scholarly journals UAV-Based RGB Imagery for Hokkaido Pumpkin (Cucurbita max.) Detection and Yield Estimation

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Lucas Wittstruck ◽  
Insa Kühling ◽  
Dieter Trautz ◽  
Maik Kohlbrecher ◽  
Thomas Jarmer

Pumpkins are economically and nutritionally valuable vegetables with increasing popularity and acreage across Europe. Successful commercialization, however, require detailed pre-harvest information about number and weight of the fruits. To get a non-destructive and cost-effective yield estimation, we developed an image processing methodology for high-resolution RGB data from Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and applied this on a Hokkaido pumpkin farmer’s field in North-western Germany. The methodology was implemented in the programming language Python and comprised several steps, including image pre-processing, pixel-based image classification, classification post-processing for single fruit detection, and fruit size and weight quantification. To derive the weight from two-dimensional imagery, we calculated elliptical spheroids from lengths of diameters and heights. The performance of this processes was evaluated by comparison with manually harvested ground-truth samples and cross-checked for misclassification from randomly selected test objects. Errors in classification and fruit geometry could be successfully reduced based on the described processing steps. Additionally, different lighting conditions, as well as shadows, in the image data could be compensated by the proposed methodology. The results revealed a satisfactory detection of 95% (error rate of 5%) from the field sample, as well as a reliable volume and weight estimation with Pearson’s correlation coefficients of 0.83 and 0.84, respectively, from the described ellipsoid approach. The yield was estimated with 1.51 kg m−2 corresponding to an average individual fruit weight of 1100 g and an average number of 1.37 pumpkins per m2. Moreover, spatial distribution of aggregated fruit densities and weights were calculated to assess in-field optimization potential for agronomic management as demonstrated between a shaded edge compared to the rest of the field. The proposed approach provides the Hokkaido producer useful information for more targeted pre-harvest marketing strategies, since most food retailers request homogeneous lots within prescribed size or weight classes.

2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 9019-9027
Author(s):  
Jorge Andres Betancur G. ◽  
Sandra Bibiana Muriel R. ◽  
Elena Paola Gonzalez J.

The red dragon fruit Selenicereus undatus is a native fruit from the Americas. Its growing appeal in the international market as an exotic fruit highlights the relevance of the crop for the local economies. In Colombia, the high diversity within the genus and species makes it difficult to have reliable materials for propagation as cultivars. This agronomic challenge requires more studies of the distribution and real diversity within the genus Selenicereus sp. Due to the information aforementioned, the fruit is harvested in small localities as an extraction production system. This project aimed to morphologically characterize the working collection of red dragon fruit under growing conditions in the Municipality of San Jerónimo. It contained 30 accessions from the departments of Antioquia, Córdoba, and Valle del Cauca. Twenty-one characters of cladode, flower, and fruit were quantified to assess the diversity, and a restricted cluster analysis was performed to understand the morphological richness of the materials. As a result, it was observed differences in terms of stems, such as distance between areolas and width of cladode. This was also observed in flowers, in which their total length, the width of petals, the presence of trichomes, the color of calyx and petals, and the color of the stigma were different. Also, differences were recorded in the fruit. Characteristics such as weight and color of its skin were assessed, resulting in fruit size medium to small. Regarding other properties, total soluble solids varied between 11.2 to 15.6 °Brix. 55% of the fruits have measurements that fit market requirements. Finally, three accessions match the requirements of weight and °Brix, to be used as possible genotypes by commercial growers; however, studies about agronomic management strategies that favor an increase in fruit weight must be done.


2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (No. 3) ◽  
pp. 85-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Krška ◽  
J. Pramuková ◽  
M. Vachůn

In the years 2005, 2006, and 2007 the described pomological characteristics were evaluated and both heritability and correlation coefficients of the determined characteristics of parents and progeny were estimated for the Minaret × Betinka apricot hybrid population. Estimated heritability of fruit weight, over colour and flesh consistency was approximately 0.9. Heritability of flesh colour, fruit attractiveness and fruit flavour ranged from 0.6 to 0.9. The correlations show a strong dependence of the following characteristics of parent varieties and progeny: over colour and fruit attractiveness. Medium strong dependence was determined in the following characteristics: fruit colour and fruit flavour. Weak dependence was found in the case of fruit size.


