Performance Assessment of Farm Machinery for Persimmon Fruit Cultivation in a Japanese Mountainous Area

Japanese agriculture is facing a decrease in agricultural workers. Mechanization, both to save time and reduce physical input, is essential to solving this issue. Recent worldwide progress in Internet-of-things technology has enabled the application of remote-controlled and unmanned machinery in agriculture. This study was conducted in the Gojo-Yoshino mountainous region in Nara, Japan, which is famous for its persimmon cultivation. The performance of newly introduced smart agricultural machinery was studied in the field by simulating cultivation work. The results showed that the remote-control weeder, speed sprayer, and remote-control mini crawler carrier saved 90%, 75%, and 5% of weeding, spraying, and harvesting times, respectively, when compared with conventional methods. Such time savings led to an 8% decrease in the total working time spent on persimmon cultivation. In addition, using the speed sprayer showed improvement in the fruit’s quality. Results of the power assist suits did not show a time-saving effect but showed a reduction of physical burden. These results suggest that the mechanization of persimmon cultivation is efficient and labor-saving, and satisfies the need for farmers. However, the high investment costs remain an issue in extending mechanization to the region.

Dragon Fruit Cultivation as a Solution to Rice Harvest Dependence in Kuwu Village, Madiun Regency

This article is the result of research that examines the efforts of the Kuwu village community to escape dependence on rice yields through dragon fruit cultivation by utilizing empty house yard assets with a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) approach. This approach provides an opportunity for researchers from the University of the UINSA KKN Team and the Kuwu village community to partner and collaborate to conduct research together to find solutions to problems faced by the community to improve their economic welfare. After conducting the inculturation stage with a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the Kuwu village community, and conducting an analysis of the initial assets owned by the local community, the researchers from the UINSA KKN Team group 18 together with the community focused on efforts to solve the problem of the dependence of the Kuwu village community on the results. rice harvesters by looking for additional income alternatives by cultivating dragon fruit by utilizing their empty home yard land. To solve this problem, researchers from the UINSA Team and residents of the Kuwu village community worked together in every stage of the research. There are four stages in the CBPR method, namely: (1) Foundation laying, (2) Research planning, (3) Data collection and analysis, (4) Determination of action on findings. Through these stages, it can be concluded that the results of this study include; first, the planting of dragon fruit seeds carried out by UINSA KKN students and residents of the Kuwu village community, starting with a literacy study and socialization about the benefits of dragon fruit initiated by local community leaders and extension workers from the local Agriculture Service; second, efforts to carry out various joint experiments to make food/snacks from processed dragon fruit carried out by PKK women and UINSA KKN students. This action was also followed up by the village government by initiating a working group (farmer's group) to oversee this program until finally realizing the aspirations of the community members to become a dragon fruit center village in the future.

Varieties Matter When Planning for Poverty Alleviation and Ecological Restoration in Karst Fruit Cultivation Areas

Landscapes are increasingly being managed to meet multiple objectives and balance social, economic, and environmental goals. The Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in the Yunnan faulted Basin represent examples of areas with a range of concerns, including balancing farming with poverty alleviation, economic development, and ecological protection. Here, we set out four future land-use scenarios to quantify and map the values of key evidence-based, policy-relevant ecosystem services in three typical counties in this area. We found that implementing existing fruit-growing plans may increase the expected total value of ecosystem services due to increased acreage, but it does not actually increase the total value of ecosystem services per unit area. For example, total ecosystem service provision in Jianshui County decreased by 3% by 2023 under the current trend after the expansion of the planting area was subtracted. However, planting fruit trees with better ecological benefits in areas of greater degradation risk, can increase the delivery of ecosystem services by 10–20%. Thus, variety coordination based on detailed study of the geographical contexts and ecological-economic performance of different types of fruit cultivation can produce ecological-economic improvements beyond simple expansion and better inform county-scale policy, planning, and management interventions.

Intensive fruit orchards cultivation

The main purpose of a High-intensity cultivation system is to maximize the yield crop per area unit through planting more trees, exploiting efficient use of different resources. There are different factors that affect high-intensity cultivation that include Land-cost, planting spaces, tree size, Rootstock, and Practice management. Meanwhile, the adoption of High-intensity cultivation to control canopy size, by using modern management practices is very crucial to get more yields in the early stages of the orchard besides simplicity in its management and increase the farmers’ net profit. In addition, High-density cultivation use in different fruit crops like olive, mango, orange, mandarin, Apple, and cherry. Numerous benefits of intensive fruit cultivation include increase fruit yield per unit area, improving use efficiency of natural resources e.g. soil, light, water, and nutrients, enhancing fruit quality, improving soil properties and rising levels of organic carbon and nutrients in plant tissues …etc. In addition, it is very effective in acid lime soil and achieves high income for the farmers.

Towards Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management in Intensive Pear Cultivation: A Case Study from Belgium

Recently, the concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) was further extended into Integrated Pest and Pollinator Management (IPPM). Implementation of IPPM strategies entails the combination of actions for pest and pollinator management providing complementary or synergistic benefits for yield and/or quality of the harvest. The aim of this study was to examine IPPM elements (i.e., mixed hedgerow, nesting boxes for mason bees, Osmia spp.) and demonstrate their impact in the practical context of modern commercial fruit cultivation in a 4-year case study in an intensive ‘Conference’ pear orchard. The outcomes of visual observations during transect walks and molecular analysis of pollen collected by mason bees, showed the importance of additional floral resources for the presence of mason bees and other pollinating insects in the orchard environment. Pear quality assessments indicated that insect-mediated pollination had a significant positive impact, with a tendency for higher quality pears in the close vicinity of Osmia nesting boxes. However, despite the fact that pear pollen was also detected in Osmia spp. nest cells, the amount and frequency of pear pollen collection for their nest built-up turned out to be rather low. In the same intensive pear orchard studied for pollination effects, we simultaneously demonstrate the impact of a mixed hedgerow to enhance integrated pest control.

Robotic Cultivation of Pome Fruit: A Benchmark Study of Manipulation Tools—From Research to Industrial Standards—

In pome fruit cultivation, apples and pears need to be handled in various processes such as harvesting and sorting. Currently, most processes require a vast amount of manual labor. Combined with a structural shortage of seasonal workers, innovation in this field is crucial. Automated processes could provide a solution wherein the search for an appropriate manipulation tool is essential. Aside from several grippers, customized for harvesting by various researchers, the industry also provides a wide variety of standardized manipulation tools. This paper benchmarks a wide set of the most relevant gripping principles, primarily based on their ability to successfully handle fruit, without causing damage. In addition, energy consumption and general feasibility are evaluated as well. The performed study showed that the customized foam gripper scores the overall best for all test scenarios at the cost of being the least energy efficient. Furthermore, most other gripping tools excelled at certain specific tasks rather than being generally deployable. Impactive grippers are better suited for harvesting at low energy consumption, while astrictive grippers are more suited for sorting tasks constricted by the available space. The results also showed that commercially available soft grippers are not always capable of handling sensitive fruits such as pears without causing damage.

Diverse Functions of IAA-Leucine Resistant PpILR1 Provide a Genic Basis for Auxin-Ethylene Crosstalk During Peach Fruit Ripening

Auxin and ethylene play critical roles in the ripening of peach (Prunus persica) fruit; however, the interaction between these two phytohormones is complex and not fully understood. Here, we isolated a peach ILR gene, PpILR1, which encodes an indole-3-acetic acid (IAA)-amino hydrolase. Functional analyses revealed that PpILR1 acts as a transcriptional activator of 1-amino cyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid synthase (PpACS1), and hydrolyzes auxin substrates to release free auxin. When Cys137 was changed to Ser137, PpILR1 failed to show hydrolase activity but continued to function as a transcriptional activator of PpACS1 in tobacco and peach transient expression assays. Furthermore, transgenic tomato plants overexpressing PpILR1 exhibited ethylene- and strigolactone-related phenotypes, including premature pedicel abscission, leaf and petiole epinasty, and advanced fruit ripening, which are consistent with increased expression of genes involved in ethylene biosynthesis and fruit ripening, as well as suppression of branching and growth of internodes (related to strigolactone biosynthesis). Collectively, these results provide novel insights into the role of IAA-amino acid hydrolases in plants, and position the PpILR1 protein at the junction of auxin and ethylene pathways during peach fruit ripening. These results could have substantial implications on peach fruit cultivation and storage in the future.