Biomechanical Properties of Wolfberry Plant Organs

Abstract

To improve the picking rate and reduce the wrong picking rate of the existing wolfberry harvesting machinery, in this study, the binding force and physical appearance of the immature fruit stalk, mature fruit stalk, flower, and leaf were studied to guide the designing of new-generation wolfberry harvesting machinery and lay theoretical foundation for further studies on biomechanical properties of wolfberry. By preprocessing the experimental data with the Pauta criterion, the distribution range of the binding force and physical appearance of stalk were obtained; the binding force was not influenced by the picking temperature, mass of the fruit, and location of the branch of the fruit. The length-diameter ratio of mature fruit was confirmed by image processing. The constitutive equations for immature fruit stalks and mature fruit stalks were established. The breaking strength of the mature fruit stalk was obviously higher than that of the immature fruit stalk; moreover, the breaking strength of the mature and immature fruit stalk of the four wolfberry varieties differed obviously. The experimental results obtained in this study can provide detailed data for the parameter design of a new-generation wolfberry harvesting machinery.