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The Cost-Benefits and Risks of Using Raffia Made of Biodegradable Polymers: The Case of Pepper and Tomato Production in Greenhouses. HORTICULTURAE 2022. [DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae8020133] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The use of plastics in agriculture has increased food production and reduced irrigation, pesticides, and pests. However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), “disastrous” use has occurred, as agricultural soils are being contaminated and have begun to threaten food security, peoples’ health, and the environment. One of the most challenging plastic wastes that must be removed from plants, and instead recycled, is the raffia used to tutor crops. This work studied the economic risk of introducing raffia made from a biodegradable polymer in greenhouse pepper and tomato crops. An expert survey was carried out to analyze the evolution of breaks throughout the season of four biodegradable raffias: cellulose, cellulose + kraft paper, compostable biopolymer, and jute-rayon, comparing them with a polypropylene control for two years (2019–2020) in pepper and tomato crops. Fuzzy logic-ordered weighted averages (OWA) were used to treat and aggregate this information. Income, costs, and the risk of biodegradable raffia breakage were studied. The results show that the material that performed the best was the biopolymer in the two crops studied, as it presented a much lower risk of breakage. The breaks in tomatoes were higher than those produced in pepper for each material. For the biopolymer, the internal rates of return (3.49% in tomatoes and 8.14% in peppers) and the recovery period (18.50 and 13.45 years for tomato and pepper crops, respectively) were very similar to those of polypropylene.
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Magalhães SA, Castro L, Moreira G, dos Santos FN, Cunha M, Dias J, Moreira AP. Evaluating the Single-Shot MultiBox Detector and YOLO Deep Learning Models for the Detection of Tomatoes in a Greenhouse. SENSORS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2021; 21:3569. [PMID: 34065568 PMCID: PMC8160895 DOI: 10.3390/s21103569] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2021] [Revised: 05/14/2021] [Accepted: 05/17/2021] [Indexed: 02/07/2023]
Abstract
The development of robotic solutions for agriculture requires advanced perception capabilities that can work reliably in any crop stage. For example, to automatise the tomato harvesting process in greenhouses, the visual perception system needs to detect the tomato in any life cycle stage (flower to the ripe tomato). The state-of-the-art for visual tomato detection focuses mainly on ripe tomato, which has a distinctive colour from the background. This paper contributes with an annotated visual dataset of green and reddish tomatoes. This kind of dataset is uncommon and not available for research purposes. This will enable further developments in edge artificial intelligence for in situ and in real-time visual tomato detection required for the development of harvesting robots. Considering this dataset, five deep learning models were selected, trained and benchmarked to detect green and reddish tomatoes grown in greenhouses. Considering our robotic platform specifications, only the Single-Shot MultiBox Detector (SSD) and YOLO architectures were considered. The results proved that the system can detect green and reddish tomatoes, even those occluded by leaves. SSD MobileNet v2 had the best performance when compared against SSD Inception v2, SSD ResNet 50, SSD ResNet 101 and YOLOv4 Tiny, reaching an F1-score of 66.15%, an mAP of 51.46% and an inference time of 16.44ms with the NVIDIA Turing Architecture platform, an NVIDIA Tesla T4, with 12 GB. YOLOv4 Tiny also had impressive results, mainly concerning inferring times of about 5 ms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sandro Augusto Magalhães
- INESC TEC-Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal; (L.C.); (M.C.); (A.P.M.)
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
| | - Luís Castro
- INESC TEC-Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal; (L.C.); (M.C.); (A.P.M.)
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
| | - Germano Moreira
- Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, s/n, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal;
| | - Filipe Neves dos Santos
- INESC TEC-Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal; (L.C.); (M.C.); (A.P.M.)
| | - Mário Cunha
- INESC TEC-Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal; (L.C.); (M.C.); (A.P.M.)
- Faculty of Sciences, University of Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre, s/n, 4169-007 Porto, Portugal;
| | - Jorge Dias
- Khalifa University Center for Autonomous Robotic Systems (KUCARS), Khalifa University of Science and Technology (KU), Abu Dhabi 127788, United Arab Emirates;
| | - António Paulo Moreira
- INESC TEC-Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores, Tecnologia e Ciência, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal; (L.C.); (M.C.); (A.P.M.)
- Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
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Brockhagen B, Schoden F, Storck JL, Grothe T, Eßelmann C, Böttjer R, Rattenholl A, Gudermann F. Investigating minimal requirements for plants on textile substrates in low-cost hydroponic systems. AIMS BIOENGINEERING 2021. [DOI: 10.3934/bioeng.2021016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
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Ishfaq M, Zhong Y, Wang Y, Li X. Magnesium Limitation Leads to Transcriptional Down-Tuning of Auxin Synthesis, Transport, and Signaling in the Tomato Root. FRONTIERS IN PLANT SCIENCE 2021; 12:802399. [PMID: 35003191 PMCID: PMC8733655 DOI: 10.3389/fpls.2021.802399] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/26/2021] [Accepted: 12/06/2021] [Indexed: 05/08/2023]
Abstract
Magnesium (Mg) deficiency is becoming a widespread limiting factor for crop production. How crops adapt to Mg limitation remains largely unclear at the molecular level. Using hydroponic-cultured tomato seedlings, we found that total Mg2+ content significantly decreased by ∼80% under Mg limitation while K+ and Ca2+ concentrations increased. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that Mg transporters (MRS2/MGTs) constitute a previously uncharacterized 3-clade tree in planta with two rounds of asymmetric duplications, providing evolutionary evidence for further molecular investigation. In adaptation to internal Mg deficiency, the expression of six representative MGTs (two in the shoot and four in the root) was up-regulated in Mg-deficient plants. Contradictory to the transcriptional elevation of most of MGTs, Mg limitation resulted in the ∼50% smaller root system. Auxin concentrations particularly decreased by ∼23% in the Mg-deficient root, despite the enhanced accumulation of gibberellin, cytokinin, and ABA. In accordance with such auxin reduction was overall transcriptional down-regulation of thirteen genes controlling auxin biosynthesis (TAR/YUCs), transport (LAXs, PINs), and signaling (IAAs, ARFs). Together, systemic down-tuning of gene expression in the auxin signaling pathway under Mg limitation preconditions a smaller tomato root system, expectedly stimulating MGT transcription for Mg uptake or translocation.
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Affiliation(s)
- Muhammad Ishfaq
- Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Education, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
| | - Yanting Zhong
- Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Education, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
- Department of Vegetable Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
| | - Yongqi Wang
- Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Education, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
| | - Xuexian Li
- Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Ministry of Education, National Academy of Agriculture Green Development, China Agricultural University, Beijing, China
- *Correspondence: Xuexian Li,
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The Financial Valuation Risk in Pepper Production: The Use of Decoupled Net Present Value. MATHEMATICS 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/math9010013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/02/2023]
Abstract
Greenhouse peppers are one of the most important crops globally. However, as in any production activity, especially agricultural, they are subject to important risk factors such as price fluctuations, pests, or the use of bad quality water. This article aims to evaluate the viability of these types of crops by using discounted cash flows. Risk evaluation has been carried out through the analysis of pepper plantations for 2016 and 2017. The traditional application of this tool has significant limitations, such as the discount rate to be used or the estimation of future cash flows. However, by using discount functions that decrease over time in combination with decoupled net present value, these limitations are expected to improve. The use of decoupled net present value has permitted an increase in the accuracy and quantification of risks, isolating the main risks such as price drops (EUR 3720 ha−1 year−1) and structural risks (EUR 1622 € ha−1 year−1). The use of decreasing discount functions has permitted a more realistic investment estimation. Finally, the sensitivity analysis shows that decoupled net present value (DNPV) is little affected by changes in interest rates in contrast to traditional net present value (NPV).
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Seed Germination and Seedling Growth on Knitted Fabrics as New Substrates for Hydroponic Systems. HORTICULTURAE 2019. [DOI: 10.3390/horticulturae5040073] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/08/2023]
Abstract
Vertical farming is one of the suggested avenues for producing food for the growing world population. Concentrating the cultivation of crops such as herbs in large indoor farms makes food production susceptible to technical, biological or other problems that might destroy large amounts of food at once. Thus, there is a trend towards locally, self-sufficient food production in vertical systems on a small scale. Our study examined whether conventional knitted fabrics, such as patches of worn jackets, can be used for hydroponics instead of the specialized nonwoven materials used in large-scale indoor systems. To this end, seed germination and seedling growth of 14 different crop plant species on knitted fabrics with three different stitch sizes were compared. Our results showed that hydroponic culture on knitted fabrics are indeed possible and allow for growing a broad spectrum of plant species, suggesting recycling of old textile fabrics for this purpose. Among the 14 plant species studied, differences in germination success, average fresh and dry masses, as well as water contents were found, but these parameters were not affected by knitted fabric stitch size.
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