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Applied Sciences
Special Issues
Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems
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Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Science and Technology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (10 November 2022) | Viewed by 26453

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Alla Nozhevnikova

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Guest Editor
Federal Research Center “Fundamentals of Biotechnology” of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119071 Moscow, Russia
Interests: anaerobic microorganisms; methanogenesis; biological wastewater treatment; biohydrogen; anaerobic digestion; organic waste valorization; renewable energy; dark fermentation; anammox
Prof. Dr. Valeriy Kharchenko

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Federal Scientific Agroengineering Center VIM, 109456 Moscow, Russia
Interests: RES based installation; PV and thermal solar conversion; energy saving technologies; heat pump based technologies
Dr. Vladimir Panchenko

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
1. Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Russian University of Transport, 127994 Moscow, Russia
2. Laboratory of Systems of Non-Traditional Energy, Federal Scientific Agroengineering Center VIM, 109456 Moscow, Russia
Interests: renewable energy; agroengineering technologies; autonomous power supply; electric transport; three-dimensional modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, the environmental pollution become a crisis and the world is facing. The direction of research is towards the utilization of renewable energy which will help in fulfilling the energy demand and also to mitigate the environmental problems. The use of renewable energy plays an important role in agriculture, where technologies are also being improved from year to year – agricultural production is growing, and machinery and systems are becoming more autonomous and robotic, where it is no longer possible to do without complex computing, optimization, planning and working with large amount of data. Nowadays, a large amount of unstructured heterogeneous data powered the demand to extract useful insights in an automatic, reliable and scalable way.

This Special Issue focuses on issues of modern research related to design, calculations, manufacturing, optimization, planning, analysis of both individual devices and converters of renewable energy sources and large systems that work together with various energy sources. Along with renewable energy conversion systems, the Special Issue addresses issues related to current trends in improving the work of the agroengineering sector. Of greatest interest are studies on the computing and optimization of various agricultural machinery and agroengineering systems. This Special Issue aims to seek the high-quality papers from academics and industry-related researchers in the areas of applied mathematics, renewable energy systems, agricultural technologies, environmental bioengineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, data mining, multimedia processing and big data to show the most recently advanced methods.

Prof. Dr. Alla Nozhevnikova
Prof. Dr. Valeriy Kharchenko
Dr. Vladimir Panchenko
Guest Editors

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. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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

  • energy systems
  • energy saving technologies
  • renewable energy sources
  • smart city and green information systems
  • environmental issues
  • modern crop and livestock issues
  • microbiological research
  • equipment and technologies for agriculture
  • issues of energy supply and reliability computing
  • control systems
  • robotics
  • Internet of Things
  • Industry 4.0
  • smart optimization
  • multi-objective optimization
  • artificial intelligence
  • big data analytics, development and applications
  • cloud computing and deep learning

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 183 KiB  
Editorial
Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems
by Alla Nozhevnikova, Valeriy Kharchenko and Vladimir Panchenko
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(13), 7630; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13137630 - 28 Jun 2023
Viewed by 613
Abstract
The use of energy (and renewable energy, in particular) plays an important role in agriculture, where technologies are also being improved from year to year—agricultural production is growing, and machinery and systems are becoming more autonomous and robotic, where it is no longer [...] Read more.
The use of energy (and renewable energy, in particular) plays an important role in agriculture, where technologies are also being improved from year to year—agricultural production is growing, and machinery and systems are becoming more autonomous and robotic, where it is no longer possible to do without complex computing, optimization, planning, and working with large amounts of data [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

16 pages, 11583 KiB  
Article
Syntrophic Butyrate-Oxidizing Consortium Mitigates Acetate Inhibition through a Shift from Acetoclastic to Hydrogenotrophic Methanogenesis and Alleviates VFA Stress in Thermophilic Anaerobic Digestion
by Anna A. Nikitina, Anna Y. Kallistova, Denis S. Grouzdev, Tat’yana V. Kolganova, Andrey A. Kovalev, Dmitriy A. Kovalev, Vladimir Panchenko, Ivar Zekker, Alla N. Nozhevnikova and Yuriy V. Litti
Appl. Sci. 2023, 13(1), 173; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app13010173 - 23 Dec 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2222
Abstract
In anaerobic digestion (AD), butyrate is degraded by syntrophic consortium, but can accumulate in highly loaded AD systems. The effect of butyrate on the AD process attracts much less attention than propionate or acetate. In this work, an enrichment culture of the thermophilic [...] Read more.
