optimization and online evaluation of work quality of tillage tools help to find optimal balance between effort and result in tillage operation. Currently, usage of laser scanner has become widespread to examine the soil profile after tillage. However, the results are significantly affected by external circumstances in the field such as sunlight, weeds, residual of plant, etc. Therefore, a soil bin test was carried out by using a laser scanner to evaluate the width and the area of the furrow (shape of furrow) created by using four standard chisel plow tines heavy duty, double heart, double heart with wing and duck foot with widths of cut 0.065, 0.135, 0.450, and 0.400 m, respectively at different speeds and depths. MATLAB based computer program was used to estimate soil profile parameters. Lab results were verified in a field test. The field results were evaluated based on geometric shape of the furrow obtained from the soil bin and a model based on Willatt and Willis's approach in predicting the furrow shape. Results show that the width of the furrow increases linearly with depth while the area of the furrow increases quadratically with depth for all tines. An excellent geometric shape of the furrow was obtained from the soil bin for every tine. The furrow shape is triangle for heavy duty and double heart tines, while it is triangle plus trapezoidal shape for double heart with wings and duck foot tines. Willatt and Willis's equation related to the width of the furrow shows a good agreement for heavy duty and double heart tines at shallow depth.

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In this study, X-ray computed tomography (CT) was used as a non-destructive technique to characterize and quantify the internal structure of cucumber fruit during storage. The physical properties of cucumber fruit were also measured destructively and related to X-ray absorptivity, and also changes in three-dimensional heterogeneous internal structure were visualized during storage at 15 °C and 25 °C and 90% RH for 7 days. As a result, the average gray scale (GS) value calculated from X-ray CT scanned tissue images indicated good correlations with the density, porosity, and elastic modulus of cucumber fruit. The peak height of the GS value related to the density and porosity. Standard deviation of the GS value was also related to the moisture content of the fruit. These results indicated that X-ray CT can be used to estimate physical properties related fruit quality. It was also revealed that the radiodensity of cucumber fruit changed in the mesocarp tissue but not change in the placenta tissue. GS level in the mesocarp tissue changed from white to dark from the fruit pedicel towards the apex at 25 °C. This result is useful to understand the expansion of low density part in fruit during storage.

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Bee-pollen is an important source of nutritional and bioactive compounds. Given its high moisture content, bee-pollen is dried before commercialization; however, there are some drawbacks in the microbiological quality, which have a remarkable effect on the physicochemical stability. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of drying on bee-pollen at temperatures between 40 °C and 60 °C based on microbiological, structural and physical-chemical characteristics. The obtained results showed that bee-pollen dried at 40 and 50 °C had a significant increase in acidity after treatment, possibly due to the remain microbiological load. In contrast, a significant increase in flavonoids, phenolics and antioxidant activity was found for all thermal treatments; nonetheless, a loss of carotenoids by the effect of temperature was also obtained. Microscopy images showed a slight degradation in the bee-pollen structure, which may have caused the release of bioactive compounds, increasing the antioxidant capacity. A total ranking technique suggested the most adequate temperature for drying bee-pollen at 60 °C.

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The aim of this study was to determine the appropriate strategy for cattle manure composting with forced aeration. The composting of cattle manure was conducted using an 18.8 L reactor with three different amounts of total air supplied (1080, 3240 and 10,800 L/kg dry mass) during 360 h of composting using continuous and on/off sequencing (20 min/h) aeration methods and three turning patterns (no turning, full turning and turning with position change). The degradation of organic matter in three-stage systems (the compost was turned every 120 h over the 360 h period) was significantly affected by total air supply volume and was large in the case of on/off sequence aeration. The pattern of moisture change was more affected by turning than by aeration modes. The optimal composting conditions for organic matter degradation (maximum of 37.7%) were aeration rate: 0.45 L/min kg dm, aeration mode: on/off sequencing process and full turning. The total accumulated weight losses and heat generated during composting indicated significant effects of the total air supplied and were large in the case of the continuous process.

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A mechanical mulching of soils during planting seedlings is becoming popular due to the shortage of labor. Evaluation of the dual action equipment for mulching soils along with planting of vegetable seedlings has been undertaken for qualitative performance of operations and productivity. The device was evaluated in production conditions for receiving its operational indicators. The deviation from a longitudinal axis line of planting seedlings was 5 cm and depth of planting seedling was 12 cm. The average field capacity of the combined machine in planting seedlings of vegetables was about 0.405 ha/hr. The average forward speed of machine was 2.03 km/h and thus average quantity of the planted seedlings was 271 seedlings/min.

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This study was conducted to determine vibration characteristics of packaged grapes during truck transportation and mechanical injury by such vibration stress. Vibration impact generated during a major freight distribution route of packaged grapes in Korea was measured in terms of the power spectral density (PSD). By using the PSD profile measured at the rear side of truck, a simulated transportation experiment was carried out to investigate how vibration stress influenced quality deterioration in grapes. The quality degradation of grapes under vibration stress and grapes without vibration stress was determined by measuring quality index indicators such as weight loss, soluble solids content (SSC), and ethylene production. Both grape groups were stored at refrigeration condition (1–2 °C, 65–75% RH) for 30 consecutive days. As compared to the control grape group, the decrement of weight loss and SSC in grape group suffered from vibration was 6% and 1.3° Brix, respectively; while ethylene production was increased by 7 nL/g․hr. The results clearly showed that vibration stress could result in the degradation and rapid ripening of packaged grapes.

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In China, the crop diseases and insect pests are the main causes of output reduction and quality decline of crops. Through inspection of crop insects, we can prevent the pests in a timely and effective manner. The visible-near infrared (VNIR) spectral reflectance can intuitively reflect the growth, disease and insect pests information of crops, and through analysis of the crop's reflectance spectrum, we can detect and identify the crop pests. Clustering analysis is an important multivariable statistic and analysis method, and with the unsupervised learning method, we can effectively detect and classify the spectra of crop pests. In this paper, by using the spectral acquisition device designed by us, we collected three types of pests spectra on fresh broad bean leaves in a laboratory environment. We propose a scheme to analyze the clustering performance of crop pests spectra with the K-Means and the FCM clustering methods, and Matlab 2012b was used to realize the two clustering algorithms and analyze these clustering results. The experiment results show that the FCM clustering method has a better rate of identification, while the K-means clustering method has higher execution efficiency.

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