Files and links (2)
CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Dissertation
SENSING INTEGRATED AUTOMATED SOLID SET CANOPY DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR CROP LOSS MANAGEMENT IN DECIDUOUS FRUITS AND GRAPEVINES
Washington State University
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7273/000005481
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/119132
Abstract
The crop stressors often reduce the yield, quality, and marketability of the produce. This dissertation focuses on the development of precision technologies to manage biotic and abiotic stressors in deciduous crops and vineyards. A solid set canopy delivery system (SSCDS), a variant of fixed spray application system, have been studied as an alternative to the air-blast sprayers. Despite several advantages, inapt and expensive micro-emitter/nozzle configuration and manual system operation were major hurdle towards large-scale commercial adaptation of SSCDS. Also, existing abiotic crop loss (e.g., apple sunburn) management approaches lack reliable in-field sensing driven decision support tools for efficient stress mitigation. Therefore, the overall aims of this dissertation were to investigate and optimize the SSCDSs for effective insect/pest management as well as to develop a smart in-field crop loss monitoring system that could be integrated with automated SSCDS or similar systems.In this pursuit, the SSCDS was optimized to improve the spray performance and reduce the installation costs. Relatively inexpensive off-the-shelf irrigation micro-emitters were modified to obtain desirable spray performance from optimized SSCDS configured for modern architecture trained apple orchards and vineyards. The modified configurations demonstrated either comparable or better spray performance in terms of spray coverage, deposition, uniformity and drift, compared to the non-modified system. Furthermore, an electronic control system and a spray control unit were developed for field level SSCDS automation. The automated SSCDS performed reliably with desired sequencing of the valves to achieve precise spray application.
To effectively monitor and manage the apple sunburn associated losses, developed was an internet of things enabled crop physiology sensing (CPS) system. The CPS utilizes visible-infrared imagery and in-field weather data to estimate sunburn susceptibility. The field performance of CPS system was validated and improved in 2019 season. In the following season, improved system (CPS 2.0) and aerial infrared-visible sensing was deployed in an apple orchard to evaluate the heat stress mitigation efficacy of modified evaporative cooling (EC) system and shade net (SN) protection. Overall, system was able to evaluate the mitigation efficacy of the modified EC and SN and deployed protection measures indicated improvement in the yield, and quality.
Metrics
9 File views/ downloads
46 Record Views
Details
- Title
- SENSING INTEGRATED AUTOMATED SOLID SET CANOPY DELIVERY SYSTEM FOR CROP LOSS MANAGEMENT IN DECIDUOUS FRUITS AND GRAPEVINES
- Creators
- Rakesh Ranjan
- Contributors
- Lav R. Khot (Advisor)R. Troy Peters (Committee Member)Sindhuja Sankaran (Committee Member)Matthew J. Grieshop (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- Department of Biological Systems Engineering
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 299
- Identifiers
- 99900591956301842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation