Gopi, Arepalli (author), Sudha, L. R. (author), and Joseph, S. Iwin Thanakumar (author)
Format:
Book chapter
Publication Date:
2025-01-24
Published:
Scrivener Publishing LLC
Location:
Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 209 Document Number: D13544
Journal Title Details:
299-319
Notes:
21 pages, chapter 16 from "Smart Factories for Industry 5.0 Transformation", Sensor technologies enable data-driven, efficient, and sustainable precision agriculture. This initiative monitors, manages, and predicts plant diseases using sensors, cloud computing, and data analytics to improve crop health and productivity. Plant and environmental data is monitored by soil, humidity, temperature, and leaf wetness sensors. Machine learning algorithms discover illness outbreak trends and abnormalities in real-time data on a cloud platform. According to the study, a complete IoT infrastructure easily transfers data from field sensors to cloud servers and decision support tools to end-users. Edge computing preprocesses data and delivers only relevant data to the cloud, decreasing latency and bandwidth. This allows fast, accurate disease prediction models to warn farmers of new hazards for proactive management. The study also examines how alternate communication protocols increase data transfer in agricultural fields with poor circumstances. We also explore how geospatial and sensor data accurately map and quantify disease risk. Cloud-based data analytics improves sickness prediction, operational efficiency, and resource management, this study revealed. This integrated strategy reduces plant diseases, herbicides, and fertilizers, improving sustainability. The scalable, cost-effective answers to modern farming problems in this research support precision agriculture.
7 pages, The application of balanced fertilizers is essential to produce highquality broccoli. A field experiment was conducted to find an appropriate fertilizer management practice for broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. ‘Italica’) that can generate higher yield and quality. The experiment comprised 24 treatment combinations with six fertilizer management practices, i.e., T1: control. T2: cow dung at 10 t ha-1. T3: chicken manure at 10 t ha-1. T4: recommended NPK dose. T5: cow dung at 5 t ha-1 + 50% of the recommended NPK dose. T6: chicken manure at 5 t ha-1 + 50% of the recommended NPK dose. The highest plant height (60.00 cm) occurred in response to T6, the highest stem length (22.25 cm) in T4, and the maximum number of leaves per plant (22.00) in T4 and T6 treatments. Maximum fresh leaf weight per plant (609 g), stem diameter (3.98 cm), curd diameter (16.63 cm), and individual curd weight (494.50 g) occurred in response to the T5 treatment. The optimum yield (25.78 t ha-1) of broccoli can be obtained by application of cow dung (5 t ha-1) with a recommended dose of 50% inorganic fertilizer NPK (T5). Maximum TSS value (10.54%) occurred in response to T3, which was statistically similar to the effect of T6 (10.52%). Vitamin C content (80.77 mg 100 g-1) became significantly high in response to the T4 treatment (100% recommended dose of NPK). Minimum vitamin C content (53.84 mg 100 g-1) occurred in the control treatment (T1). Applying cow dung at 5 t ha-1 in addition to the 50% recommended dose of NPK fertilizers (T5) led to superior yield values in broccoli.
17 pages, The purpose of the study was to design a device for the dissolution of fertilizers for agricultural use in an automatic and environmentally sustainable way to facilitate the work of farmers. To achieve this goal, an outdated blade design was used, which generates turbulent and laminar flows thanks to the angle of inclination of its blades. In tests, the combination of these two flows gave a better result compared to laminar and turbulent flows separately. The best results were achieved by varying the spin and speed, the time between spins, and the rest time. The time it would take to dissolve the mixture was drastically reduced if it were conducted in the traditional way (manually) or compared with commercial mixers. In conclusion, the technique used for the dissolution of agricultural minerals is more effective and reduces time, energy, and effort. This was able to reduce the time necessary to dissolve the fertilizer by 93 percent compared to doing it manually and by 66 percent compared to using commercial mixers, in a solution of 100 L of water per 100 kg of ammonium sulfate.
