Change Character of Electric Conductive Properties of Weeds Plants Tissue at Electric Impulse Damage

Abstract

Currently, in order to obtain pre-planned results and increase the efficiency of using existing technologies, electrotechnological operations are applied in the processes of agricultural production, food and processing industries, including those that implement the effects of high voltage impulses. One of such promising technologies in agriculture can be considered to be electric impulse weeding that is the fight against unwanted and weed vegetation. Such operation, which is carried out with high rates of technological efficiency, is environmentally friendly and refers to high-tech processes. For practical applications and technical implementations, it is necessary to study various properties and parameters of effected objects – weeds. The partial dependence of the electrical resistance of the plant tissue or the dispersion of resistance over the frequency of the measuring current was decided to be used as the studied characteristic. This approach allows to consider weeds not only as a load with which the electrical energy supply system is in contact but also to thoroughly study how this resistance changes during processing. The conducted experimental studies made it possible to clarify the nature of the change in resistance under the damage process to plant tissue, as well as to estimate the quantitative indicators of both the energy absorbed by the plant tissue and the ranges of variations of its resistance. The change character in the plant tissue resistance at the process of the electrical impulse damage remains unchanged, only the resistance value at low frequencies decreases. The total damage corresponds to the period of processing when the resistance of the plant tissue is practically equal at low and high frequencies. This behavior of the mentioned parameter is typical for internal and surface tissues of weeds, as well as for their root systems and leaf-stem parts. Theoretical verification of the change character in the plant tissue resistance of destroyed weeds confirmed the description of the proposed mechanism of change in resistance in the process of irreversible electrical impulse damage.