American Journal of Agricultural Research

In recent years, as the information technology becomes mature gradually and the modernized agriculture develops rapidly, the important role of agricultural mechanization in the development of the Internet era has gradually become prominent. As an important part of modernized agriculture development, the agricultural mechanization is also facing management problems caused by the information technology in the Internet era. The information shows new characteristics in the development of agricultural mechanization in the Internet era, such as rapid increase in the amount of information, faster data transmission and processing, more diverse data acquisition and processing methods, more and more complex technologies involved in information processing, and more and more extensive fields. As the information becomes diversified, complex and massive, the traditional agricultural machinery service management model shows greater limitations, such as low management efficiency, backward management methods, and low quality levels, etc.. The GIS technology has brought unprecedented development opportunities for the development of agricultural informatization. It plays an important role in promoting the improvement of agricultural machinery informatization to develop the agricultural machinery IoT service system by using the GIS technology.

Rice is a world-famous cereal food divided into pigmented and non-pigmented rice. Pigmented rice is popular as healthier food than non-pigmented rice due to its potency as an antioxidant. Nevertheless, the potential of pigmented rice has not been widely studied. Indonesian selected pigmented rice protein’s antioxidant potential and the non-protein compound were in-vitro studied. The antioxidant potencies were evaluated by extracting fresh seeds of nine pigmented rice (Aek Sibundong, Beureum Taleus, Gogo Niti-2, Lamongan-1, Merah SP, Merah Wangi, Mota, Ketan Hitam-2, and Super Manggis) and non-pigmented rice (IR-64) as control. Various free radical scavenging methods to determine the antioxidant activity (ABTS•+, DPPH•, OH• and O2-) were conducted. Meanwhile, the genetic classification was performed by a simple sequence repeat (SSR) marker to determine the relationship between varieties. The results showed that protein of Ketan Hitam-2 had the highest ABTS•+ radical scavenging (98.06%), followed by Beureum Taleus (42.54%). Ketan Hitam-2 protein also showed the highest OH• and O2- activities (43.49% and 6.02%, respectively). The highest DPPH• potency of the non-protein compounds also shown by Ketan Hitam-2 (32.23%) with the activity of OH• and O2- (20.63% and 14.56%, respectively). These results showed that Ketan Hitam-2 has the highest potency as an antioxidant, which could be recommended as a nutraceuticals compound.

Food systems of the future that will guarantee food and nutrition security of millions of poor farming households will have to be both economically and socially diverse. Diversity of farming systems acts as a catalyst for innovation, commercialisation as well as technology adoption. This study sought to find farm typologies and explore the social, enterprise and economic diversity of the various farm types based on a promoted Growing Bananas with Trees and Livestock (GBTL) technology system that was implemented by National Agricultural Research Organisation and Bioversity International in three districts of Central Uganda, Kiboga, Nakaseke and Ssembabule. Using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cluster Analysis (CA), typologies were created in which two distinct clusters of farming households were revealed. Further analysis of the clusters through Food Consumption Scores, food classes, and other descriptive statistics indicated that the two clusters were socially and economically diverse. Findings indicated that Cluster 1 is made up of smaller farms with high crop diversity. Families in Cluster 1 sell more of their produce and subsequently have lower food security compared to the land-abundant, off-farm earning and more food secure Cluster 2. We failed to reject the hypothesis that socially and economically diverse farmers adopt technologies more given that the level of GBTL adoption was about 25% and about 70% for Banana + Goats within both clusters.

The study evaluated the potential for improved and sustainable adoption of conservation agriculture in five regions in Namibia namely, Omusati, Kunene, Oshikoto, Ohangwena, and Oshana. Conventional system of farming involves, monoculture and deep soil tillage with ox-drawn ploughs with limited mechanisation. These practices are unproductive and unsustainable given increased uncertainty due to climate change.Therefore, conservation agriculture was introduced in the regions through the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO) assisted programme. The aim of the programme was to lower vulnerability by increasing the resilience of the smallholder farmers in the selected regions to adapt to climate change risks through the implementation of Conservation Agriculture (CA) and other complementary Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). The hypothesis is that increased CA knowledge would enhance improved outcomes. An empirical estimation of the relationship between the farmers learned CA skills, and the level of CA outcome was carried out using econometrics method. One hundred and forty-four farmers were sampled from the selected regions. The result indicates that additional CA knowledge may result in farmers’ improving their General Agricultural Practices. In order words, farmers are more likely to improve weeding than not, the area planted is more likely to increase than decrease and fertilizer application is more likely to increase significantly than not. There is an increase in the ordered log-odds of moving from a lower to a higher outcome level. For instance, a one-unit increase in the farmers’ CA knowledge will result in 0.05 unit increase in ordered log-odds of being in the higher category for the ‘area planted’ outcome variable while the other variables in the model are held constant. The same relationship applies to other outcome variables for farmers’ improved knowledge. In addition, the sustainability of the CA project was investigated. Using a probit probability choice model, it was found that CA adoption will…

