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Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application

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A special issue of Agronomy (ISSN 2073-4395). This special issue belongs to the section "Precision and Digital Agriculture".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2024 | Viewed by 6149

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Special Issue Editor

Dr. Changling Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

College of Science, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100193, China
Interests: pesticide application technology; unmanned aerial spraying system (UASS); atomization; droplet; spray deposition; spray drift

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Over the last 70 years with widespread Plant Protection Product (PPP) use, food quality and the life expectancy of humans have vastly improved. At the same time, considerable attention has been given to environmental protection, especially to minimise PPPs polluting water, with an emphasis on minimising the spray drift from treated areas. Both manual and high-efficiency sprayers, such as the knapsack sprayer, spray gun, boom sprayer, air-blast sprayer, manned fixed-wing aircraft, manned helicopter and so on, have been applied worldwide in different scenarios. Since the beginning of this decade, agricultural unmanned aerial spraying systems (UASS) for plant protection, with high flexibility and mobility and low acquisition and maintenance costs, are growing rapidly as a new tool for PPP application, especially in China and other Asian countries. Both aerial and ground plant protection machines are moving in the direction of unmanned, precision, high-performance, standardization and informatization. More and more precise application technologies were proposed and applied with less PPP lost in the environment, but more research is needed so that new technologies can be incorporated to minimise agrochemical use and improve the timing of applications.

In this Special Issue, we aim to focus on any novel studies in theory, system, equipment, technology and evaluation methods for high-performance and precision PPP utilization. Both research and review articles are welcome.

Dr. Changling Wang
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agronomy is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

PPP precision application
atomisation
volatilization
spray deposition
spray drift
control efficacy
boom sprayer
air-blast sprayer
manned agricultural aircraft
unmanned aerial spraying system (UASS)

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 4341 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Prediction of Thrips Damage Distribution in Mango Orchards Using a Novel Maximum Likelihood Classifier

by Linhui Wang, Yonghong Tang, Zhizhuang Liu, Mianpeng Zheng, Wangpeng Shi, Jiachong Li and Xiongkui He

Agronomy 2024, 14(4), 795; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy14040795 - 11 Apr 2024

Viewed by 281

Abstract

Thrips constitute the primary pest responsible for reducing mango yield and quality every year in Asia. Therefore, the efficient monitoring of thrips damage across mango orchards on a large scale to aid farmers in devising rational pesticide application strategies poses a significant challenge within the current mango industry. This study designs a mango thrips damage inversion prediction method based on the maximum likelihood classifier (MLC). Initially, drone multispectral remote sensing technology is utilized to acquire multispectral data from mango orchards, which are then combined with ground hyperspectral information to identify sensitive bands indicative of mango leaf damage caused by thrips. Subsequently, correlation analysis is conducted on various vegetation indices, leading to the selection of the Greenness Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI), which exhibits a strong correlation coefficient of 0.82, as the spectral characteristic parameter for the inversion prediction model. The construction of a remote sensing prediction model for thrips damage distribution in mango orchards is then undertaken based on the MLC. Acknowledging the bias-variance trade-off inherent in the MLC when processing spectral data and its potential limitations in feature extraction and robustness, this study proposes a modification wherein neighboring pixels are weighted differently to enhance the model’s feature extraction capabilities. Experimental results show that the novel MLC maintains stable estimation levels across various numbers of domain pixels, achieving an inversion accuracy of 91.23%. Through the reconstruction of the pixel matrix, the damage distribution of thrips in mango orchards can be swiftly and comprehensively visualized over extensive areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application)

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13 pages, 3187 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Droplet Deposition and Efficacy of Real-Time Variable-Rate Application of Herbicides at Reduced Dose in Winter Wheat Fields

by Jinwei Zhang, Xian Xu, Yuan Lv, Xueguan Zhao, Jian Song, Pingzhong Yu, Xiu Wang and Ercheng Zhao

Agronomy 2024, 14(1), 211; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy14010211 - 18 Jan 2024

Viewed by 698

Abstract

Using an intelligent plant protection machine for spraying herbicides at a real-time variable rate plays a key role in improving the utilization efficiency of herbicides and reducing environmental pollution. Spraying volume (SV) and nozzle size (NS) are key factors influencing droplet deposition and herbicide efficacy and safety. A three-way split-split plot design experiment was conducted in the winter wheat field, with SV 180 L·ha⁻¹ and 150 L·ha⁻¹ in the main plot, a turbo air induction nozzle TTI11004 and TTI11003 in the subplot, herbicide flucarbazone-Na 70% WG mixed with florasulam 50 g·L⁻¹ SC as the recommended dose, and a 20% reduced dose in the sub-subplot. Droplet deposition and weed control efficacy treated by these three factors and their combination were evaluated. Results indicated that there was a significant influence of SV on droplet coverage and density, but no significant influence of NS and its interaction with SV. A droplet coverage and density of treatment at 180 L·ha⁻¹ were both significantly higher than at 150 L·ha⁻¹. The influence of SV and its interaction with NS on weed control efficacy were significant. The efficacy of treatment TTI11004 at SV 180 L·ha⁻¹ was the highest but decreased when NS was switched to TTI11003 and the SV was decreased to 150 L·ha⁻¹. There was no significant effect of all the treatments on winter wheat yield and its components, but the yield loss could be reduced by 2.36% when the herbicide input was reduced by 20%. We can conclude that herbicide input can be reduced by at least 20% using the intelligent machine while equipped with the right NS at the right SV, which would increase the safety of winter wheat production. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application)