13 pages, Encouraging farmers to increase the use of organic fertilizer will be conducive to promoting the green transformation of farmers’ production and realize sustainable agricultural development. As a long-term investment, the accuracy of farmers’ access to organic fertilizer information and the supporting role of credit are important factors that affect their organic fertilizer application decisions. However, the existence of information asymmetry in the organic fertilizer market and the credit constraints in the financial market, which restricts the enthusiasm of farmers to apply organic fertilizer. In recent years, the rapid development of the Internet in China’s rural areas has effectively alleviated the degree of information asymmetry in rural areas, and improved farmers’ access to credit, which provides a new opportunity for farmers to increase the application rate of organic fertilizer. This study takes 1030 apple growers in the main apple production areas of China as the research object, and employs Tobit model, IV-Tobit model and mediation effect model to explore the impact of internet use on farmers’ organic fertilizer investment. The results show that internet use can promote farmers’ organic fertilizer investment. After addressing the endogeneity issue and the robustness test, the conclusion is still robust. Heterogeneity analysis shows that internet use has a more significant impact on organic fertilizer investment in the older generation and the large-scale group of farmers. The mechanism analysis shows that internet use affects farmers’ organic fertilizer investment through improving access to credit. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously improve the construction of rural digital infrastructure, accelerate the development of the Internet in rural areas, and actively guide financial resources to agriculture, so as to effectively promote the green transformation of agricultural production.
13 pages, In Ghana, groundwater, accessed through wells and boreholes, is generally unregulated and may be contaminated with pollutants including excess nitrates from agricultural chemical fertilizers. Yet, studies estimating how clean groundwater is valued are not available in Ghana. In addition, some research suggests that the pre-experiment information provided to survey respondents affects their valuation of an identical outcome. This paper estimates smallholder farmers’ preferences for groundwater protection using pre-experiment information focused on one of two outcomes: environment or health. The double-bounded contingent valuation (DBCV) approach is used to estimate willingness to pay (WTP) to protect groundwater quality. The estimation accounts for shift and anchoring effects, which are common issues with the DBCV method. The mean WTP from the health (environmental) information subsample is about US$19 (US$17) per acre, and the values are significantly different between the information conditions. The findings shed light on the importance of using precise information in eliciting WTP in a developing country setting.
5 PAGES., Released in late 2020, the Center Pivot Fertigation Calculator is designed to help producers make more precise fertilizer applications by assisting in calculating liquid fertilizer flow rate and injection pump settings needed to fertigate through a center pivot irrigation system. The Clemson Drip Fertigation Calculator is designed to help South Carolina vegetable producers make more precise fertilizer applications through drip irrigation systems.
After producers started using the center pivot and drip fertigation calculators, Zack Snipes, assistant program leader for the Clemson Cooperative Extension Service horticulture team and area horticulture agent, noted many were beginning to ask what they should do if using a greenhouse-grade solid fertilizer and putting it into a solution. In response, Rob Last, area horticulture agent, built a spreadsheet that became the basis for the Liquid Fertilizer Solution Calculator.
“We have created a system that provides quick calculations and is really easy to use,” Last said. “Anyone who has questions about these calculators can contact me or Zack and we’ll help them.”
21 pages, Online via UI Library electronic subscription, Research identifies farmer doubts about fertilizer quality and reveals that farmer beliefs are inconsistent with reality. However, many fertilizers have degraded appearance.
6 pages, via Online journal, Most agricultural soils are depleted of their soil organic matter (SOM) reserves. A severe loss of SOM content may degrade soil functionality, its capacity for provisioning of essential ecosystem services, and soil health. Therefore, restoration of SOM content in soils of agroecosystems may reverse the degradation trends, enhance ecosystem services (Banwart et al. 2015), and advance Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. (Lal et al. 2018a). Increase in SOM content may also partially replace the use of chemical fertilizers and supplemental irrigation, while restoring the environment.
4 pages., Posted online February 12, 2020., Describes career and retirement plans of Ken Root, veteran agricultural broadcaster and former executive director of NAFB.
