When operating a tractor on a pavement, its vibration is greatly affected by the lug excitation force, which is caused by the interaction between the road and agricultural tire. Therefore, it is important to understand the characteristics of the lug excitation force to elucidate the mechanism of tractor vibration. However, it is difficult to directly measure the lug excitation force during rolling motion owing to the requirements of complicated measurement methods. Therefore, no studies have determined the lug excitation force. In this study, an agricultural tire is modeled as a 3-dimensional rigid ring model, which is useful for estimating the lug excitation force. Consequently, a new technique to determine the lug excitation force is presented. The shaft displacement and shaft force during rolling motion are measured in 3-dimensions through rolling test, and the lug excitation force is determined from the test data. The characteristics of the lug excitation and shaft forces are investigated, including the correlation between these and the tire vibration characteristics. Furthermore, the transfer characteristics of the lug excitation force with respect to the shaft force are analyzed, and the effect of the tire vibration characteristics on the transfer characteristics is examined. The developed technique is very useful in reducing tractor vibration caused by the lug excitation force.

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In this study, a mixed cropping 1 ha farm of maize and cassava was established using different planting and weeding modes to foster small scale agricultural machinery use among small holder farmers. The planting techniques employed include jab, rotary and manual planting while weeding methods include mechanical, chemical and manual weeding. The effects of these treatments were studied using field capacity of planting and weeding, yield of crops, and level of exertion of operator. The experiment was conducted using a split plot design with 2 replicates. The highest field capacity among the planting techniques was that of rotary planting with 1.53 ha / h while 0.012 ha / h was obtained for mechanical weeding. The highest yield of maize of 15.42 t / ha was obtained from rotary planting. All the treatments and their interactions are highly significant. However, there was no significant difference observed between all the variables for manual and mechanical weeding.

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This study aimed to examine binders for barley dumpling dough and to evaluate the skin of barley dumplings made using such binders. The study used 100 g of barley flour with 10 g of gluten added (100 g / 110 g; 91 % barley) as BG dumplings, and 50 g of wheat flour added (100 g / 150 g; 67 % barley) as BW dumplings. The cooked BG and BW dumpling skins showed a higher β-glucan and total polyphenols content and a lower firmness and extension than the cooked wheat dumpling skin. A sensory test revealed no difference between cooked BW and wheat dumplings, except for their color. The respondents rated cooked BG dumpling the same as wheat dumpling only in taste.

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We develop an online real-time near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopic sensing system for the determination of progesterone concentration during milking. Enzyme immunosorbent assay was used as the reference (chemical) method. During milking, the milk spectra data of the range of 700–1050 nm wavelength were recorded at 1-nm interval every 20 s. We used partial least squares statistical technique to generate statistical models. The results obtained indicated very high precision and accuracy for the prediction of progesterone concentration. Consequently, this NIR spectroscopic sensing system installation into an automatic milking system could assess the concentration of milk progesterone for one milking with almost identical accuracy as the chemical assay result. Thus, this sensing system could monitor each cow`s estrus status and early pregnancy diagnosis.

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