In-vitro Antioxidant Capacities and Genetic Classification of Indonesian Selected Pigmented Rice

Rice is a world-famous cereal food divided into pigmented and non-pigmented rice. Pigmented rice is popular as healthier food than non-pigmented rice due to its potency as an antioxidant. Nevertheless, the potential of pigmented rice has not been widely studied. Indonesian selected pigmented rice protein’s antioxidant potential and the non-protein compound were in-vitro studied. The antioxidant potencies were evaluated by extracting fresh seeds of nine pigmented rice (Aek Sibundong, Beureum Taleus, Gogo Niti-2, Lamongan-1, Merah SP, Merah Wangi, Mota, Ketan Hitam-2, and Super Manggis) and non-pigmented rice (IR-64) as control. Various free radical scavenging methods to determine the antioxidant activity (ABTS•+, DPPH•, OH• and O2-) were conducted. Meanwhile, the genetic classification was performed by a simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker to determine the relationship between varieties. The results showed that protein of Ketan Hitam-2 had the highest ABTS•+ radical scavenging (98.06%), followed by Beureum Taleus (42.54%). Ketan Hitam-2 protein also showed the highest OH• and O2- activities (43.49% and 6.02%, respectively). The highest DPPH• potency of the non-protein compounds also shown by Ketan Hitam-2 (32.23%) with the activity of OH• and O2- (20.63% and 14.56%, respectively). These results showed that Ketan Hitam-2 has the highest potency as an antioxidant, which could be recommended as a nutraceuticals compound.

Development and Test of Grain Mass Flow Monitoring System Based on Pressure Sensor

In view of the technical development requirements of digital agriculture and the requirement of operation parameter regulation in the operation process of grain harvester. An on-board grain mass flow monitoring system based on pressure sensor was developed. The mathematical model of grain mass and grain flow pressure was established, which realized the real-time measurement, display, and storage of grain dry/wet quality information during the operation of grain harvester. An indoor bench test was carried out with the independently developed grain flow monitoring test bench. The results showed that the output error of the grain mass flow monitoring system was less than 4.25% under the conditions of indoor bench test, which meets the accuracy requirements of grain flow monitoring and provides the decision basis for variable seeding and variable fertilization.

The social and economic diversity of the coffee-banana farming system and technology uptake in Central Uganda

Food systems of the future that will guarantee food and nutrition security of millions of poor farming households will have to be both economically and socially diverse. Diversity of farming systems acts as a catalyst for innovation, commercialisation as well as technology adoption. This study sought to find farm typologies and explore the social, enterprise and economic diversity of the various farm types based on a promoted Growing Bananas with Trees and Livestock (GBTL) technology system that was implemented by National Agricultural Research Organisation and Bioversity International in three districts of Central Uganda, Kiboga, Nakaseke and Ssembabule. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA), typologies were created in which two distinct clusters of farming households were revealed. Further analysis of the clusters through Food Consumption Scores, food classes, and other descriptive statistics indicated that the two clusters were socially and economically diverse. Findings indicated that Cluster 1 is made up of smaller farms with high crop diversity. Families in Cluster 1 sell more of their produce and subsequently have lower food security compared to the land-abundant, off-farm earning and more food secure Cluster 2. We failed to reject the hypothesis that socially and economically diverse farmers adopt technologies more given that the level of GBTL adoption was about 25% and about 70% for Banana + Goats within both clusters.

Construction of GIS-based Agricultural Machinery IoT Service Platform

In recent years, as the information technology becomes mature gradually and the modernized agriculture develops rapidly, the important role of agricultural mechanization in the development of the Internet era has gradually become prominent. As an important part of modernized agriculture development, the agricultural mechanization is also facing management problems caused by the information technology in the Internet era. The information shows new characteristics in the development of agricultural mechanization in the Internet era, such as rapid increase in the amount of information, faster data transmission and processing, more diverse data acquisition and processing methods, more and more complex technologies involved in information processing, and more and more extensive fields. As the information becomes diversified, complex and massive, the traditional agricultural machinery service management model shows greater limitations, such as low management efficiency, backward management methods, and low quality levels, etc.. The GIS technology has brought unprecedented development opportunities for the development of agricultural informatization. It plays an important role in promoting the improvement of agricultural machinery informatization to develop the agricultural machinery IoT service system by using the GIS technology.

Research Status of Power Allocation of Combine Harvester

The development of combine harvester has greatly promoted the development of global agricultural mechanization, In this paper, a large number of research results related to power allocation of combine harvesters were collected, The development status of combined harvester transmission system and power test system is summarized through analysis and selection, It is found that there are few researches on the power distribution of the combine harvester, so it is necessary to further study the related research of the combine harvester.

Effect of adding graded levels of lablab forages on fermentation characteristics of Brachiaria silage

Ensiling as a method of forage feed conservation is the most appropriate in conserving of crude protein (CP) enhanced forages for sustainable dairy production. This is attributed to the fact that with this method, protein dependent lactic acid bacteria (LAB) hydrolyze water soluble carbohydrates (WSC) into short chain volatile fatty acids (VFAs) which are precursors for milk synthesis while the proteins buffers the excessive organic acids to produce more acetate and propionate. The study therefore aimed at assessing the quality of Brachiaria silage which was protein supplemented with graded levels of lablab forage. To achieve this objective, wilted Brachiaria forage (Brachiaria hybrid cv Mulato II) was collected, wilted and ensiled with and Lablab purpureus forages at inclusion levels of 0%, 10%, 20%, 30% Lablab purpureus forage. The resultant 4 treatments were assessed in a completely randomized design in 3 replicates. All silages were prepared using plastic jar mini-silos to laboratory scale and then incubated at room temperature (±30°C) for 45 days. After the 45 days, chemical analysis for quantification of water soluble carbohydrate (WSC), none protein nitrogen (NH3-N), Acid detergent fiber (ADF), Neutral detergent fiber (NDF), pH, in-vitro organic matter digestibility (INVOMD), acetic acid, lactic acid and propionic acid composition were conducted. The results indicated that; none protein nitrogen, acetic acid and propionic acid composition decreased in quadratic trends with increasing legume forage inclusion to minimum values of 5.8, 48.0 and 0.7g/kg at 14.7, 1.8 and 6.0% inclusion levels of lablab forage, respectively. On the other hand, following a quadratic trend, WSC composition decreased with increase in lablab forage, with a maximum of 28.9g/kg obtained at 7.6% inclusion level of lablab forage. Generally, CP, dry matter, INVOMD and metabolizable energy of the silage increased with increase in the inclusion levels of lablab silage. Using regression equations of the response curves, NDF and ADF decreased with increasing legume forage inclusion to minimum values of 349.3 and 172.1g/kg at inclusion levels of 16.1 and 17.1%, respectively. On the other hand in-vitro organic matter digestibility increased with the increase in the lablab forage inclusion to a maximum of 49.4%. However, mineral composition of the silage was not affected by lablab forage inclusion. Since the quality of silage for dairy cows depends on short chain volatile fatty acid, fibre and crude protein composition, inclusion of lablab forage to Brachiaria hybrid cv mulato II silage at a rate of 17.1% potentially yields the best results in lactating cows.

Identifying the Topographic Slope Characteristics Most Preferred By Wild Olive Trees in Al-Bahah Region, Saudi Arabia

The aims of this research were to identify the topographical slope characteristics most preferred by wild olive trees in the Al-Bahah region. This study successfully identified the degree of the slope preferred for wild olive groves. The findings revealed that the majority (72.9%) of wild olive trees in Al-Bahah region occupy slopes of 5–30°. However, the patterns in Qelwa and Al-Mekhwah districts are a bit different where most of the wild olives were found on steeper slopes of 20–40°. This is probably because these sub-regions have a medium to steep slope, descending gradually toward the west, the altitudes ranging from 200 (400) to 2001 and 2200 m west of Al¬-Bahah city and Uwera, and between 2000 and 2100 m west of Baljurashi. The results further depicted that the wild olive with the medium-large crown diameter mostly occupied the gentler slopes of 0–25° compared to those with small crown diameters at steeper slopes of 5–35°. This indicates that the wild olive trees grow better on gentler slopes. These findings can be regarded as theoretically revealing the potential landform suitable for olive plantation. As a basis for olive plantation site suitability, these factors are the essential prerequisites to be considered. However. In addition, it is obvious that site suitability is subject to the temporal dynamics of environmental variables.

Evaluating the Potential for Improved and Sustainable Adoption of Conservation Agriculture in Northern Namibia

The study evaluated the potential for improved and sustainable adoption of conservation agriculture in five regions in Namibia namely, Omusati, Kunene, Oshikoto, Ohangwena, and Oshana. Conventional system of farming involves, monoculture and deep soil tillage with ox-drawn ploughs with limited mechanisation. These practices are unproductive and unsustainable given increased uncertainty due to climate change.Therefore, conservation agriculture was introduced in the regions through the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) assisted programme. The aim of the programme was to lower vulnerability by increasing the resilience of the smallholder farmers in the selected regions to adapt to climate change risks through the implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) and other complementary Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The hypothesis is that increased CA knowledge would enhance improved outcomes. An empirical estimation of the relationship between the farmers learned CA skills, and the level of CA outcome was carried out using econometrics method. One hundred and forty-four farmers were sampled from the selected regions. The result indicates that additional CA knowledge may result in farmers’ improving their General Agricultural Practices. In order words, farmers are more likely to improve weeding than not, the area planted is more likely to increase than decrease and fertilizer application is more likely to increase significantly than not. There is an increase in the ordered log-odds of moving from a lower to a higher outcome level. For instance, a one-unit increase in the farmers’ CA knowledge will result in 0.05 unit increase in ordered log-odds of being in the higher category for the ‘area planted’ outcome variable while the other variables in the model are held constant. The same relationship applies to other outcome variables for farmers’ improved knowledge. In addition, the sustainability of the CA project was investigated. Using a probit probability choice model, it was found that CA adoption will increase in the future in these regions. The result shows that farmers are willing to adopt CA and continue practising it on the condition that benefits such as increased yield, training and household consumption are guaranteed. This is because, increased yield, training and household consumption increased the probability that farmers will continue CA adoption.