Horticultural food crops

1986 ◽  
Vol 87 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 165-172
Author(s):  
C. E. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
Fruit And Vegetables ◽  
Border Region ◽  
Food Crops ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Processing Industry ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
Moray Firth ◽  
Soft Fruit

SynopsisIn Scotland horticultural food crops occupy about 1·4% of the tillage land, and contribute about 4% of the total Scottish agricultural output. Climate, soil type and factors such as distance to markets and availability of labour have influenced the location of horticultural crops. This has changed with time, particularly because of the influence of the processing industry. Soft fruit production (3,630 hectares), with raspberries being the dominant crop, is concentrated in the Tayside region; more than 90% of the raspberry crop is processed by pulping (for jam, etc.), freezing or canning. Vegetable production (6,130 hectares) is somewhat more dispersed from the Border region to the Moray Firth; more than half the total area is occupied by peas for canning and freezing. Glasshouse production of tomatoes is now only 25 hectares located mainly in the Clyde Valley.The future for Scottish horticultural food production will continue to be influenced by the requirements of the processing industry, but there is also an increasing outlet for fresh fruit and vegetables in supermarkets. Expansion of the production of horticultural food crops in Scotland depends on the ability of the industry to meet market demands in terms of quality and continuity of supply. Increasing reference to the need for an improved British diet may stimulate the consumption of fruit and vegetables on the home market and there continue to be opportunities for increasing the export of processed and fresh produce. Scotland has the land resources, crop production expertise and processing and marketing facilities to respond to these opportunities.

Soil management.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joann Whalen
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Root System ◽  
Root Zone ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
Ornamental Plants ◽  
Soil Management ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Food Crops ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Horticultural Crops

Abstract Horticulture involves growing crops and ornamental plants in indoor and outdoor environments. Horticultural crops include food crops such as vegetables and fruits (including tree fruits, small fruits and grapes), as well as nut- and seed-bearing plants, herbs and spices. Many non-food crops are also managed by horticulturalists, including medicinal plants, tobacco, hemp, ornamental plants and flowers. Horticultural crops grow naturally in temperate, sub-tropical and tropical climates of the world, although many of these crops are sufficiently robust that they can be grown in any suitable controlled environment. In 2015, astronauts on the International Space Station grew, harvested and ate red romaine lettuce from their VEGGIE system (Vegetable Production System), which has successfully produced lettuce, Swiss chard, radishes, Chinese cabbage and peas in simulated space environments. The VEGGIE is equipped with adequate lighting, water and nutrients to grow vegetables, relying on the space station's cabin environment for temperature and pressure control, and as a source of carbon dioxide for plant growth (NASA, 2016). Most horticultural crops are planted in soil, although modern cultivation techniques include other media, such as peat-based soil, compost, and inert substrates such as rockwool. A suitable growing media must provide anchorage and stability for the plant roots, considering the diverse life histories of horticultural crops. For example, plants that complete their life cycle in one (annual) or two (biennial) growing seasons does not produce the extensive, deep root system of a woody perennial that lives for several decades. Without adequate anchorage, shrubs and trees are vulnerable to blow down in wind-storms if their roots are in loose, fluid soils or if the plant has a shallow root system on a rocky strata close to the surface. Wind rocking of a poorly-anchored seedling can lead to fine roots breakage and root system detachment from soil, causing the plant to tilt. Soil management refers to the way that soils are cultivated to support horticultural crop growth. Actively growing roots need oxygen for their metabolic function, so the soil must have a crumbly, porous structure that allows for gas exchange with the atmosphere. The porous soil structure permits oxygen diffusion to the root zone, and for carbon dioxide respired by the roots to leave the soil environment. Since plants roots are responsible for obtaining most of the water required for metabolic functions and cooling leaf surfaces, the soil must retain and supply water to the roots while avoiding waterlogging, which inhibits root functions. Soil also provides many essential plant nutrients for crop growth, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur and micronutrients (boron, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, chloride, molybdenum and nickel). Nutrient uptake in the root system is facilitated by plant interactions with soil-dwelling microorganisms, both free-living and symbiotic, which are abundant in the root zone. Good soil management is essential to produce nutritious, high yielding food and to support the growth of non-food crops like herbaceous and woody ornamentals. Soil management specialists are responsible for maintaining the soil physical integrity, its chemical balance and soil microbial life necessary for growing horticultural crops.

scholarly journals Precision Agriculture Technology for Horticultural Crop Production