HortScience ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 1031D-1031
Author(s):  
Francisco Radillo Juarez ◽  
Juan Manuel González Gonzalez ◽  
Marcelino Bazan Tene ◽  
Luis Fernando Velasco Garcia

In world production of vegetables, the red tomato contributes 47% of the total production and occupies second place in world consumption. The objective of this research was to evaluate 13 genotypes of red tomato with high technology for horticultural production in the greenhouse. This study was realized in “Zamora” greenhouses in Quesería-Montitlán, Colima, Mexico. The evaluated materials were: `Sun', D-0289, D-2465, D-2467, D-2475, D-2503, D-2505, D-2512, D-2515, D-2534, D-2541, D-2552, D-7705, and, as control, the `Roman' variety. The tallest height was that of `Roman' plants, 2.46 m, vs. the height of the first cluster of fruits in D-2575 with 51 cm. With respect to largest number of fruits per cluster and total harvested, D-0289 stood out with four and 18 fruits per plant, respectively. In regard to fruit size, the genotypes D-0289 and D-2534 presented the largest equatorial and polar diameter, with 19.2 and 14.2 cm, respectively. For fruit weight, the genotypes `Sun' and D-0289 presented the largest weight with 160 and 151 g, respectively. We conclude that agronomic management influences production under technical systems. For vegetative and productive desirable characteristics, the genotypes `Roman', D-0289, and D-77055 were the more adaptable for production in the greenhouse.


2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 213-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Kehinde ◽  
E. Idehen

Genetic variability and correlation analysis were studied in 20 accessions of ‘egusi’ melon during two growing seasons. The genotypic correlation coefficients with seed yield were partitioned into direct and indirect effect causes. Heritability in the broad sense ranged from 17% for fruit circumference to 90% for days to germination and flowering in the early season, while in the late season, heritability ranged from 7% for seed weight per fruit to 88% for days to germination. High phenotypic and genotypic coefficients of variation were recorded for seed yield while days to maturity had the lowest in both seasons. Fruit circumference and fruit weight had significant genotypic and phenotypic correlation with seed yield in the early season, while number of branches per plant, vine length per plant, number of fruits per plant and fruit circumference per plant showed significant genotypic and phenotypic correlation with seed yield in the late season. Environmental correlation coefficients were significant between seed yield and vine length per plant, number of fruits per plant and fruit size per plant. Vine length per plant and fruit circumference per plant had the largest positive direct effect on seed yield. Knowledge of the relationship of these characters with seed yield will aid in the selection of genotypes that have high seed yield, which will also be specific to the two major seasons in the year.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 1408-1422
Author(s):  
Alireza Bilesan ◽  
Shunsuke Komizunai ◽  
Teppei Tsujita ◽  
Atsushi Konno ◽  
◽  
...  

Kinect has been utilized as a cost-effective, easy-to-use motion capture sensor using the Kinect skeleton algorithm. However, a limited number of landmarks and inaccuracies in tracking the landmarks’ positions restrict Kinect’s capability. In order to increase the accuracy of motion capturing using Kinect, joint use of the Kinect skeleton algorithm and Kinect-based marker tracking was applied to track the 3D coordinates of multiple landmarks on human. The motion’s kinematic parameters were calculated using the landmarks’ positions by applying the joint constraints and inverse kinematics techniques. The accuracy of the proposed method and OptiTrack (NaturalPoint, Inc., USA) was evaluated in capturing the joint angles of a humanoid (as ground truth) in a walking test. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the proposed method in capturing the kinematic parameters of a human, lower body joint angles of five healthy subjects were extracted using a Kinect, and the results were compared to Perception Neuron (Noitom Ltd., China) and OptiTrack data during ten gait trials. The absolute agreement and consistency between each optical system and the robot data in the robot test and between each motion capture system and OptiTrack data in the human gait test were determined using intraclass correlations coefficients (ICC3). The reproducibility between systems was evaluated using Lin’s concordance correlation coefficient (CCC). The correlation coefficients with 95% confidence intervals (95%CI) were interpreted substantial for both OptiTrack and proposed method (ICC > 0.75 and CCC > 0.95) in humanoid test. The results of the human gait experiments demonstrated the advantage of the proposed method (ICC > 0.75 and RMSE = 1.1460°) over the Kinect skeleton model (ICC < 0.4 and RMSE = 6.5843°).


2001 ◽  
Vol 126 (4) ◽  
pp. 468-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Stommel

Genetic characterization of anthracnose resistance in tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.) caused by Colletotrichum coccodes (Wallr.) Hughes was accomplished using populations developed from crosses between the anthracnose susceptible cultivar US28 and three resistant breeding lines (115-4, 625-3, and 88B147) that varied in their degree of anthracnose resistance and relative stage of adaptation for commercial use. These lines were of common parental lineage with resistance derived from the small-fruited L. esculentum USDA PI 272636. Anthracnose lesion diameters and fruit weight were measured in puncture inoculated fruit of parental, F1, F2, and backcross generations within each cross. Correlation coefficients between fruit size and lesion diameter were low and generally nonsignificant. Estimates of broad and narrow sense heritabilities for resistance were moderate and declined as relative anthracnose susceptibility of the resistant parent increased coincident with increasing horticultural adaptation. A simple additive dominance model, m[d][h], was adequate to explain the genetic variance for anthracnose resistance in all crosses. Genetic variance for anthracnose resistance was primarily additive. The minimum number of effective factors or loci conditioning anthracnose resistance declined during attempts to transfer high levels of resistance from PI 272636 into adapted breeding lines.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Fuentes-Pacheco ◽  
Juan Torres-Olivares ◽  
Edgar Roman-Rangel ◽  
Salvador Cervantes ◽  
Porfirio Juarez-Lopez ◽  
...  

