The achievements made in genomic technology in recent decades are yet to be matched by fast and accurate crop phenotyping methods. Such crop phenotyping methods are required for crop improvement efforts to meet expected demand for food and fibre in the future. This review evaluates the role of proximal remote sensing buggies for field-based phenotyping with a particular focus on the application...

Results of more than 130 field trials with nematicides, principallyaldicarb, weregroupedaccordingto the claycontent and parent material of the soil on which the trials were conducted. An estimate of loss in yield due to nematodes was obtained by extrapolating from the results of the field trials to the total area under sugarcane on each soil group. Crop loss per unit area was greatest on the Re...

Yellow rocket, Barbarea vulgaris (R. Br.) variety arcuata, was evaluated as a trap crop for diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella (L.) (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae), in cabbage, Brassica oleracea L. variety capitata, in 2003 and 2004. In 2003, the numbers of P. xylostella larvae found in field plots of cabbage alone were 5.2-11.3 times higher than those on cabbage plants in plots that included cab...

An image processing algorithm for detecting individual weeds was developed and evaluated. Weed detection processes included were normalized excessive green conversion, statistical threshold value estimation, adaptive image segmentation, median filter, morphological feature calculation and Artificial Neural Network (ANN). The developed algorithm was validated for its ability to identify and dete...

One of the major problems in the Brazilian agriculture is related to the production loss in the field, which, due to many factors, is not being considered. This article has the objective to develop a methodology to identify a quality index which integrates some crop quality variables which are able to indicate how the crop is developing in terms of loss in the field. The results have showed tha...

crop productivity, water use efficiency (wue), and microbial biomass c and n in rainfed dry area are influenced by tillage, rotation, and crop residue management. field experiments were conducted during 2005-08 to study the effect of tillage, crop rotation, and crop residue retention on oat fodder yield, water use efficiency, and microbial biomass c (mbc) and n (mbn) under semi-arid conditions ...

In view of the demand for a low-cost, high-throughput method for the continuous acquisition of crop growth information, this study describes a crop-growth monitoring system which uses an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as an operating platform. The system is capable of real-time online acquisition of various major indexes, e.g., the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) of the crop canopy...

An improved understanding of temporal and spatial variations in soil respiration is essential for measuring soil CO2 effluxes accurately. In this study, a field experiment was conducted to investigate the spatial and temporal variability of soil respiration between adjacent crop rows in a soybean (Glycine max L.) field. Soil CO2 concentration, water content, and temperature at a 7.5 cm depth we...

Background: The EU-project Flourish intends to establish an autonomously operating precision farming system based on the interaction between unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). For effective mission planning and site-specific ground intervention by the UGV, the growth, mineral nutrition, weed, and health status of the crop field must be evaluated efficiently. In...