2000 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 448-451 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary T. Roberson
Keyword(s):  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Process Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
North Carolina State University ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
Agricultural Engineering ◽  
Agronomic Crops ◽  
Functional Areas

Precision agriculture is a comprehensive system that relies on information, technology and management to optimize agricultural production. While used since the mid-1980s in agronomic crops, it is attracting increasing interest in horticultural crops. Relatively high per acre crop values for some horticultural crops and crop response to variability in soil and nutrients makes precision agriculture an attractive production system. Precision agriculture efforts in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering at North Carolina State University are currently focused in two functional areas: site-specific management and postharvest process management. Much of the information base, technology, and management practices developed in agronomic crops have practical and potentially profitable applications in fruit and vegetable production. Mechanized soil sampling, pest scouting and variable rate control systems are readily adapted to horticultural crops. Yield monitors are under development for many crops that can be mechanically harvested. Investigations have begun to develop yield monitoring capability for hand harvested crops. Postharvest controls are widely used in horticultural crops to enhance or protect product quality.

scholarly journals 644 Precision Agriculture Technology for Horticultural Crop Production

HortScience ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 558E-558
Author(s):  
Gary T. Roberson
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
Agricultural Engineering ◽  
Agronomic Crops ◽  
Functional Areas

Precision agriculture is a comprehensive system that relies on information, technology, and management to optimize agricultural production. While used for several years in agronomic crops, it is attracting increasing interest in horticultural crops. Relatively high per-acre crop values for some horticultural crops makes precision agriculture an attractive production system. Precision agriculture efforts in biological and agricultural engineering at North Carolina State Univ. are currently focused in two functional areas: site specific managment (SSM) and postharvest process managment (PPM). Much of the information base, technology, and management practices developed in agronomic crops have practical and potentially profitable applications in fruit and vegetable production. Mechanized soil sampling, and variable rate control systems are readily adapted to horticultural crops. Postharvest controls are widely used to enhance or protect product quality. These technologies and their applications will be discussed in this presentation. Yield monitors are under development for many crops that can be mechanically harvested. An overview of these developments will be discussed. In addition, low-cost technologies for entry into precision will be presented.

scholarly journals A DEMONSTRATION OF HORTICULTURAL CROP PRODUCTION ON A RECLAIMED SURFACE MINE SITE IN SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA

HortScience ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 914F-914
Author(s):  
Donna Coffindaffer-Ballard ◽  
B.C. Bearce ◽  
J. Skousen ◽  
G. Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Green Manure ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
White Birch ◽  
Amended Soils ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
Fe Content ◽  
Break Even Point ◽  
Reclaimed Minesoil

A 0.2-ha reclaimed minesoil site near Welch, W.Va., was amended with sewage sludge, hardwood bark, and a sorghum–sudan hybrid green manure crop to demonstrate production of horticultural crops. A selection of crops, including white birch, forsythia, zinnia, tomato, yarrow, red raspberry, and strawberry, was planted and grown. Plant growth and development, including flower and fruit production, tended to be enhanced by sludge-amended soils and reduced in green manure and hardwood bark–amended soils. Sludge increased pH, Ca, P, and Mg levels above that in the other treatments. Hardwood bark increased Mn but decreased P. The green manure amendment increased soil Fe content. In 1994 `Allstar' strawberry yield and berry weights were similar for all plots, but yield was about 10% of expected and was very close to the economic break-even point. Third-year yield of 1992 planted `Heritage' raspberries was about one-half the expected yield of 5000 lbs/acre, but still considered profitable. Zinnia flower production yielded a calculated 32% return on investment. Assuming that 50% forsythia plants were saleable in 2 years, return on investment was projected to be 30%. For white birch, assuming half were saleable in 4 years, a 16% return on investment was projected.

Biogas digestate as a renewable fertilizer: effects of digestate application on crop growth and nutrient composition

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Maxwell E. Lee ◽  
Matthew W. Steiman ◽  
Sarah K. St. Angelo
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
Crop Growth ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Crop Species ◽  
Nutrient Levels ◽  
Greenhouse Study ◽  
Combined Application ◽  
Biogas Digestate ◽  
Agrarian Communities

