Precision Oliviculture: Research Topics, Challenges, and Opportunities—A Review

Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been an increase in the agricultural area devoted to olive growing and in the consumption of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO). The continuous change in cultivation techniques implemented poses new challenges to ensure environmental and economic sustainability. In this context, precision oliviculture (PO) is having an increasing scientific interest and impact on the sector. Its implementation depends on various technological developments: sensors for local and remote crop monitoring, global navigation satellite system (GNSS), equipment and machinery to perform site-specific management through variable rate application (VRA), implementation of geographic information systems (GIS), and systems for analysis, interpretation, and decision support (DSS). This review provides an overview of the state of the art of technologies that can be employed and current applications and their potential. It also discusses the challenges and possible solutions and implementations of future technologies such as IoT, unmanned ground vehicles (UGV), and machine learning (ML)

A novel system for measuring damaging impacts on table olives

The consumer today demands high quality products; fruit with defects or in poor condition generate dissatisfaction and a consequent reduction in consumption. In recent years, interesting systems have been used (i. e. "artificial fruit") in order to identify the cause of damage during mechanical harvesting and/or post-harvest operations. In this paper, the authors present a new system designed to measure the impacts received by table olives in the processing stages from harvesting to packaging. The device is an instrumented sphere designed and implemented by the Agricultural Mechanics Section of the Department of Agricultural and Forest Sciences, University of Palermo, Italy. It contains a triaxial Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensor capable of acquiring acceleration from a few mg to 400 g (where g is the gravitational acceleration). It has a microcontroller with software developed for the specific application, a 16 bit A / D converter that allows a resolution of a few mg, a mini-USB port for connection to a master, which is connected to the PC via a common USB port. The master communicates with the sphere to download the data and to adjust parameters such as the data acquisition frequency, which can reach up to 1 kHz (50 Hz, 100 Hz, 400 Hz and 1 kHz). Preliminary tests performed on the functionality of the acquisition system show that the information obtained by the instrumented sphere are useful for identifying the stresses the fruits are subjected to during harvesting and post-harvest

A multi objective approach to short food supply chain management

Conventional supply chains, involving several stages and various intermediaries, are affected by some wellknown forms of inefficiencies and drawbacks. Besides the increase of market price consequent to multiple marginalization, such supply chains generally suffer of significant post-harvest losses and product waste. In this context, short food supply chains have been recently proposed as different systems capable of delivering higher quality products while promoting sustainability and efficiency. Across the EU, a growing number of consumers choose to buy food products on local farmers' markets, associating local products with higher quality standards (freshness, nutritional value), healthy eating, more environment-friendly production methods and lower carbon footprint. Such elements seem to confirm a higher performance of short food supply chains (SFSCs) compared to traditional (long) chains in terms of sustainability and quality of products. Nevertheless, the performance of SFSCs is significantly affected by the local contexts and the market situations in which they operate. In particular, although SFSCs are localized in relatively small geographical areas, the elimination of intermediaries, such as distributors/packagers, and quality preserving processes generally results in shorter shelf-life of products. The management of such systems, hence, is focused on the problem of ensuring superior quality of local product at reasonable costs, without the possibility of employing advanced packaging solutions. Therefore, due to their peculiarities, SFSCs require proper logistic policies to cope with these problems, taking into account the variability of demand and the effects of seasonality. This paper in particular focuses on the logistics of SFSCs and proposes a methodology for optimal inventory management, with the aim to preserve the shelf-life of the products, and to ensure supply chain efficiency. The methodology developed is based on a multi-objective approach to inventory management in a serial two-echelon system. A numerical application is proposed in order to prove the effectiveness of the model

Multicriteria Decision Analysis and Conversational Agents for children with autism

Conversational agents has emerged as a new means of communication and social skills training for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), encouraging academia, industry, and therapeutic centres to investigate it further. This paper aims to develop a methodological framework based on Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) to identify the best , i.e. the most effective, conversational agent for this target group. To our knowledge, it is the first time the MCDA is applied to this specific domain. Our contribution is twofold: i) our method is an extension of traditional MCDA and we exemplify how to apply it to decision making process related to CA for person with autism: a methodological result that would be adopted for a broader range of technologies for person with impairments similar to ASD; ii) our results, based on the above mentioned method, suggest that Embodied Conversational Agent is most appropriate conversational technology to interact with children with ASD

Influence of grape transport and destemming systems on the quality of Chardonnay wines

The winemaking technology plays a very important role in enology as it directly influences the characteristics of wine.  In particular, grape transport and destemming are critical steps in winemaking for the wine quality.  The aim of this study was to compare two different processing lines of Chardonnay grapes to evaluate their effects on the quality of the final product. In particular, grapes receiving, transporting and destemming were performed using different machines in order to evaluate their influence on the quality of Chardonnay wines.  The use of a receiving hopper equipped with a belt conveyor, followed by a destemmer equipped with partially coated rubber beaters, allowed to obtain Chardonnay wines of overall higher quality than using a receiving hopper equipped with a screw conveyor, followed by a destemmer equipped with steel beaters. The results were supported by chemical analyses on musts and wines and by the sensory analysis of the wines

A wireless sensor network for vineyard management in Sicily (Italy)

Wine quality depends on many factors, such as the choice of variety, stock, training system, pruning as well as environmental parameters and cultivation techniques performed in the vineyard.  Monitoring the micro-climate of grapevine allows to conveniently perform the most important cultivation techniques (soil management, pesticide treatments, green pruning, harvest) thus reducing the operating costs of the vineyard, and increasing the overall quality of the grapes.  The aim of the present study is to monitor the micro-climate of grapevine in order to control spring period hazards, to reduce the operating costs of the vineyard and to increase the quality of grapes.  For this purpose a Wireless Sensor Network was used, and a comparison was performed between the data measured by wireless sensors and data provided by a fixed meteorological station of the local government agency (SIAS - Regione Siciliana).  The results obtained here showed that, with reference to temperature, the data measured by wireless sensors are considerable different from the data of SIAS measuring station especially for temperatures above 20°C.  With reference to relative humidity, there are no differences between the two types of sensors.  Our study showed that the microclimate of the vineyard may be considerably different from the climate of the macro-area closest to the plot.  Monitoring the micro-climate may thus be crucial as it may represent the key to a rational management of the vineyard, also with regard to a reduction of the costs of certain cultural operations.   Keywords: vineyard, temperature, relative humidity, Wireless Sensor Network (WSN

Risk exposure to vibration and noise in the use of agricultural track-laying tractors

Human exposure to mechanical vibration may represent a significant risk factor for exposed workers in the agricultural sector. Also, noise in agriculture is one of the risk factors to be taken into account in the evaluation of workers’ health and safety. One of the major sources of discomfort for the workers operating a tractors is the noise to which they are exposed during work. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk of exposure to whole-body vibration for the operator driving track-laying tractors in vineyard orchard and the noise level. The experimental tests were performed with six different track-laying tractors coupled with the same rototilling machine. The results showed that the vibration values of track-laying tractors coupled to rototilling machine, referred to the 8-hour working day, were always higher than 0.5 m s-2, the daily exposure action value established by Directive 2002/44/EC of the European Parliament. The daily noise exposure levels always exceeded the exposure limit value of 87 dB(A) established by Directive 2003/10/EC of the European Parliament. The ANOVA repeated measures model showed that the factor ‘site’, namely, the soil characteristics, did not influence the vibration level on the X and Y-axes of the tractors measured, regardless of their age. In the Z-axis, the vibration level was enhanced as the soil structure increased. As tractor age increased, the influence of soil characteristics was less important. In term of the age of the tractor and the number of hours worked, it was possible to identify three risk classes, which were up to 3,000 hours worked and offered a low risk; from 3,000 – 6,000 hours worked with a medium risk, and over 6,000 hours with a high risk level

Design and implementation of a smart system to control aromatic herb dehydration process

Drying is a process aimed at reducing the water content in plant materials below a limit where the activity of microbes and decomposing enzymes deteriorate the quality of medicinal and aromatic plants. Today, the interest of consumers towards medicinal and aromatic herbs has registered a growing trend. This study aims at designing a low-cost real-time monitoring and control system for the drying process of aromatic herbs and evaluating drying ecacy on the microbial community associated with the studied herbs. Hot-air drying tests of sage and laurel leaves were carried out in a dryer desiccator cabinet at 40 C and 25% relative humidity using three biomass densities (3, 4 and 5 kg/m 2 ). The prototype of the smart system is based on an Arduino Mega 2560 board, to which nine Siemens 7MH5102-1PD00 load cells and a DHT22 temperature and humidity sensor were added. The data acquired by the sensors were transmitted through Wi-Fi to a ThingSpeak account in order to monitor the drying process in real time. The variation in the moisture content of the product and the drying rate were obtained. The system provided a valid support decision during the drying process, allowing for the precise monitoring of the evolution of the biomass moisture loss and drying rate for laurel and sage. The three dierent biomass densities employed did not provide significant dierences in the drying process for sage. Statistically significant dierences among the three tests were found for laurel in the final part of the process. The microbial loads of the aromatic herbs after drying were influenced by the dierent leaf structures of the species; in particular, with laurel leaves, microbial survival increased with increasing biomass density. Finally, with the drying method adopted, the two species under consideration showed a dierent microbial stability and, consequently, had a dierent shelf life, longer for sage than laurel, as also confirmed by water activity (aw) values