Temporal Impacts of Different Fertilization Systems on Soil Health under Arid Conditions of Potato Monocropping

Wheat Crop Yield and Changes in Soil Biological and Heavy Metals Status in a Sandy Soil Amended with Biochar and Irrigated with Drainage Water

The current research aims to study the impacts of adding corncob biochar to a sandy soil irrigated with drainage water on wheat productivity, heavy metals fate, and some soil properties that reflect healthy soil conditions. This research consists of two separate experiments under field (lysimeters) and pot incubation conditions conducted on sandy soil irrigated with drainage water and treated with corncob biochar at the rate of 0.0, 1, 2, and 3% as mixing or mulching. Results specified that drainage water electrical conductivity value (5.89 dS m−1) lies under the degree of restriction on use of “Severe”, indicating that nonstop irrigation with such drainage water may cause a severe salinity problem in soil in the long run. A comparison of heavy metal concentrations of biochar-treated soils with the control showed that total heavy metals had accumulated significantly in the topsoil layer. Most of the available heavy metal concentrations in all soil leachate fractions were below the method detection limits. Mean concentrations of Ni, Cd, and Pb in wheat crops were far below the concentrations considered phytotoxic to wheat plants. More than 90% of the Ni, Cd, and Pb contained in the drainage water of the Al-Moheet drain were significantly present (p ≤ 0.05) and adsorbed by biochar in the top 20 cm of soil lysimeters, indicating the high biochar adsorptive capacity of heavy metals. Total counts of bacteria and fungi gradually and significantly increased over the soil incubation time despite irrigation with contaminated drainage water. Soil resistance index (SRI) values for microbial biomass were positive throughout the experiment and increased significantly as the application rate of corncob biochar increased. These results indicated the high feasibility of using corncob biochar at a rate of 3% to temporarily improve the health of sandy soil despite irrigation with drainage water.

Trend Technologies for Robotic Fertilization Process in Row Crops

The development of new sensory and robotic technologies in recent years and the increase in the consumption of organic vegetables have allowed the generation of specific applications around precision agriculture seeking to satisfy market demand. This article analyzes the use and advantages of specific optical sensory systems for data acquisition and processing in precision agriculture for Robotic Fertilization process. The SUREVEG project evaluates the benefits of growing vegetables in rows, using different technological tools like sensors, embedded systems, and robots, for this purpose. A robotic platform has been developed consisting of Laser Sick AG LMS100 × 3, Multispectral, RGB sensors, and a robotic arm equipped with a fertilization system. Tests have been developed with the robotic platform in cabbage and red cabbage crops, information captured with the different sensors, allowed to reconstruct rows crops and extract information for fertilization with the robotic arm. The main advantages of each sensory have been analyzed with an quantitative comparison, based on information provided by each one; such as Normalized Difference Vegetation Index index, RGB Histograms, Point Cloud Clusters). Robot Operating System processes this information to generate trajectory planning with the robotic arm and apply the individual treatment in plants. Main results show that the vegetable characterization has been carried out with an efficiency of 93.1% using Point Cloud processing, while the vegetable detection has obtained an error of 4.6% through RGB images.