Autonomous Mowing and Turf-Type Bermudagrass as Innovations for An Environment-Friendly Floor Management of a Vineyard in Coastal Tuscany

Magni, Simone; Sportelli, Mino; Grossi, Nicola; Volterrani, Marco; Minelli, Alberto; Pirchio, Michel; Fontanelli, Marco; Frasconi, Christian; Gaetani, Monica; Martelloni, Luisa; Peruzzi, Andrea; Raffaelli, Michele; Mazzoncini, Marco; Antichi, Daniele; Caruso, Giovanni; Palai, Giacomo; Materazzi, Alberto; Vittori, Gabriele; Caturegli, Lisa

doi:10.3390/agriculture10050189

Cited by 11 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…A smaller distance between the cutting disc and the cowling may prevent weeds from growing tall close to the vines trunks and improve the overall working efficiency of the autonomous mower in terms of weed control. The results regarding the primary energy consumption estimation highlight that the AM system provides for a more sustainable vineyard floor management, corroborating findings reported by Magni et al [28]. Moreover, vineyard floor management does not require daily mowing; thus, a single autonomous mower can be employed to manage different sectors of a vineyard, further improving autonomous mowers working efficiency and overall energy savings [10].…”

Section: Management Systemsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…Results from its application highlighted that autonomous intra-row weed management is a safe and reliable technique that helps to save energy. Magni et al [28] obtained similar results by testing an autonomous mower to manage a perennial grass complete cover vineyard floor. In this trial, significant reductions of power consumption and CO 2 emissions were observed compared to the ordinary technique.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…Complete floor cover management is associated with lower vegetative vigor of vine plants compared to weed-free under-trellis systems [26,27]. While most of the trials concerning under-trellis cover cropped vineyards focused on competition with vines, few studies evaluated the potential of CC to perform under-trellis weeds control [24,25,[28][29][30][31]. Under-trellis cover consisting of spontaneous species or annual CC did not significantly affects vines growth [24,25,[29][30][31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, annual CC significantly suppressed under-trellis weed encroachment [24,[29][30][31]. To the best of our knowledge, under-trellis perennial CC obtained the best weed control results [25,28], however their competition with vines may lead to important losses [25]. Moreover, particular interest is placed on weeds height in vineyards.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this trial, significant reductions of power consumption and CO 2 emissions were observed compared to the ordinary technique. Despite designed for lawns mowing, autonomous mowers have shown promising results for agricultural purposes [28,37] due to their reduced size and high frequency of cut [38]. This last characteristic has the potential to exert a continuous mechanical control of both CC and weeds, preventing them from reaching an undesirable vertical growth [38].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Mowing and Complete Floor Cover for Weed Control in Vineyards

et al. 2021

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Enhancing vineyards sustainability and reducing herbicides usage is a crucial theme, thus alternative weed management methods are starting to be studied. Cover crops have been shown to provide for several environmental services such as performing an efficient weed control and promoting biodiversity, thus improving the sustainability of the overall management system. However, the use of cover crops is usually confined to the interrow area in order to avoid competition with vines. Under-trellis weed management in vineyards is an important challenge, conventionally fulfilled by cultivation or repeated herbicides applications. Autonomous mowers are small autonomous machines that have shown a great efficiency when employed in agricultural contexts. Due to their reduced size, they can easily prevent the excessive vertical growth of weeds both in the interrows and under trellis without the use of chemical applications. The aim of this trial was to evaluate if the combination of cover crop species and autonomous mowers management could improve vineyard sustainability. Vineyard floor cover that was managed with an autonomous mower had a shorter canopy height and a lower weed dry biomass compared to the conventionally managed vineyard floor cover. Vineyard floor management providing cover crops and autonomous mowing had a significantly lower weed cover percentage compared to conventional floor management, especially under-trellis. The results of this trial suggest that the combination of cover crops and autonomous mowers may be a sustainable and reliable technique to include in vineyards floor management.

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Section: Management Systemsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Autonomous Mowing and Complete Floor Cover for Weed Control in Vineyards

et al. 2021

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Changes in Soil Bacterial Community Structure in Bermudagrass Turf under Short-Term Traffic Stress

et al. 2022

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Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers.) is an extensively utilized turf grass for football fields and golf courses. Traffic stress is one of the most important stresses affecting the life of turf, which leads to a decrease in turf quality and changes in the soil microbial community structure. The structural change in soil bacterial community is an important reference for turf growth, maintenance, and restoration. Tifgreen bermudagrass turf and Common bermudagrass turf were applied with traffic treatment by a traffic simulator with moderate intensity to explore soil bacterial community structural changes in turf under traffic stress. The environmental factors including turf quality indicators and soil properties were measured, and the association of the soil bacterial community diversity with the environment factors was analyzed. As a result, traffic treatments significantly changed the soil properties and bacterial community composition in two bermudagrass species at the phylum and genus level. Actinobacteria, Chloroflexi, and Verrucomicrobia showed significantly high abundance in turf soils under traffic stress. The soil bacterial ACE, Chaol, and Shannon indexes of two bermudagrass species under traffic stress were significantly lower than non-traffic stress. The bacterial community structure was highly correlated with some turf quality indicators and soil properties under traffic stress. Our results illustrate that compared to Common bermudagrass, Tifgreen bermudagrass had better turf quality under traffic stress and less changes in its bacterial community structure, perhaps Tifgreen bermudagrass is a better choice of grass for sports turf as opposed to Common bermudagrass.

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Trampling Analysis of Autonomous Mowers: Implications on Garden Designs

et al. 2022

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Several trials have been carried out by various authors concerning autonomous mowers, which are battery-powered machines. The effects of these machines on turfgrass quality and energy consumption have been thoroughly investigated. However, there are still some aspects that have not been studied. Among these, random trajectory overlapping is one of the most important. To investigate these aspects, two RTK-GPS devices along with the custom-built software used for previous trials has been upgraded in order to precisely calculate how many times the mower drives over the same spot using random trajectories. This parameter, the number of passages in the same position, was hypothesized to explain the autonomous mower’s overlapping and trampling action. The trial has been carried out testing a commercial autonomous mower on three areas with different levels of complexity to assess its performances. The following variables were examined: the percentage of mowed area, the distance travelled, the number of intersections, the number of passages, and the autonomous mower’s work efficiency. The average percentage of area mown (average value for the three areas) was 54.64% after one hour and 80.15% after two hours of work. Percentage of area mown was 15% higher for the area with no obstacles after two hours of work. The number of passages was slightly different among the three garden designs. The garden with no obstacles obtained the highest number of passages with an average of 37 passages. The highest working efficiency was obtained in the garden with an intermediate number of obstacles with a value of 0.40 after two hours of work. The estimated energy consumption resulted 0.31 Wh m−2 after one hour and 0.42 Wh m−2 after two hours of working. These results highlight how the correct settings of cutting time may be crucial to consistently save energy during the long period and may be useful for a complete automation of the maintenance of green areas.

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Autonomous Mowing and Turf-Type Bermudagrass as Innovations for An Environment-Friendly Floor Management of a Vineyard in Coastal Tuscany

Cited by 11 publications

References 26 publications

Autonomous Mowing and Complete Floor Cover for Weed Control in Vineyards

Autonomous Mowing and Complete Floor Cover for Weed Control in Vineyards

Changes in Soil Bacterial Community Structure in Bermudagrass Turf under Short-Term Traffic Stress

Trampling Analysis of Autonomous Mowers: Implications on Garden Designs

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