Lodged Sugarcane/Crop Dividers Interaction: Analysis of Robotic Sugarcane Harvester in Agriculture via a Rigid-Flexible Coupled Simulation Method

As a critical component of the sugarcane harvester, the primary function of the crop dividers is to lift the lodged sugarcane (LS) and reduce the loss rate of the sugarcane harvest. In this study, a rigid-flexible coupling simulation method is proposed to improve the lifting efficiency of the crop dividers on severely LS and analyze the nature of interaction between the sugarcane stalk and the crop dividers. The model’s accuracy was verified using field experiments, and the operational performance of the crop dividers on sugarcane in different lodging postures was investigated. The results showed that the curve of the vertical height of the center (VHC) fluctuated more and slipped with highest frequency during the lifting process of side and forward LS. The speed of VHC was fastest during the lifting operation of side LS. The effect of side angle on the lifting effect of sugarcane was significant; the qualified values of the VHC of sugarcane being lifted in different lodged postures were: side and reverse lodged > side lodged > side and forward lodged. The coupling method and experimental results described in this paper can provide guidance for the optimal design and field operation of the crop dividers.

ESTIMATIVA DA DEMANDA DE ÁGUA DA CULTURA DA CANA-DE-AÇÚCAR IRRIGADA UTILIZANDO SENSORIAMENTO REMOTO

ESTIMATIVA DA DEMANDA DE ÁGUA DA CULTURA DA CANA-DE-AÇÚCAR IRRIGADA UTILIZANDO SENSORIAMENTO REMOTO DANIELA ARAÚJO DE OLIVEIRA1; FERNANDO BRAZ TANGERINO HERNANDEZ2; REGIANE DE CARVALHO BISPO3; RICARDO NOGUEIRA GOMES4 E ANTONIO HERIBERTO DE CASTRO TEIXEIRA5 1 Doutoranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Irrigação e Drenagem, UNESP, Rua José Barbosa de Barros, 1780, 18610-034, Botucatu, São Paulo, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected]. 2Professor Titular, Departamento de Fitossanidade, Engenharia Rural e Solos - DEFERS, UNESP, Avenida Brasil Sul, n° 56, Centro, 15385-000, Ilha Solteira, São Paulo, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected]. 3Professora Doutora, Colegiado de Engenharia Agronômica, UNIVASF, Rodovia BR 407, 12 Lote 543, 56300-000, Petrolina, Pernambuco, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected]. 4 Engenheiro Agrônomo, Usina Ipê - Pedra Agroindustrial, Rod. General Euclides de Oliveira Figueredo, Km 167 + 871,35 m, 16940-000, Nova Independência, São Paulo, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected]. 5 Professor Externo, Departamento de Recursos Hídricos (PRORH), UFS, Av. Marechal Rondon, s/n, Jd. Rosa Elze, 49100-000, São Cristóvão, Sergipe, Brasil. E-mail: [email protected]. 1 RESUMO O presente trabalho teve como objetivo estimar as demandas hídricas da cultura da cana-de-açúcar irrigada pelo sistema pivô central, por meio da aplicação do algoritmo SAFER (Simple Algorithm for Evapotranspiration Retrieving). O estudo foi realizado em área comercial, no município de Nova Independência - SP, compreendendo a safra de 2020/21. Foram utilizadas imagens dos satélites Landsat 8 e Sentinel 2 e dados agrometeorológicos na estimativa da relação ETa/ETo e evapotranspiração atual (ETa). Os maiores valores de ETa observados foram entre 3,4 e 4,4 mm dia-1, enquanto os maiores valores da relação ETa/ETo foram de 0,7 e 0,8 e, apesar de comportamento similar a trabalhos semelhantes, são menores que os indicados em literatura. Palavras-chave: SAFER, evapotranspiração, pivô central. OLIVEIRA, D. A.; HERNANDEZ, F. B. T.; BISPO, R. C.; GOMES, R. N.; TEIXEIRA, A. H. C. ESTIMATION OF THE WATER DEMAND OF THE IRRIGATED SUGARCANE USING REMOTE SENSING 2 ABSTRACT This work aimed to estimate the water demands of the sugarcane crop irrigated by the central pivot system, through the application of the SAFER (Simple Algorithm for Evapotranspiration Retrieving) algorithm. The study was conducted in a commercial area, in the city of Nova Independência, SP, comprising the 2020/21 harvest. Images from the Landsat 8 and Sentinel 2 satellites and agrometeorological data were used to estimate the ETa/ETo ratio and actual evapotranspiration (ETa). The highest values of ETa observed were between 3.4 and 4.4 mm day-1, while the highest values of the ETa/ETo ratio were 0.7 and 0.8, and despite similar behavior to similar works, they are smaller than those indicated in the literature. Keywords: SAFER, evapotranspiration, central pivot.