In anaerobic digestion (AD), butyrate is degraded by syntrophic consortium, but can accumulate in highly loaded AD systems. The effect of butyrate on the AD process attracts much less attention than propionate or acetate. In this work, an enrichment culture of the thermophilic butyrate-oxidizing syntrophic consortium was obtained by gradually increasing the initial butyrate concentration from 20 to 170 mM. Surprisingly, even the highest butyrate concentration did not significantly inhibit the methanogenic community, and the stage of acetate degradation was the limiting overall rate of the process. At 170 mM butyrate, the bacterial community changed towards the dominance of syntrophic acetate-oxidizing (SAO) bacteria related to Syntrophaceticus (42.9%), Syntrophomonas (26.2%) and Firmicutes (26.2%), while the archaeal community experienced a sharp decrease in the abundance of Methanosarcina thermophila (from 86.0 to 25.0%) and increase in Methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus (from 3.2 to 53.1%) and Methanomassiliicoccus (from 3.2 to 21.9%). Thus, the shift from acetoclastic methanogenesis to SAO coupled to hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis occurred as an adaptive strategy to overcome high acetate (~200 mM) build-up. Bioaugmentation with the obtained enrichment culture was effective in mitigating the butyrate-dominated VFA build-up during the AD of readily biodegradable waste, increasing the methane production rate, methane yield and volatile solids removal by more than 3.5, 6.2 and 2.9 times, respectively. Our study revealed that the thermophilic butyrate-oxidizing consortia as bioaugmented culture could be the potential strategy to alleviate the high organic load and VFA stress of AD. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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17 pages, 3630 KiB  
Article
Electric Vehicle Transient Speed Control Based on Vector Control FM-PI Speed Controller for Induction Motor
by Humayun Salahuddin, Kashif Imdad, Muhammad Umar Chaudhry, Muhammad Munwar Iqbal, Vadim Bolshev, Aamir Hussain, Aymen Flah, Vladimir Panchenko and Marek Jasiński
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(17), 8694; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12178694 - 30 Aug 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1916
Abstract
The speed control of induction machines for multiple-speed handling is critical. When the vector control method is applied to induction machines, it has a significant impact on speed utilization. This strategy of operating the machine at a fixed predefined speed mode presents better [...] Read more.
The speed control of induction machines for multiple-speed handling is critical. When the vector control method is applied to induction machines, it has a significant impact on speed utilization. This strategy of operating the machine at a fixed predefined speed mode presents better results for electric vehicles. An effective model for a speed control loop is proposed in this paper, using a fixed-mode proportional integral (FM-PI) controller based on an upper and lower limit torque limiter. The power supply is fed using a lithium-ion battery with an inverter-fed mechanism. Moreover, the proposed model is validated using simulations with user-defined speed modes (40, 60, and 80 km/h). These speed modes, with different torque commands, have been considered for advanced modeling. In this model, torque is developed via a closed-loop control operation to attain the required speed assigned by the user. The sensors are used to collect data, and a multiple regression algorithm analyzes the dataset to predict input parameters (voltage (Vab), phase current (I), and torque (T)) required to achieve the desired speed mode. The efficiency of the proposed model is compared with induction motors bearing the same rating for the loaded and unloaded speed test. Effective machine parameter control is achieved by reaching the desired performance levels of 94.37% and 78.30% in a shorter time for the loaded and unloaded modes. A speed response comparison of the FOPID, KW-WOA-PID, SVR-PI, and FM-PI controller model simulation results indicates that the FM-PI speed controller guarantees better performance and displays an improvement in rising time and settling time, compared to other controllers. The implementation of different driving scenarios proves the model’s effectiveness for robust speed applications. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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13 pages, 3523 KiB  
Article
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Analysis of Anaerobic Microbial Metabolic Response to Benzalkonium Chloride Disinfectant
by Ryan Freemantle, Nick Butson, Janet Goodfellow, Julie Konzuk and James G. Longstaffe
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(9), 4620; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12094620 - 04 May 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1743
Abstract
Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are disinfection agents used in industrial cleaning processes that are known to interfere with the proper functioning of anaerobic waste digestion directly impacting the quality and quantity of the biogas produced (i.e., CO2 and CH4). While [...] Read more.
Quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are disinfection agents used in industrial cleaning processes that are known to interfere with the proper functioning of anaerobic waste digestion directly impacting the quality and quantity of the biogas produced (i.e., CO2 and CH4). While the impact of these contaminants on waste digestors are well known, the impact these compounds have on the metabolic profile of an anaerobic digestor is less understood. This paper describes the use nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a non-targeted tool to monitor variations in the metabolic profile of anaerobic bioreactor microcosms simulating the treatment of food production wastewater exposed to benzalkonium chloride (BAC), a key QAC. Using NMR, the variation in the metabolic profile of these wastewater microcosms is compared to variations in the quality and quantity of the biogas produced. A clear development of propionic, isobutyric, isovaleric, and other volatile fatty acids (VFAs) is observed indicating a disruption to the overall ability of the system to convert fatty acids to methane. The ability of NMR to successfully identify the overall metabolic profile, the occurrence of the individual VFAs, and the occurrence of BAC itself in one analysis helps to provide valuable information on the metabolic pathways involved in the disruption of these anaerobic processes. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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12 pages, 2794 KiB  
Article
Assessing the Homogeneity of Forage Mixtures Using an RGB Camera as Exemplified by Cattle Rations
by Evgeniy A. Nikitin, Dmitriy Y. Pavkin, Andrey Yu. Izmailov and Alexander G. Aksenov
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(7), 3230; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12073230 - 22 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2095
Abstract
The article examines existing methods for assessing the homogeneity of feed mixes in the feed industry and agriculture. As an alternative to existing approaches, the authors offer a low-cost online technology to assess the homogeneity of feed. The feedstuff under study includes feed [...] Read more.
The article examines existing methods for assessing the homogeneity of feed mixes in the feed industry and agriculture. As an alternative to existing approaches, the authors offer a low-cost online technology to assess the homogeneity of feed. The feedstuff under study includes feed mixes for cattle or compound feed consisting of naturally-grown feed (green mass of freshly cut grass, haylage, corn silage, etc.) and concentrated components (grain milling, sunflower, and soybean meal). The proposed method based on an RGB camera, a diode lamp, filters, and software is approved by a preliminary study of the physical properties of feed mix components by Specim IQ hyperspectral camera and revealing characteristics of light absorption of each type of components (concentrated/natural origin). The article presents a method of processing a feed mix image fixed by an RGB camera through light filters using Matlab Image Processing Toolbox tools, namely, a Color Thresholder app and Image Region Analyzer app. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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14 pages, 4543 KiB  
Article
Feasibility Study of Anaerobic Codigestion of Municipal Organic Waste in Moderately Pressurized Digesters: A Case for the Russian Federation
by Andrey A. Kovalev, Elza R. Mikheeva, Dmitriy A. Kovalev, Inna V. Katraeva, Svetlana Zueva, Valentina Innocenzi, Vladimir Panchenko, Elena A. Zhuravleva and Yuri V. Litti
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(6), 2933; https://doi.org/10.3390/app12062933 - 13 Mar 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2312
Abstract
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a promising option to obtain renewable energy in the form of biogas and reduce the anthropogenic impact on the environment. In recent years there has been increasing interest in using pressurized digesters to improve the quality of biogas. However, [...] Read more.
