Yoshitaka Motonaga

Distinguishing Damaged and Undamaged Chaff in Rice Whole Crop Silage by Image Processing

Rice whole crop silage is used to feed cattle in Japan. The silage contains grains of rice, which are not easily digested because the chaff is indigestible. Partially removing the rice chaff by mechanically scratching the unhulled rice surface was used to make the rice in the chaff digestible, however, it is not easy to inspect the scratching effect objectively. This paper describes the process of distinguishing between damaged chaff and undamaged chaff using image processing, programmed using Java2 SDK. To identify the damaged part on the surface of the chaff, color difference (brown and light white) was used. The chafed rice images were labeled individually for application to image processing one by one. RGB (red, green and blue) channels in a 24-bit color image were divided into three stacks. In the three stacks, the red slice owned more pixel value than any other slice, which reflected the difference between the chaff and damaged part. By adjusting the threshold appropriately, it could distinguish between damaged chaff and undamaged chaff with a probability of more than 90%. Furthermore, the rate of discernment became about 100% by adding shape analysis. This program will be integrated into rice whole crop silage processing equipment. These results are useful not only for the effective use of cattle feed, and maintaining healthy milk and beef cattle, but also for various other image processing uses, for example to distinguish small defects on the surface of grain.

Image monitoring of paddy field using BIX Image Broker System

The image monitoring system for paddy field was constructed by using BIX-IBS for growth diagnosis of rice cultivation at the field level. The image of paddy field was calibrated by the image processing node of BIX-IBS with the color calibration function since it was influenced on the outdoor natural light. As the results, it was shown that the time for farm work can be presumed from the monitoring data of paddy field. It has been found that the relation between the leaf color and SPAD are linear in the specific growth period.

Smart Sensing in a Vineyard for Advanced Viticultural Management

Long-term monitoring of cultivation environments and a scientific understanding of tree vigor and grape quality are needed for advanced viticultural management. Cultivation environments, such as micrometeorological data and soil moisture, should be continuously monitored. In addition, we have to get a good grasp of grapevine vigor in association with the surrounding climate and soil water stress, in order to grow high-quality grapes. In this paper, we discuss a wireless sensor network for climate and soil moisture measurement in the vineyard. As regards tree vigor, grapevine sap flow was measured to evaluate gas exchange capacity at grapevine canopies. We also made the color image measurement of grape berries in the vineyard for high quality cultivation.

Development of Non-Destructive Detector for Abnormal Eggs

Abstract In the present study, we developed a device for the non-destructive detection of abnormal eggs (mainly eggs with cracked shells, eggs with leaking cracks, unclean eggs, and eggs with blood spots). This device incorporates color and monochrome CCD cameras. Determination of eggs with a cracked shell is done by processing the transmission image of the egg acquired using the color CCD camera. To determine eggs with blood spots, eggs are irradiated with light of the wavelength band that absorbs blood and the permeating light is captured with the monochrome CCD camera, after which the image data are processed. The results suggest that all types of abnormal eggs can be detected with a high precision of 95.0%~98.5%.

A web strategy for cultural inheritance centered on agriculture case study approach: the olive project in Shodoshima Japan

The olive culture in Shodoshima has the 100 years history, yet faces to the crisis when looking at the century ahead. In modern society, it is assumed that there has been a strong link between food culture and two kinds of aspects which consist quality necessary for cultural succession. One is the promotion of target products and the consideration of consumer behavior and quality requirements from consumers. The other is the creation of cultivation recipe which clarifies the method and component necessary for the production of products fulfilling the required quality by consumers. Therefore, we attempted to construct the strategic website for consumer driven food culture extension and to make cultivation recipe by the installation of Field Server in agricultural field and its data utilization. This paper shows the case that adopted the ICT in both consumer-led promotion and agricultural production for passing food culture down the generations.

Optical monitoring with field server toward the BIX standardization

BIX is an XML standard for the data exchange between sensed data of the information arising on the spot and database. The nutrimental components in plants are important information for the diagnosis and the cultivation control of the agricultural products. Application of mid-infrared (MIR) spectroscopic and the X-ray fluorescent (XRF) spectroscopy to the simple, non-destructive, simultaneous, and rapid monitoring of the nutrient information of fresh plants is desirable as the high potential implements. The both spectroscopic methods provide substantial potential as the quantitative tools in the fields for the chemical components relating to the plant vigor. Since it is necessary to take an accurate grasp of the quality change in time and to make a suitable cultivation management for the change, we also carried on research of ldquothe development of BIX Image Broker System (BIX-IBS)rdquo and ldquothe remote monitoring of color of agricultural products for evaluating the qualityrdquo. BIX has to determine a standard not only for data acquisition and exchange but also for data storage, concentration and handling.