Design of Centralized Intelligent Expert System and Contamination Detection of Tissue Cultured Sugarcane Crop

This paper presents the design a cloud based IoT enabled smart agriculture application for Hi-Tech tissue cultured sugarcane crop entitled “Design of Centralized Intelligent Expert System and Contamination Detection of Tissue Cultured Sugarcane Crop”. This expert system comprises of Raspberry Pi-4 (RPi), Arduino-Mega, GSM-Modem (Sim900) and sensor-modules for monitoring and control of essential parameters of laboratory for monitoring the physical parameters. The parameters monitored are temperature, humidity and light intensity of the tissue culture growth rooms with artificial day light timing and control, however, AI-based health prediction suggests the image processing for detection of culture contamination of sugarcane crop inside the growth-room. In addition, fire-smoke sensor and methane gas sensor are incorporated for fire protection and to avoid any disastrous situation. Three numbers of webcams are attached to the RPi for monitoring growth and health of explants. An AI-Model / weight was developed for detection of contamination that predicts the for health of Tissue Cultured Sugarcane Crop. Moreover, image enhancement was covered applying Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)”. In this system, the RPi reads sensor's data through Arduino and convert it to data-frame with timestamp and geo-tag. The data along with the captured images are sent to a centralize cloud application for applying data mining and Artificial Intelligence; however, the model of contamination detection has been applied at edge device. This is to get meaningful insights of data for future decision making in maximizing crop yield and quality. Due to the great need of sugarcane crop in Pakistan, the Plant Tissue Culture (PTC) technology has been incorporated with Artificial Intelligence, the proposed system is aimed to be installed at established PTC-growth-rooms for sugarcane crop so the experts of field can be connected to the cloud application for its monitoring, control and data analytics. In addition, the use of telepresence through cloud application will enable PTC-experts to provide assistance to the remote user and resolve their issues timely, thus extending PTC technology all over the country which will eventually lead to increased crop yield with quality products in affordable price.

Nitrogen, phosphorus, water and sediment losses under sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) and peanut (Arachis hypogaea l.) cultivation

Sertãozinho-SP is a major world producer of sugarcane and peanuts. The crop rotation technique recovers soils and brings commercial benefits to producers. Objective: to determine the losses of water, nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and sediments, due to the use and occupation of the soil in the peanut and sugarcane crop, using the SWAT model, maintaining the topographic and physical attributes and climatic conditions of the Mogi-Guaçu River sub-watershed, in the Sertãozinho city – SP. To carry out this study, local data from digital elevation maps and soil pedological maps, precipitation, wind, solar radiation, and relative humidity were used. The actual accumulated evapotranspiration was higher in sugarcane (906.7 mm) when compared to peanuts (886.1 mm). Sediment losses were higher in peanuts (300.66 mm) when compared to sugarcane (280.69 mm), as well as losses of N (118.44 and 34.48 kg ha-1) and P (5.456 and 0.805 kg ha-1), respectively. It is concluded that the peanut crop showed the greatest losses of water, nutrients, and sediments, when compared to sugarcane, showing that the land cover directly influenced these losses. Studies like these can aid in decision-making about environmental policies, helping with soil and water conservation in Brazilian sub-watershed.

Mixed modeling for fiber yield genetic selection in sugarcane

The current demand for clean and renewable energy has provoked considerable changes in the production system of agroindustrial companies. The generation of bioelectricity through the burning of sugarcane bagasse has considerably risen in the recent years. This work aimed to focus on the sugarcane genotypes selection for fiber productivity. The experiment was outlined in randomized blocks with four repetitions, and sixteen genotypes were evaluated. The evaluated traits were: cane tons per hectare, sucrose tons per hectare, fiber tons per hectare, fiber content and apparent sucrose content. To the selection, the mixed linear models methodology was used. The heritability coefficients suggest a significant genetic gain and the harmonic means of relative performances of predicted genotypic values allowed the identification of stable genotypes related to the traits evaluated in four harvest cycles. Considering the current average demand of sugarcane agroindustry for varieties with fiber content between 12% and 17% and sucrose content near 13%, for energy generation and sugar production, the genotypes EECAC 06, EECAC 03, EECAC 04 and EECAC 07 are presented as commercial cultivation options. Highlights - Mixed models constitute an efficient tool for sugarcane selection focused onto fiber and sucrose production. - This methodology provides significant genetic gains based on predicted genetic values free from interaction with harvest cycles. - The evaluated genotypes present high fiber and sucrose productivity, genotypic adaptability and stability throughout harvest cycles, indicating longevity in the sugarcane crop.

Effect of Foliar Application of NPK and Micronutrient (Zn and Fe) on the Yield and Quality of Sugarcane Crop

The foliar application of nutrients help the plant leaves to readily absorb the applied nutrients through the nutrient solution and increases the nutrient use efficiency and thus improves the crop yield. The field experiment was conducted for two consecutive years to find out the affect of foliar spray of NPK and micronutrient on cane yield, yield parameters and juice quality of sugarcane during 2019-20 and 2020-21.The present study was carried out on clay loam soils of Research farm of Regional Research Station, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Karnal, Haryana. The research revealed that cane yield and yield parameters i.e., cane length, and cane weight was significantly affected with the foliar spray of NPK and micronutrient but non-significant effect was observed for cane girth and number of internodes. With respect to juice quality parameters viz., commercial cane sugar (CCS) %, pol % and sugar yield, significantly affected with foliar spray of NPK and micronutrient. The highest cane yield, cane weight and cane length was recorded with the foliar application of 2% NPK (19:19:19) + 0.5% ZnSO4 +1% FeSO4 (78.16 t/ha, 1.21 kg and 207.3 cm) followed by foliar spray of 0.5% ZnSO4 + 1% FeSO4+ 2.5% urea recorded 76.75 t/ha, 1.20 kg and 207.1 cm, respectively. The lowest cane yield (70.68 t/ha) was recorded with the application of recommended dose of fertilizer (RDF) alone. The highest CCS % (12.16), pol % (17.36) and sugar yield (9.51 t/ha) was observed in the treatment 2% NPK + 0.5% ZnSO4 +1% FeSO4. Thus, foliar application with NPK and micronutrient could significantly improve the cane yield, yield parameters and juice quality of sugarcane crop.

Remote Sensing Applications in Sugarcane Cultivation: A Review

A large number of studies have been published addressing sugarcane management and monitoring to increase productivity and production as well as to better understand landscape dynamics and environmental threats. Building on existing reviews which mainly focused on the crop’s spectral behavior, a comprehensive review is provided which considers the progress made using novel data analysis techniques and improved data sources. To complement the available reviews, and to make the large body of research more easily accessible for both researchers and practitioners, in this review (i) we summarized remote sensing applications from 1981 to 2020, (ii) discussed key strengths and weaknesses of remote sensing approaches in the sugarcane context, and (iii) described the challenges and opportunities for future earth observation (EO)-based sugarcane monitoring and management. More than one hundred scientific studies were assessed regarding sugarcane mapping (52 papers), crop growth anomaly detection (11 papers), health monitoring (14 papers), and yield estimation (30 papers). The articles demonstrate that decametric satellite sensors such as Landsat and Sentinel-2 enable a reliable, cost-efficient, and timely mapping and monitoring of sugarcane by overcoming the ground sampling distance (GSD)-related limitations of coarser hectometric resolution data, while offering rich spectral information in the frequently recorded data. The Sentinel-2 constellation in particular provides fine spatial resolution at 10 m and high revisit frequency to support sugarcane management and other applications over large areas. For very small areas, and in particular for up-scaling and calibration purposes, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are also useful. Multi-temporal and multi-source data, together with powerful machine learning approaches such as the random forest (RF) algorithm, are key to providing efficient monitoring and mapping of sugarcane growth, health, and yield. A number of difficulties for sugarcane monitoring and mapping were identified that are also well known for other crops. Those difficulties relate mainly to the often (i) time consuming pre-processing of optical time series to cope with atmospheric perturbations and cloud coverage, (ii) the still important lack of analysis-ready-data (ARD), (iii) the diversity of environmental and growth conditions—even for a given country—under which sugarcane is grown, superimposing non-crop related radiometric information on the observed sugarcane crop, and (iv) the general ill-posedness of retrieval and classification approaches which adds ambiguity to the derived information.

Effects of Fertilisation Using Organic Waste Products with Mineral Complementation on Sugarcane Yields and Soil Properties in a 4 Year Field Experiment

Sugarcane cultivation is suitable for the exploitation of organic waste products. However, minimum complementary mineral input is necessary for optimal fertilisation. Control mineral fertilisation treatments with mulch (MCM) or without mulch (MC) were compared with two organic waste treatments, a pig slurry with mulch (PSM) and without mulch (PS), and a sugarcane vinasse with mulch (SVM) and without mulch (SV) on a Nitisol in French Reunion Island. The sugarcane yields obtained with the different treatments differed each year. However, no trend was observed and no significant and recurrent effect of the presence of mulch or of the different treatments was identified over the course of the 4 year experiment. Soil pHw and pH KCl measured in the different treatments increased from year 3 in with the treatments including organic waste products (PS, PSM, SV and SVM) but remained constant with the treatments including only mineral fertilisation (MC and MCM). With the exception of PS and PSM, which were significantly higher in year 4, soil organic carbon content was not modified by the treatments. Soil cation exchange capacity increased only slightly with the PS and PSM treatments from year 3 on. The differences in yields and soil properties can be explained by the nature of the organic waste products, the accumulation of nutrients after several applications, and the specific characteristics of the sugarcane crop. The improvement in soil properties from the third year on was not reflected in the yield of sugarcane because it was too weak, and the crop explores a much larger volume of soil.