Field tests are necessary in establishing navigation models and algorithms for agricultural vehicle robots. And it costs much to use tractors or combine harvesters as the platform in terms of system modification, routine maintenance and fuel consumption. The objective of this research was to develop a general-purpose test platform for conducting experiments in agricultural autonomous navigation at a low cost based on a commercially available electric vehicle. A brushless motor was utilized as the power source for automatic steering. An analog PID controller was designed to compare steering commands and actual steering angle and calculate an appropriate voltage signal as the input of the motor driver. A rotary encoder was attached to the driving wheel and a digital PID controller was implemented to determine the throttle value in real-time in maintaining the test platform at a desired speed. A CAN-bus network was established to integrate the automatic steering system and the speed control system as two nodes for information communication. And a CAN node interface was reserved for receiving commands from autonomous navigation systems to be evaluated. Field tests showed that RMS errors were 2.6 cm and 0.054 m·s-1 for lateral offset and speed control, respectively, in tracking straight paths, which indicated that the newly developed test platform met requirements for agricultural navigation experiments.

Agriculture in the north of Côte d’Ivoire, like the rest of the country, is undergoing genuine development. This situation is leading producers to adopt new cultivation techniques, including the use of herbicides for weed control. Herbicides have advantages and disadvantages in their handling. Knowing how dangerous these products can be, identifying them would be advantageous, hence this study. The main objective of this study is to establish a list of herbicides used on vegetable and food crops in the study area. In the departments of Boundiali, Ferké, Korhogo, and Séguéla directed interviews were conducted with traders, producers, and firms. They focused on the active ingredients of the herbicides, the type, and the mode of use. At the end of the study, seventy-seven herbicides divided into twenty-two active ingredients were identified. Glyphosate was the most present followed by nicosulfuron. To conclude, it should be noted that herbicides are present in the habits of the producers in our study area. They still do not use the products according to the standards. These results will help improve the quality and sustainability of agriculture.

Poultry feathers are rich in amino acids and keratin resources, which is a kind of protein feed raw materials with high nutritional value. A twin-screw extruder was designed to deal with the environmental damage caused by the shortage of rapidly developing protein feed and the large amount of feather waste in China’s livestock breeding industry. The bulking machine can break the disulfide bond and hydrogen bond in feather keratin to form crude protein which can be absorbed by livestock. A kind of high-protein feed feather powder was developed while protecting the environment. The combination mode and rotation direction between two screws are discussed, the relationship between the key basic parameters of the twin screw is derived by combining the motion principle of the twin screw and the relative geometric position. It provides theoretical basis for determining screw parameters and working condition parameters in the following experimental research.

Macaronesia islands’ invasive plant use in animal feed or composting may bring economic and environmental benefits to the region. Arundo donax, Pennisetum setaceum, Agave americana, and Ricinus communis, present in the three archipelagos (Canary, Azores and Madeira), were characterized chemically and biologically. A. donax and P. setaceum showed elevated crude protein (CP) content, 13.25 and 16.33 DM%, respectively, and extremely high NDF values, 75.87 and 80.83 DM%, with a DM digestibility of 55.02 to 59.77%. A. americana showed a low NDF value (22.78 to 27.94 DM%) and a very low CP value (4.24 to 5.61 DM%). However, its DM digestibility was high (79.89 to 86.33%). R. communis presented the best values for CP (24.62%) and NDF (26.56 DM%), however, due to the presence of toxic substances (ricin), it cannot be easily used in animal feed. The P. setaceum and R. communis were found to be the least gas-producing forage, with A. americana being the major producer. To increase these plants’ value for animal feed, treatment with urea or NaOH to A. donax and P. setaceum, and enrichment with nitrogen to Agave is proposed. Due to its toxic properties, R. communis must be used in composting.

Potato has been widely planted, and China’s potato planting area and total output have become the first in the world. As an important part of the whole mechanization technology, potato planting mechanization directly affects the quality and yield of potato. As the core component of potato planter, the performance of seed metering device directly affects the operation quality of planter. In recent years, with the continuous efforts of researchers and manufacturers at home and abroad, the types and research technology of seed metering device are constantly innovating and improving. This paper mainly introduces the key technologies and types of seed metering devices used in the main models in China and abroad, as well as the existing problems and future development direction of different types of seed metering devices.

Greenhouse and field experiments were conducted to test the effectiveness of biofertilizers on switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) yields compared to inorganic fertilizer and a zero-control. In the greenhouse, Variovorax paradoxus JM63, JumpStart® (Penicillium bilaii), inorganic fertilizer and control treatments resulted in significantly higher per L pot biomass yields compared to the control treatment; 2.74 (±0.24), 2.55 (±0.10), 2.52 (±0.24) and 1.34 (±0.09) g L-1, respectively. As JumpStart® is a commercially available biofertilizer, it was used in the field experiment along with inorganic and control treatments. All three treatments were applied to established (2014) switchgrass plots. Significantly (p