Study on the detection of foliar production in mulberry fields, presented on the occasion of “MetroAgriFor” – IEEE International Workshop
A study conducted by the Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry (TeSAF) – University of Padua and by CREA – Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, with the Research Center for Agriculture and Environment (CREA- AA) Sericulture Laboratory of Padua and the Research Centre of Engineering and Agri-food Processing (CREA-IT) was presented as a part of the activities envisaged by the GO Serinnovation project, during the IEEE* International Workshop on metrology for agriculture and forestry “MetroAgriFor”, which took place in Trento and Bolzano from November 3rd to 5th 2021.
*The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is an international association of professional scientists with the aim of promoting the technological sciences. It is the largest professional technical organization in the world dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
The importance of evaluating leaf production in a new generation mulberry field
Title of the study: “Preliminary study on the application of a commercial LAI ceptometer** for estimation of leaf production on low vigour mulberry trees”.
**LAI (Leaf Area Index) means the leaf coverage index, which is the ratio of the upper surface of the leaves divided by the area of the soil covered by the plants. It, therefore, indicates the density of vegetation present in a given field, an essential parameter for the study of forest and agricultural cover. The LAI is calculated using the data collected by the ceptometer, a portable instrument for measuring the photosynthetically active radiations (PAR) emitted by plants’ canopy.
ABSTRACT
In the last decades, the interest on instrumentation for fast plant canopy characterization has increased, in particular for the possibility of estimation of yield of cultivated plants. The present work investigates the suitability of a commercial LAI ceptometer (AccuPAR LP-80) for estimation of leaf yield of white mulberry (Morus alba L.) trees: focus of the present study is the evaluation of accuracy of LAI data collected with the ceptometer in comparison with the real total area of leaves and their weight for each plant. The evaluation has been carried on plants both cultivated in a controlled environment and in open field. Results from analyses show a relatively good grade of accuracy, affected by the geometry of the investigated crop.
CONCLUSIONS
The aim of the present work was to identify a suitable instrument for fast data collection of mulberry leaf yield data. For this aim, the authors tested a commercial ceptometer. Proposed experiments gave evidence that such sensing technology can be usefully implemented in an efficient way for investigating yield characteristics of low vigor mulberry orchards. The research work also focused on the definition of the best measuring condition, for collection of LAI data in mulberry orchards. The two reported experiments showed how the best setup for collection of LAI data, is with the ceptometer positioned parallel to the row, at about 0.50m: in this case a high correlation with mulberry leaf yield data was achieved (R²=0.822). Further developments of this work can include the application of this methodology for early leaf yield data prediction or analysis of spatial variability characterization.
Authors
Domenico Giora (1), Federico Masin (1), Giuditta Marchetti (1), Alberto Assirelli (2), Silvia Cappellozza (3), Alessio Saviane (3), Francesco Marinello (1), Luigi Sartori (1).
(1) Department of Land, Environment, Agriculture and Forestry – University of Padua, Italy
(2) Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre of Engineering and Agri-food Processing (CREA-IT) – Rome, Italy
(3) Council for Agricultural Research and Economics, Research Centre for Agriculture and Environment (CREA-AA) – Sericulture Laboratory of Padua, Italy
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“MetroAgriFor” intends to create an active and stimulating forum where academics, researchers and industry experts in the field of measurement and data processing techniques for Agriculture, Forestry and Food can meet and share new advances and research results. Attention is paid, but not limited to, new technologies for agriculture and forestry environment monitoring, food quality monitoring, metrology-assisted production in agriculture, forestry and food industries, sensors and associated signal conditioning for agriculture and forestry, calibration methods for electronic test and measurement for environmental and food applications.
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