variable rate spray applications using proportional control systems can greatly reduce pesticide use and off-target contamination of environment in orchards. variable rate spraying of the canopy allows growers to apply pesticides only to the target, only use the correct quantity according to canopy size, season and growth stage and to apply plant protection products in an economic and environme...

This paper present how the light transfer and interception inside the canopy was computed by combining a tomato dynamic growth model. The tomato functional structural growth model was applied to produce the topology and geometry of individual plant, and through transformation, the canopy could be composed of multi-individual plants. In this simulation system, a radioactive transfer model named ...

The geometrical structure of plant canopies has many implications for plant functioning, microclimatic conditions, and plant-pathogen/herbivore interactions. Plant geometry can be described at several scales. At the finest scale, canopy structure includes the shape, size, location, and orientation of each organ in the canopy. This data set reports the three-dimensional (3-D) geometry of a set o...

While hyperspectral sensors describe plant canopy reflectance in greater detail than multispectral sensors, they also suffer from issues with data redundancy and spectral autocorrelation. Data mining techniques that extract relevant spectral features from hyperspectral data will aid the development of novel sensors for plant trait estimation. The objectives of this research were to (1) compare ...

Understory plant communities play critical ecological roles in forest ecosystems. Both above- and below-ground ecosystem properties and processes influence these communities but relatively little is known about such effects at fine (i.e., one to several meters within-stand) scales, particularly for forests in which the canopy is dominated by a single species. An improved understanding of these ...

Green roof ecosystems are constructed to provide services such as stormwater retention and urban temperature reductions. Green roofs with shallow growing media represent stressful conditions for plant survival, thus plants that survive and grow are important for maximizing economic and ecological benefits. While field trials are essential for selecting appropriate green roof plants, we wanted t...

The forest canopy harbors a diverse assemblage of plants of many different growth habits. The reproductive parts of tall trees, many epiphytes, and lianas may exist only in the upper canopy. Access to these upper regions is essential to identify canopy plants and to collect and document voucher specimens for a particular forest region. The majority of botanists, however, have relied on collecti...

Desert plants are exposed to a combination of environmental stress conditions, including low water availability, extreme temperature fluctuations, high irradiance and nutrient deprivation. Studying desert plants within their natural habitat may therefore reveal novel mechanisms and strategies that enable plants to resist stressful conditions. We studied the acclimation of Retama raetam, an ever...

Seedling emergence, survival and early growth of the Mediterranean conifer P. pinaster were studied under closed canopy and open canopy (gaps) cover conditions in a Mediterranean forest of central Spain during two consecutive years (March 2008 to January 2010). Our main objective was to understand how overstorey structure, shrubs and soil properties influence recruitment in this species. Natura...

The canopy foliage clumping effect is primarily caused by the non-random distribution of canopy foliage. Currently, measurements of clumping index (CI) by handheld instruments is typically time- and labor-intensive. We propose a low-cost and low-power automatic measurement system called Multi-point Linear Array of Optical Sensors (MLAOS), which consists of three above-canopy and nine below-cano...