Crop Yield Losses Reduction at Harvest, from Research to Adoption

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Pod Sealants in Increasing Pod Shattering Resistance in Oilseed Rape (Brassica napus L.)

“…One of the major factors determining pod shattering resistance and sealant efficacy is the force necessary for separating the OSR pod valves [12,63,64]. The primary factors causing variability in OSR pod strength are genetic traits, moisture, stage of ripeness, physical condition of the canopy, and environmental conditions [12].…”

“…Unusually for major agricultural field crops, OSR tends to shed its seed as soon as the fruits become fully ripe, reflecting the primitive need for seed dissemination [11,12]. The botanical name of Brassicaceae fruits is siliques or agronomically, pods, which enclose the seeds during their development [13,14].…”

Agrophysics - physics in agriculture and environment

“…Examples on the above may be papers published in the last two years (20102011) in the journal International Agrophysics and contributions in the Encyclopaedia of Agrophysics (Gliñski et al, 2011b) which present results on physical properties of many plants, also exotic ones from tropical regions, in relation to environmental conditions. The plants considered are: amaranth seeds (Sujak and Dziwulska-Hunek, 2010), apples (Ozturk et al, 2010;Zdunek et al, 2011), arigo (Davies, 2010), beans (Esehaghbeygi, 2010), cassava (Aviara et al, 2010), cucumber (Xinlin Li et al, 2011), hazelnuts (Ercisli et al, 2011), Jatropha (Fujimaki and Kikuchi, 2010), kariya (Ogunsina et al, 2011), lentil seeds (Bagherpour et al, 2010;Aladjadjiyan, 2010), maize (Izli and Isik, 2010;Amiri Chayjan et al, 2010;Frimpong et al, 2011), oil palm (Akinoso and Raji, 2011), pea (Kasprzak and Rzedzicki, 2010), raisin berries (Karimi et al, 2011), rape seed (Szot et al, 2011;Wi¹cek and Molenda, 2011), rice (Emadzadeh et al, 2010;Askari Asli-Ardeh et al, 2010;Asthiani Araghi et al, 2010), roselle (Bamgboye and Adejumo, 2010), persimmon (Altuntas et al, 2011), saffron peach , tomato fruits (G³adyszewska et al, 2011;Zhiguo et al, 2011) or broader group of plants such as cereals (Dziki et al, 2010;Grundas et al, 2011;Khazaei and Ghanbari, 2010;Dziki and Laskowski, 2011;Obuchowski et al, 2010).…”

“…The abovementioned actions include physical processes, knowledge of which may significantly decrease the losses of materials. How fundamental studies on the physical properties of plants (Rusin and Kojs, 2011) can reduce losses during harvest can be illustrated by the example of rapeseed which is a very economically important product (Szot et al, 2011). Studies concerned with the mechanical properties of rapeseed pods (cracking force and cracking energy), genetic traits, moisture, stage of ripeness, physical condition of canopy and variability of atmospheric conditions on the day of the harvest (tekauerová, 2011) resulted in the improving harvest technology with the use of combine harvester and maximum limitation of quantitative and qualitative losses of seeds without any financial outlays (Fig.…”

“…Knowledge of FIGURE 5. Relations between rapeseed seed losses and seed yields in combine harvest based on agrophysical research and effects of implementations at rapeseed producing farms (after Szot et al, 2011) the physical properties of agro-food materials (seeds, grains, fruits and vegetables) such as shape and size, volume, density, porosity, surface area, strength, stress, hardness, toughness, elasticity, plasticity, brittleness and ductibility, is needed to protect them against losses (£apko, 2010;Molenda, 2011). Thermal processing (ohmic, dielectric, infrared microwave, radio-frequency inductive) used in food industry includes the heating of food at defined temperature over certain periods of time (Vicente and Machado, 2011).…”