Anaerobic digestion (AD) is a promising option to obtain renewable energy in the form of biogas and reduce the anthropogenic impact on the environment. In recent years there has been increasing interest in using pressurized digesters to improve the quality of biogas. However, maintaining high overpressure increases the requirements for the explosion safety of digesters. Consequently, there are natural limitations in the available technologies and facilities suitable for full-scale operation. In this work, we aimed to evaluate the possibility of using overpressure in the digester to improve the efficiency of codigestion of common municipal organic waste–sewage sludge and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. Three levels of moderate excess pressure (100, 150 and 200 kPa) were used to meet requirements of existing block-modular anaerobic bioreactors based on railway tanks, which are widely utilized for AD in the Russian Federation. There was no significant change in methane content in biogas (65% ± 3%) at different values of overpressure, hydraulic retention time (HRT) and organic loading rate (OLR). The maximum methane and energy production rates (2.365 L/(L·day) and 94.27 kJ/(L·day), respectively) were obtained at an overpressure of 200 kPa, HRT of 5 days and OLR of 14 kg VS/(m3·day). However, the maximum methane yield (202.44 mL/g VS), energy yield (8.07 kJ/g VS) and volatile solids (VS) removal (63.21%) were recorded at an overpressure of 150 kPa, HRT of 7 days and OLR of 10.4 kg VS/(m3·day). The pressured conditions showed better performance in terms of AD stability at high OLRs. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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13 pages, 900 KiB  
Article
Use of Digestate as Organic Amendment and Source of Nitrogen to Vegetable Crops
by Carmo Horta and João Paulo Carneiro
Appl. Sci. 2022, 12(1), 248; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app12010248 - 27 Dec 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2926
Abstract
Anaerobic digestion is a valuable process to use livestock effluents to produce green energy and a by-product called digestate with fertilising value. This work aimed at evaluating the fertilising value of the solid fraction (SF) of a digestate as an organic amendment and [...] Read more.
Anaerobic digestion is a valuable process to use livestock effluents to produce green energy and a by-product called digestate with fertilising value. This work aimed at evaluating the fertilising value of the solid fraction (SF) of a digestate as an organic amendment and as a source of nitrogen to crops replacing mineral N. A field experiment was done with two consecutive vegetable crops. The treatments were: a control without fertilisation; Ni85 mineral fertilisation with 85 kg ha−1 of mineral N; fertiliser with digestate at an increasing nitrogen application rate (kg N ha−1): DG-N85 DG-N170, DG-N170+85, DG-N170+170; fertilisation with digestate together with Ni: DG-N85+Ni60, DG-N170+Ni60, DG-N170+Ni25. The results showed a soil organic amendment effect of the SF with a beneficial effect on SOM, soil pH and exchangeable bases. The SF was able to replace part of the mineral N fertilisation. The low mineralisation of the stable organic matter together with some immobilisation of mineral N from SF caused low N availability. The fertilisation planning should consider the SF ratio between the organic N (NO) and total N (TKN). Low NO:TKN ratios (≈0.65) needed lower Ni addition to maintaining the biomass production similar to the mineral fertilisation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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17 pages, 1801 KiB  
Article
Allocation of 0.4 kV PTL Sectionalizing Units under Criteria of Sensitivity Limits and Power Supply Reliability
by Alina Vinogradova, Alexander Vinogradov, Vadim Bolshev, Andrey Izmailov, Alexey Dorokhov and Alexey Bukreev
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(24), 11608; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112411608 - 07 Dec 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2256
Abstract
Sectionalizing 0.4 kV power transmission lines (PTL) improves power supply reliability and reduces electricity undersupply through the prevention of energy disconnection of consumers in the event of a short circuit in the power line behind the sectionalizing unit (SU). This research examines the [...] Read more.
Sectionalizing 0.4 kV power transmission lines (PTL) improves power supply reliability and reduces electricity undersupply through the prevention of energy disconnection of consumers in the event of a short circuit in the power line behind the sectionalizing unit (SU). This research examines the impact of sectionalizing on power supply reliability and reviews the literature on sectionalizing unit allocation strategies in electrical networks. This paper describes the experience of the use of sectionalizing units with listing strengths and weaknesses of adopted technical solutions and describes the new structure of sectionalizing units. A new methodology is proposed, whereby there are two criteria for allocating SU in 0.4 kV power transmission lines. The first criterion is the sensitivity limits against single-phase short circuits used for calculating the maximum distance at which SU can be installed. The second criterion is power supply reliability improvement, evaluating the cost-effectiveness of installing sectionalizing equipment by reducing power supply outage time. The established methodology was put to the test on an actual electrical system (Mezenka village, Orel area, Russia), which demonstrated that the installation of a sectionalizing unit paid off. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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12 pages, 2474 KiB  
Article
Algorithms for Detecting Cattle Diseases at Early Stages and for Making Diagnoses and Related Recommendations
by Dmitry Yu. Pavkin, Alexei S. Dorokhov, Fedor E. Vladimirov, Igor M. Dovlatov and Konstantin S. Lyalin
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(23), 11148; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112311148 - 24 Nov 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2000
Abstract
Analytical and theoretical studies were conducted in working cattle facilities in order to identify infectious, parasitic, and nervous diseases in large horned cattle. Our analytical study was based on the analysis of available scientific research papers. The theoretical research was based on processing [...] Read more.
Analytical and theoretical studies were conducted in working cattle facilities in order to identify infectious, parasitic, and nervous diseases in large horned cattle. Our analytical study was based on the analysis of available scientific research papers. The theoretical research was based on processing the measurement results with existing hardware and software. Both environmental and physiological parameters were obtained from five farms for at least 30 days. The studied cows were divided into two groups. One group consisted of 37 dairy cows of the Holstein breed aged 2–3 years having no clinical signs of disease. All cows in this group were fed the same diet, kept in the same conditions, and had the same lactation period (from 3 to 5 months). Their average weight was 517 (±2.03) kg. For inclusion into the second group, we selected 23 dairy cows with parameters similar to those of the cows in the first group but with some clinical signs of diseases such as encephalomyelitis, infectious enteritis, and hypodermatosis. The data obtained from the animals in the first group were considered as the parameters’ standardized boundary values for the estimation of a cow’s conditions, i.e., as the norm (the setpoint). As for the data obtained for the second group, they were considered to be deviations from the threshold values of the parameters (deviations from the setpoint, which required a pre-planned action). The analysis was carried out using the program code implemented in the software package “Matlab R2019b”. We analyzed the correlations between the cows’ rumen temperature and pH, their locomotive activity, and environmental parameters such as air temperature and relative humidity in the cowsheds. We then constructed graphs of inter-correlating functions. As a result of the study, for the first time, algorithms were compiled enabling the detection of infectious, parasitic, and nervous diseases. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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17 pages, 4155 KiB  
Article
Methods Improving Energy Efficiency of Photovoltaic Systems Operating under Partial Shading
by Pavel Kuznetsov, Leonid Yuferev, Dmitry Voronin, Vladimir A. Panchenko, Michał Jasiński, Arsalan Najafi, Zbigniew Leonowicz, Vadim Bolshev and Luigi Martirano
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10696; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112210696 - 12 Nov 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 1841
Abstract
This article is devoted to the relevant problem of increasing the efficiency of PV systems. The presented analysis discusses the available methods for improving the power generation of PV modules under partial shading. Mathematical models for power loss calculation were compiled based on [...] Read more.