Crop segmentation is an important task in Precision Agriculture, where the use of aerial robots with an on-board camera has contributed to the development of new solution alternatives. We address the problem of fig plant segmentation in top-view RGB (Red-Green-Blue) images of a crop grown under open-field difficult circumstances of complex lighting conditions and non-ideal crop maintenance practices defined by local farmers. We present a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) with an encoder-decoder architecture that classifies each pixel as crop or non-crop using only raw colour images as input. Our approach achieves a mean accuracy of 93.85% despite the complexity of the background and a highly variable visual appearance of the leaves. We make available our CNN code to the research community, as well as the aerial image data set and a hand-made ground truth segmentation with pixel precision to facilitate the comparison among different algorithms.


Horticulturae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Tae-Kwon Son ◽  
Md Munir Mostafiz ◽  
Hwal-Su Hwang ◽  
Nguyen Truong Thạnh ◽  
Kyeong-Yeoll Lee

In various orchard fruit trees, thinning of blossoms and fruits is important to increase fruit size and quality and to promote a new bloom in the following season. Several chemical thinning agents are currently commercially available, but they are inconsistent and produce side effects in crop plants and insect pollinators. Because of environmental concerns, developing alternative eco-friendly bloom thinning agents is necessary. We developed an eco-friendly bloom thinning formulation (BTF) using minerals and extracts of various medicinal plants. Our BTF spray (0.1%, <i>w/v</i>) decreased the number of fruits per tree (46.5%) and fruit yield per tree (81.5%) but increased the fruit weight (196.8%) compared with the control treatment; the spray induced a small number of larger mango fruits in the treated trees. We also investigated the effect of BTF on the olfactory behavior of <i>Apis mellifera</i> L. (Hymenoptera, Apidae), a major insect pollinator. We analyzed the behavioral changes of adult workers at two different concentrations (0.1% and 1%) of nine different BTF spray components using a Y-tube olfactometer. The behavioral responses of honey bees to nine BTF components showed significant differences. However, honey bees showed no clear attraction or repellent behavior towards the tested BTF components. Our results suggest that the newly developed eco-friendly BTF is practically applicable in mango orchards without interrupting honey bee behavior.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1238
Author(s):  
Jere Kaivosoja ◽  
Juho Hautsalo ◽  
Jaakko Heikkinen ◽  
Lea Hiltunen ◽  
Pentti Ruuttunen ◽  
...  

The development of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) imaging technologies for precision farming applications is rapid, and new studies are published frequently. In cases where measurements are based on aerial imaging, there is the need to have ground truth or reference data in order to develop reliable applications. However, in several precision farming use cases such as pests, weeds, and diseases detection, the reference data can be subjective or relatively difficult to capture. Furthermore, the collection of reference data is usually laborious and time consuming. It also appears that it is difficult to develop generalisable solutions for these areas. This review studies previous research related to pests, weeds, and diseases detection and mapping using UAV imaging in the precision farming context, underpinning the applied reference measurement techniques. The majority of the reviewed studies utilised subjective visual observations of UAV images, and only a few applied in situ measurements. The conclusion of the review is that there is a lack of quantitative and repeatable reference data measurement solutions in the areas of mapping pests, weeds, and diseases. In addition, the results that the studies present should be reflected in the applied references. An option in the future approach could be the use of synthetic data as reference.


Horticulturae ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34
Author(s):  
Christopher Menzel

Five strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) cultivars were grown in Queensland, Australia to determine whether higher temperatures affect production. Transplants were planted on 29 April and data collected on growth, marketable yield, fruit weight and the incidence of small fruit less than 12 g until 28 October. Additional data were collected on fruit soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity (TA) from 16 September to 28 October. Minimum temperatures were 2 °C to 4 °C higher than the long-term averages from 1965 to 1990. Changes in marketable yield followed a dose-logistic pattern (p < 0.001, R2s = 0.99). There was a strong negative relationship between fruit weight (marketable) and the average daily mean temperature in the four or seven weeks before harvest from 29 July to 28 October (p < 0.001, R2s = 0.90). There were no significant relationships between SSC and TA, and temperatures in the eight days before harvest from 16 September to 28 October (p > 0.05). The plants continued to produce a marketable crop towards the end of the season, but the fruit were small and more expensive to harvest. Higher temperatures in the future are likely to affect the economics of strawberry production in subtropical locations.


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