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15 pages, 2928 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Calculation Method of Canopy Dynamic Meshing Division Volumes for Precision Pesticide Application in Orchards Based on LiDAR

by Mengmeng Wang, Hanjie Dou, Hongyan Sun, Changyuan Zhai, Yanlong Zhang and Feixiang Yuan

Agronomy 2023, 13(4), 1077; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13041077 - 07 Apr 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1576

Abstract

The canopy volume of fruit trees is an important input for the precise and varying application of pesticides in orchards. The fixed mesh division method is mostly used to calculate canopy volumes with variable target-oriented spraying. To reduce the influence of the working speed on the detection accuracy under a fixed mesh width division, the cuboid accumulation of divided areas (CADAs), which is a light detection and ranging (LiDAR) online detection method for a fruit tree canopy volume based on dynamic mesh division, is proposed in this paper. In the method, the area is divided according to the number of unilateral nozzles of the sprayer in the canopy height direction of the fruit tree, and the mesh width is dynamically adjusted according to the change in the working speed in the moving direction of the sprayer. To verify the accuracy and applicability of the method, the simulation canopy and peach tree canopy detection experiments were carried out. The test results show that the CADA method can be used to calculate the contour and volume of the canopy. However, detection errors easily occur at the edge of the canopy, resulting in a detection error of 8.33% for the simulated canopy volume. The CADA method has a good detection accuracy under different moving speeds and fruit tree canopy sizes. At a speed of 1 m/s, the detection accuracy of the canopy volume reaches 99.18%. Compared with the existing canopy volume calculation methods based on the alpha-shape algorithm and canopy meshing-profile characterization (CMPC), the detection accuracy of the CADA method is 2.73% and 7.22% better, respectively. This method can not only reduce the influence of the moving speed on the detection accuracy of the canopy volume, but also improve the detection accuracy. Thus, this method can provide theoretical support for the research and development of target-oriented variable spraying control systems for orchards. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application)

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Review

Jump to: Research

26 pages, 28959 KiB

Open AccessReview

Technologies and Equipment of Mechanized Blossom Thinning in Orchards: A Review

by Xiaohui Lei, Quanchun Yuan, Tao Xyu, Yannan Qi, Jin Zeng, Kai Huang, Yuanhao Sun, Andreas Herbst and Xiaolan Lyu

Agronomy 2023, 13(11), 2753; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13112753 - 31 Oct 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1080

Abstract

Orchard thinning can avoid biennial bearing and improve fruit quality, which is a necessary agronomic section in orchard management. The existing methods of artificial fruit thinning and chemical spraying are no longer suitable for the development of modern agriculture. With the continuous acceleration of the construction process of modern orchards, blossom thinning mechanization has become an inevitable trend in the development of the orchard flower and fruit management. Based on relevant reports in the past 20 years, the paper discusses the current level of development of mechanized blossom thinning technologies and equipment in orchards from three aspects: mechanism research, machine development, and intelligent upgrading. Firstly, for thinning mechanism research, three directions were investigated: the rope flexible hitting force, thinning agronomic requirements, and the fruit tree growth model between thinning and fruit yields. Secondly, for marketable machine developments, two types of machines were investigated: the hand-held thinner and tractor-mounted thinner. The hand-held thinner is mainly suitable for traditional old orchards with a messy canopy structure, especially in the interior and top of the canopy. The tractor-mounted thinner is mainly suitable for orchards with the same crown structure, such as the hedge type, trunk type, and V-type. Thirdly, for equipment intelligent upgrading, the research of the intelligent detection algorithm for inflorescence on the fruit tree was investigated, for species including the apple, pear, citrus, grape, litchi, mango, and apricot. Finally, combining the advantages and disadvantages of the research, the authors propose thoughts and prospects, which can provide a reference for the design and applications of orchard mechanized blossom thinning. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application)

18 pages, 3632 KiB

Open AccessReview

Anti-Drift Technology Progress of Plant Protection Applied to Orchards: A Review

by Shaobo Li, Jianping Li, Shaomeng Yu, Pengfei Wang, Hongjie Liu and Xin Yang

Agronomy 2023, 13(11), 2679; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/agronomy13112679 - 25 Oct 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1437

Abstract

In orchard plant protection application, an anti-drift strategy can effectively reduce drift in the non-target area, reduce spray drift in the environment, and avoid spray leakage and overspraying. To clarify the future development direction of orchard plant protection mechanization technology, this review introduces the development status of an anti-drift spray nozzle and the impact of different types of spray nozzles on the potential of drift, and then, it analyzes the research progress on air-assisted spraying, recycling spraying, profiling spraying, target variable spraying technologies, and plant protection UAVs. It also provides a general analysis of the above spraying technologies on the amount of drift and the impact of pesticide deposition. Finally, combined with the characteristics of orchard plant protection, the paper presents the research and development of anti-drift nozzles, pesticide adjuvant, air-assisted spraying technology, electrostatic, recycling spraying technology, profiling and target variable spraying technology, and plant protection UAVs. The review provides a reference for the development of an anti-drift strategy for orchard plant protection production. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Novel Studies in High-Performance and Precision Plant Protection Products Application)

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