This article is devoted to the relevant problem of increasing the efficiency of PV systems. The presented analysis discusses the available methods for improving the power generation of PV modules under partial shading. Mathematical models for power loss calculation were compiled based on the results of this analysis. The proposed approach minimizes the negative impact of partial shading on the energy production of PV modules. It is based on the equalization of voltages of parallel-connected arrays of modules by installing additional power elements in them. The proposed solution is promising for various areas; it allows for the minimization of the unfavorable influence of existing urban objects (buildings, trees, communications, etc.) on the energy efficiency of PV modules. The obtained results are useful for the sustainable development of the urban environment in the context of digital transformation. They are the basis for the promising methodology of the parametric optimization of power plants using renewable energy sources. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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13 pages, 6033 KiB  
Article
Designing and Simulating the Control Process of a Feed Pusher Robot Used on a Dairy Farm
by Dmitriy Yu. Pavkin, Denis V. Shilin, Evgeniy A. Nikitin and Ivan A. Kiryushin
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(22), 10665; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app112210665 - 12 Nov 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2528
Abstract
Feeding cattle on livestock farms is a labor-intensive operation that requires considerable capital investments to purchase equipment and cover labour costs. The global trends in developing technological equipment for feeding cattle include the robotization of various processes. The operation of feed pushing on [...] Read more.
Feeding cattle on livestock farms is a labor-intensive operation that requires considerable capital investments to purchase equipment and cover labour costs. The global trends in developing technological equipment for feeding cattle include the robotization of various processes. The operation of feed pushing on the feeding table is an integral part of the feeding process, which has a significant impact on livestock productivity. This study concentrates on the simulation modeling of a feed pusher robot using Simulink tools in the Matlab environment to facilitate robot modernization or optimize the final cost for artificial testing of typical system elements and reduce production costs. Based on a simulation model, an experimental sample was designed with a controlled dispenser of feed additives, which can significantly facilitate the feeding process and optimize the dosing of concentrated additives. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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13 pages, 6069 KiB  
Article
Assessment of Ultraviolet Impact on Main Pigment Content in Purple Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) by the Spectrometric Method and Hyperspectral Images Analysis
by Yuri A. Proshkin, Alexandr A. Smirnov, Natalya A. Semenova, Alexey S. Dorokhov, Dmitry A. Burynin, Alina S. Ivanitskikh and Vladimir A. Panchenko
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(19), 8804; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/app11198804 - 22 Sep 2021
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1979
Abstract
This research is aimed at the assessing the impact of the ultraviolet radiation in the A, B, and C ranges (as additives to the main light) on general plan condition, the stress experienced by them, the pigment concentration in the leaves and leaf [...] Read more.
This research is aimed at the assessing the impact of the ultraviolet radiation in the A, B, and C ranges (as additives to the main light) on general plan condition, the stress experienced by them, the pigment concentration in the leaves and leaf reflective characteristics. Under studying, there were the photo-protective reactions of the purple variety basil plants. The plants were grown in plastic pots in a phyto-chamber equipped with an automatic microclimate system. The phyto-chamber was divided into four compartments where, in addition to the main lighting, there were installed the additional LEDs emitting their radiation in the ranges UV-A, UV-B, and UV-C. Plant reactions were evaluated by the contents of the main pigments as detected by the spectrometric method. Then correlations were revealed between those values and the vegetative indices obtained based on the hyperspectral images. A strong correlation (R2 ˃ 0.83) was observed between the values of the vegetative indices ARI and mARI and the anthocyanins concentration in basil leaves. A weak correlation (R2 = 0.0479) was found between the ARI and mARI values and the carotenoids index CRI700, which is attributed to the shielding effect of the anthocyanins. Deviations in the results are influenced by leaf surface unevenness, its thickness and density. Additional research is needed including developing reflection indices taking into account the shielding effect of the purple pigments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Optimization for Agriculture and Agroengineering Systems)
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