Noriko Horibe

Practical Soil Treatment in a Greenhouse Using Surface Barrier Discharge Ozone Generator

The authors have proposed the extermination of soil worms such as nematodes and the acceleration of plant growth by ozone treatment of soil because agricultural chemicals cause environmental problems such as the generation of resistant bacteria and the increase of toxic residuals and nitrogen. So far, laboratory-scaled experiments proved the effectiveness of ozone treatment of soil using a surface barrier discharge for the extermination of soil worms and for the enhancement of plant growth. In this paper, a movable ozone treatment system was developed for up-scaled application to verify the effectiveness and availability of ozone treatment of ridges in an actual greenhouse. It was found that the weights of harvested Komatsuna, radish, and spinach cultivated at ozone treated ridges were improved due to the increased nitrogen nutrient of soil after the ozone treatment. Quantification using digital numbers of red, green, and blue colors for digital camera photographs of plants was also verified to evaluate the growth of plants during cultivation.

Interaction of Atmospheric Serpentine Plasma and Green Mold under a High Nutrition Condition

Serpentine plasma was irradiated for the green mold of citrus fruit which grew up on the surface of an orange. Serpentine plasma discharge state strongly depended on Ar gas flow rate and applied voltage supplied to plasma. We used 6 electrodes type and applied voltage was 1400V. In this study we investigated mold under a high nourishment and interaction of the plasma. It was considered that a remarkable change occurred for a growth of a mold because of plasma exposure. The possibility that could control a state (control of sanitization / sterilization or growth stimulation) of a mold by a position from electrodes and adjustment of exposure time was shown in the result.

Proposal of a Method to Evaluating Adaptability of Farmland for Cultivating Vegetables

In this paper, we propose a method to estimate an adaptability of environmental data on each farmland concerning with each cultivation of vegetables. We propose an actual method to represent a feature of a farmland. We define an adaptability of a farmland for vegetables as a value of differences between environmental data on the farmland and a condition of a standard manner of the cultivation. Since the size of observed data on each farmland is big, it is difficult to apply various algorithms for analysis to the data. Therefore, we present the method to compress such a big data into a simple value by indexing from observed values into-1, 0, or 1. Then, the method is applied to the data obtained by our cultivation experiment of tomatoes. From the result by comparing the values of adaptability obtained by experiments in 2013 and 2014, we show that the adaptability can be expected to have close relationship with growth of vegetables.

Development of Web System to Find Control Rules from Environmental Data on Farmland

In Japanese agriculture, skills of cultivations are losing by decreasing of population of farmers. To solve this problem, it is necessary to realize the system to inherit the farmers skills. The purpose of our research is to build a system which can be used to store skillful farmers actions and environmental changes. We develop a function for analyzing agricultural environment from the latest environmental data on farmland. We show that the system can support to analyze each attributes of environmental data. We execute a cultivation experiment in greenhouses, and apply the collected data to a learning algorithm.

IoT-security Approach Analysis for the Novel Nutrition-Based Vegetable Production and Distribution System

The new Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm is giving to the scientific community the possibility to create integrated environments where information could be exchanged among heterogeneous characteristic networks in an automated way, in order to provide a richer experience to the user and to give specific relevant information regarding the particular environment in which the user is interacting with. Those characteristic are highly valuable for the novel nutrition-based vegetable production and distribution system, in which the multiple benefits of Big Data where used in order to generate a healthy food recommendation to the end user and to feed to the system different analytics to improve the system efficiency. Moreover, the different IoT capabilities, specifically automation and heterogeneous network communication are valuable to improve the information matrix of our project. This paper discusses the different IoT available technologies, their security capabilities and assessment, and how could be useful for our project.

Modeling of Environmental Factors for Finding Optimal Conditions on Cultivating Farm Products

Since the number of farmers has been decreasing recently, shortage of the labor force is a serious problem in many farmhouses. In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to realize the system to support farmers works in low costs. The purpose of our research is to construct the system which can predict the farmland environment in the near future. In this research, we focus on the control of soil wetness and temperature. We formalize a model for expressing the rule for predicting temperature and soil wetness from the latest environmental data of farmhouse. We show that the rule can be generated by the machine learning algorithm ID3. We research the confidence of each prediction by comparing data obtained from the experiment of cultivating farm products using a greenhouse. Based on the result, we research for finding environmental factors which are needed to create the hypothesis for the prediction of the environment transformation.

Development of Web System for Estimating Environmental Features of Farmland

Since a number of farmers has been decreasing in recent years, shortage of work force became one of the most serious problems for many farmhouses. In order to solve this problem, it is important to develop an effective system to support farmers works. Thus, in this research, we construct a base system for realizing an automatic control of environment of farmlands. In our experiment, crops are cultivated in plastic greenhouse equipped with some sensors for observation about the environmental data. The environmental data is continuously stored to a server system, and the data is analyzed in order to extract environmental features of farmland by using a Web system which was constructed by our research.

Study of Chemical Characteristics Investigation and Depth Direction Sterilization Effect of a Soil by Ozone Treatment

As for securing a yield and quality of crops in limited farmland environment like Japan, a very high technique has been required. The problem to remark to spreading in large quantities of a pesticide and mass use of chemical fertilizer brought it at the same time. This may threaten food safety. In recent years agriculture being aware of reducing a pesticide and organic farming has been studied. However, it is a clear fact that insects exist, and countermeasures should be necessary. We have been studied about ozone treatment of a soil. We confirmed that ozone treatment in a field of agriculture was an effective soil application method. In this study, it was investigated how a soil chemically changed by ozone treatment and in addition, it was confirmed that a sterilization effect was provided by penetration of ozone to the depth direction of a soil. In ozone treatment of topsoil, it was able to sterilized 99% of bacteria of 5cm in depth of a surface.