanced Vegetation Index - EVI; Normaliz...

Hyperaccumulated Ni can defend plant tissues against herbivores and pathogens. The effectiveness of this defense, however, has not been tested with a viral pathogen. Turnip mosaic virus (TuMV) accumulation was studied in two serpentine species of Streptanthus with different Ni uptake abilities. Plants of a Ni hyperaccumulator, milk-wort jewelflower (S. polygaloides Gray), and a non-hyperaccumul...

Aflatoxins are carcinogens produced by Aspergillus flavus, A. parasiticus and A. nomius. In the present study, peanut samples were collected at different phenological stages of the plant during the 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 seasons and from stored peanuts harvested in 2007/2008. The mycoflora and aflatoxins in the peanuts were evaluated. The results showed the presence of Fusarium spp., Macrophom...