Abstract Biogas digesters convert waste matter into a natural gas-like fuel and a nutrient-rich digestate by-product. This digestate has the potential to be used as a soil amendment to benefit crop production with or without biochar, a purported nutrient sponge. In a greenhouse study of several crop species, the effects of digestate fertilization on crop growth, photosynthetic efficiency, vegetable production and chemical nutrient levels were tested. Results indicate that increasing potency of the applied digestate fosters higher growth and fruit production rates of several studied plants but to a lesser degree than a conventional fertilizer. More potent digestate application increases antioxidant capacity, total phenolics content and ascorbic acid levels in kale compared to the control chemical fertilizer test groups but has confounding results on legume nutrient levels. Additionally, the combined application of biochar and biogas digestate added to compost and used as potting media positively impacts crop germination. This work has relevance to agrarian communities that could benefit from recycling livestock and food waste into fuel and a renewable fertilizer.

scholarly journals Relations between zero-inflated variables in trials with horticultural crops

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. e0906 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro D. Lúcio ◽  
Luis F. Nunes ◽  
Francisco Rego ◽  
Maurício P. B. Pasini
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
Basic Unit ◽  
Production Cycle ◽  
Vegetable Crops ◽  
Harvest Management ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Santa Maria ◽  
Uniformity Trials

Certain characteristics of some vegetable crops allow multiple harvests during the production cycle; however, to our knowledge, no study has described the behavior of fruit production with progression of the production cycle in vegetable crops with multiple harvests that present data overdispersion. We aimed to characterize the data overdispersion of zero-inflated variables and identify the behavior of these variables during the production cycle of several vegetable crops with multiple harvests. Data from 11 uniformity trials were used without applying treatments; these comprise the database from the Experimental Plants Group at the Federal University of Santa Maria, Brazil. The trials were conducted using four horticultural species grown during different cultivation seasons, cultivation environments, and experimental structures. Although at each harvest, a larger number of basic units with harvest fruit was observed than units without harvest fruit, the basic unit percentage without fruit was high, generating an overdispersion within each individual harvest. The variability within each harvest was high and increased with the evolution of the production cycle of Capsicum annuum, Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme, Phaseolus vulgaris, and Cucurbita pepo species. However, the correlation coefficient between the mean weight and number of harvest fruits tended to remain constant during the crop production cycle. These behaviors show that harvest management should be done individually, at each harvest, such that data overdispersion is reduced.

scholarly journals Sustainable Agriculture Systems in Vegetable Production Using Chitin and Chitosan as Plant Biostimulants

Biomolecules ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 819
Author(s):  
Mohamad Hesam Shahrajabian ◽  
Christina Chaski ◽  
Nikolaos Polyzos ◽  
Nikolaos Tzortzakis ◽  
Spyridon A. Petropoulos
Keyword(s):  
Plant Growth ◽  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Growth Promotion ◽  
Growth Promoter ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Nutrient Delivery ◽  
Horticultural Crops ◽  
Beneficial Effects ◽  
Chitin And Chitosan

Chitin and chitosan are natural compounds that are biodegradable and nontoxic and have gained noticeable attention due to their effective contribution to increased yield and agro-environmental sustainability. Several effects have been reported for chitosan application in plants. Particularly, it can be used in plant defense systems against biological and environmental stress conditions and as a plant growth promoter—it can increase stomatal conductance and reduce transpiration or be applied as a coating material in seeds. Moreover, it can be effective in promoting chitinolytic microorganisms and prolonging storage life through post-harvest treatments, or benefit nutrient delivery to plants since it may prevent leaching and improve slow release of nutrients in fertilizers. Finally, it can remediate polluted soils through the removal of cationic and anionic heavy metals and the improvement of soil properties. On the other hand, chitin also has many beneficial effects such as plant growth promotion, improved plant nutrition and ability to modulate and improve plants’ resistance to abiotic and biotic stressors. The present review presents a literature overview regarding the effects of chitin, chitosan and derivatives on horticultural crops, highlighting their important role in modern sustainable crop production; the main limitations as well as the future prospects of applications of this particular biostimulant category are also presented.

