Review of air disturbance technology for plant frost protection

Confronted with severe frost damage to plants,methods,technologies and equipment have been developed and applied during the past century.The paper presents a comprehensive review on the most effective and active technology to protect plants from radiation frost based on air disturbance technology.The working principle of the technology was elaborated with frost protection mechanism,structures and applicability of three types of working patterns:conventional wind machines,selective inverted sink and portable vertical blowing.As an automatic mechanized technology,control strategy,applicable occasion and proper parameters are introduced for each type of working pattern.The operation of the technology and equipment depends on plant critical temperature,prevailing climatic conditions,thermal inversions strength,as well as costs.The frost protection performance and effectiveness of conventional horizontal wind machines,selective inverted sinks and helicopters are discussed and compared from the cost-effectiveness and application aspects,and the feasibility of selective inverted sinks is still controversial.Therefore,conventional wind machines are the best choice for plant frost protection and consequently are widely used in temperate and subtropical areas throughout the world.The frost protection application with helicopters is not easy to use during the frost nights with high cost.The paper also provides researchers with some perspectives on improving air disturbance technology and its equipment,and some practice recommendations for growers.

Structural analysis on cutting notch of tea stalk by X-ray micro-computed tomography

Quantitative analysis on cutting notch of tea stalk is one method to better understand shear resistance and mechanical properties of the stalk,which could improve cutting performance and efficiency for tea harvesting.Optimal design of the cutter might be achieved through structural analysis of cutting notch by X-ray micro-computed tomography(micro-CT).The third inter-node of the stalks were sampled and scanned by micro-CT after they were cut at different cutting depths(0.7,1.5,2.3 mm)and cutting edge angles of cutter(30,35,40).The structural change of the cutting notch and cutting force was observed.Grey-scale histogram analysis and bimodal segmentation method were used to extract the information about cutting notch from 2D slice images.A 3D model of the stalk was established with reconstruction and volume rendering.Besides,maximum crosssectional area ratio of cutting notch(MCSARCN)and volume ratio of cutting notch(VRCN)were calculated.The results show that MCSARCN and VRCN had a closely relationship with the cutting force,cutting depth and cutting edge angle according to 3D tomographic images and 2D slice images.Both MCSARCN and VRCN increased with cutting depth,despite of cutting edge angle.For cutting edge angle of 30,35and 40at different cutting depths,MCSARCN increased from 4.89%to 9.47%,from 8.51%to 22.83%and from 4.30%to 16.87%,respectively.Meanwhile,VRCN increased from 1.59%to 2.13%,from 2.98%to 5.76%and from 3.04%to 5.01%,respectively.When cutting depth was 1.5 mm,cutting force increased but VRCN present a decreased trend with cutting edge angle.X-ray micro-CT could be used to analyze the structure on cutting notch of tea stalks which is helpful in optimizing the structural parameters of the cutter.