Impact of Nitrogen Management Practices on Total Nitrogen in the Fruits of High Productive Hamlin Orange Trees

HortScience ◽  
1998 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 498e-498
Author(s):  
S. Paramasivam ◽  
A.K. Alva
Keyword(s):  
Crop Production ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fine Sand ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
Perennial Crop ◽  
Total N ◽  
N Removal ◽  
Leaf N Concentration ◽  
N Rates ◽  
Orange Trees

For perennial crop production conditions, major portion of nutrient removal from the soil-tree system is that in harvested fruits. Nitrogen in the fruits was calculated for 22-year-old `Hamlin' orange (Citrus sinensis) trees on Cleopatra mandarin (Citrus reticulata) rootstock, grown in a Tavares fine sand (hyperthermic, uncoated, Typic Quartzipsamments) that received various N rates (112, 168, 224, and 280 kg N/ha per year) as either i) broadcast of dry granular form (DGF; four applications/year), or ii) fertigation (FRT; 15 applications/year). Total N in the fruits (mean across 4 years) varied from 82 to 110 and 89 to 111 kg N/ha per year for the DGF and FRT sources, respectively. Proportion of N in the fruits in relation to N applied decreased from 74% to 39% for the DGF and from 80% to 40% for the FRT treatments. High percentage of N removal in the fruits in relation to total N applied at low N rates indicate that trees may be depleting the tree reserve for maintaining fruit production. This was evident, to some extent, by the low leaf N concentration at the low N treatments. Furthermore, canopy density was also lower in the low N trees compared to those that received higher N rates.

scholarly journals Deep Learning-Based Growth Prediction System: A Use Case of China Agriculture

Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 1551
Author(s):  
Tamoor Khan ◽  
Jiangtao Qiu ◽  
Hafiz Husnain Raza Sherazi ◽  
Mubashir Ali ◽  
Sukumar Letchmunan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Agricultural Development ◽  
Production Efficiency ◽  
Fruit Production ◽  
National Bureau ◽  
System A ◽  
Future Production ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Agricultural Yields

Agricultural advancements have significantly impacted people’s lives and their surroundings in recent years. The insufficient knowledge of the whole agricultural production system and conventional ways of irrigation have limited agricultural yields in the past. The remote sensing innovations recently implemented in agriculture have dramatically revolutionized production efficiency by offering unparalleled opportunities for convenient, versatile, and quick collection of land images to collect critical details on the crop’s conditions. These innovations have enabled automated data collection, simulation, and interpretation based on crop analytics facilitated by deep learning techniques. This paper aims to reveal the transformative patterns of old Chinese agrarian development and fruit production by focusing on the major crop production (from 1980 to 2050) taking into account various forms of data from fruit production (e.g., apples, bananas, citrus fruits, pears, and grapes). In this study, we used production data for different fruits grown in China to predict the future production of these fruits. The study employs deep neural networks to project future fruit production based on the statistics issued by China’s National Bureau of Statistics on the total fruit growth output for this period. The proposed method exhibits encouraging results with an accuracy of 95.56% calculating by accuracy formula based on fruit production variation. Authors further provide recommendations on the AGR-DL (agricultural deep learning) method being helpful for developing countries. The results suggest that the agricultural development in China is acceptable but demands more improvement and government needs to prioritize expanding the fruit production by establishing new strategies for cultivators to boost their performance.

scholarly journals Remote Control of Greenhouse Vegetable Production with Artificial Intelligence—Greenhouse Climate, Irrigation, and Crop Production

Sensors ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (8) ◽  
pp. 1807 ◽  
Author(s):  
Silke Hemming ◽  
Feije de Zwart ◽  
Anne Elings ◽  
Isabella Righini ◽  
Anna Petropoulou
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Vegetable Production ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Greenhouse Climate ◽  
Fresh Food ◽  
Net Profit ◽  
Greenhouse Vegetable ◽  
Process Computer ◽  
Cucumber Yield

The global population is increasing rapidly, together with the demand for healthy fresh food. The greenhouse industry can play an important role, but encounters difficulties finding skilled staff to manage crop production. Artificial intelligence (AI) has reached breakthroughs in several areas, however, not yet in horticulture. An international competition on “autonomous greenhouses” aimed to combine horticultural expertise with AI to make breakthroughs in fresh food production with fewer resources. Five international teams, consisting of scientists, professionals, and students with different backgrounds in horticulture and AI, participated in a greenhouse growing experiment. Each team had a 96 m2 modern greenhouse compartment to grow a cucumber crop remotely during a 4-month-period. Each compartment was equipped with standard actuators (heating, ventilation, screening, lighting, fogging, CO2 supply, water and nutrient supply). Control setpoints were remotely determined by teams using their own AI algorithms. Actuators were operated by a process computer. Different sensors continuously collected measurements. Setpoints and measurements were exchanged via a digital interface. Achievements in AI-controlled compartments were compared with a manually operated reference. Detailed results on cucumber yield, resource use, and net profit obtained by teams are explained in this paper. We can conclude that in general AI performed well in controlling a greenhouse. One team outperformed the manually-grown reference.

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