New Tools for Mechanical Thinning of Apricot Fruitlets

In this study, the thinner machine with yellow rod equipment was tested in relation to tree branch length and orientation in April 2019, in a narrow-canopied apricot orchard of Emilia Romagna Region, Italy. The trees were mechanically thinned with manual finishing, and comparative tests were carried out simultaneously with the ordinary hand thinning (control). Three groups of two plants were identified as replication for a total of six plants per row. Three rows were checked, considering field uniformity average. The branches were grouped into four classes according to their length: <30 cm, 30–60 cm, 60–90 cm and >90 cm. Branch inclination on the plant, radial or longitudinal with respect to the row, was evaluated. Fruit number before the thinning, after the first and the second machine intervention, after three days of the mechanical thinning and after the hand finishing was recorded. This experience showed satisfactory results in terms of thinning efficiency and reduced damage to both fruits and branches, as a function of the class length and insertion point in the main branch of the plant. Thinning efficiency was always kept above 37% of the left load after hand finishing, and on average between the treatments close to 44%. Fruit damages always remained below the economic thresholds to marketable production or to the plant.

3D Point Cloud of Single Tree Branches and Leaves Semantic Segmentation Based on Modified PointNet Network

Semantic segmentation of single tree 3D point cloud is one of the key technologies in building tree model. It plays an important role in tree skeleton extraction, tree pruning, tree model reconstruction and other fields. Because the area of a single leaf is smaller than that of the whole tree, the segmentation of branches and leaves is a challenging problem. In view of the above problems, this paper first migrates PointNet to the tree branch and leaf point cloud segmentation, and proposes an automatic segmentation method based on improved PointNet. According to the difference of normal direction between leaves and branches, the point cloud information of three dimensions coordinates, color and normal vector is input into the point feature space. In data processing, increase the number of each block data, so that the network can better learn features. MLP is added to the original PointNet network to improve the ability of extracting and learning local features. In addition, in the process of feature extraction, jump connection is added to realize feature reuse and make full use of different levels of features. The original 1×1 filter of PointNet is replaced by 3×1 filter to improve the segmentation accuracy of tree point cloud. The focus loss function focal loss is introduced into the field of 3D point cloud to reduce the impact of the imbalance of point cloud samples on the results. The results show that the improved method improves the accuracy of tree branch point cloud segmentation compared with the original PointNet for branch and leaf segmentation. The segmentation accuracy of structural elements of branches and leaves is more than 88%, and MIoU is 48%.

First report of Apple rubodvirus 2 infecting pear (Pyrus communis) in South Africa

Apple rubbery wood virus 2 (ARWV-2; Rott et al., 2018) belong to the species Apple rubodvirus 2, a member of the genus Rubodvirus (family Phenuiviridae; Kuhn et al 2020). ARWV-2 was first identified in apples and is associated with apple rubbery wood disease (ARWD) that is characterized by unusual flexibility of stems and branches, reduced growth, shortened internodes and increased cold sensitivity (Jakovljevic et al., 2017, Rott et al., 2018). ARWD was first reported in 1935 in England on apple and has since been found on quince and pear (Jakovljevic et al., 2017; Rott et al., 2018). In January 2021, leaves were collected from a pear tree (Pyrus communis cv. Forelle, F514) in a commercial orchard near Villiersdorp, South Africa. The tree displayed no foliar or tree branch symptoms, except for malformed fruits potentially due to insect feeding damage or pear stony pit disease previously associated with infection of apple stem pitting virus (ASPV) (Paunovic et al. 1999). Leaf petioles (one gram) were used for total RNA extraction, using a modified CTAB extraction protocol (Ruiz-García et al. 2019). A sequencing library was constructed (Illumina TruSeq Stranded Total RNA with plant Ribo-Zero) and sequenced on an Illumina HiseqX instrument (Macrogen, South Korea). A total of 30,709,182 paired-end reads (100 nt) were obtained and trimmed for quality with Trimmomatic (SLIDINGWINDOW:3:20, MINLEN:20) (Bolger et al. 2014). De novo assembly, using default parameters of CLC Genomics Workbench 11.0.1 (Qiagen), resulted in 97,294 contigs. BLASTn analysis identified 17 viral contigs, with 14 contigs having high nucleotide identity to ASPV and three to ARWV-2. The latter contigs included all three segments of ARWV-2. The L contig was 7371 nts, M was 1289 nts and S was 1463 nts in length, generated with 7341, 626 and 9161 reads for segment L, M and S, respectively. Segment S had the highest read coverage (524.87x), followed by segment L (88.07x) and M (36.60x). The ARWV-2 GenBank accessions with the highest percentage identity to the contigs were MF062128.1 from United States of America (98.2% to segment L), MN163134.1 from China (97.5% to segment M) and NC_055535.1 from Germany (93.5% to segment S). The contigs spanned 100%, 80.92% and 100% of these accessions of segments L, M and S, respectively and were deposited in GenBank as accessions MZ593725- MZ593727. Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to validate the presence of ARWV-2 in sample F514, using primers directed at segments L (con708_178F/con708_666R), M (ARWaV-2S1_38F/ARWaV-2S1_682R) and S (ARWaV-2M567F/ARWaV-2M1342R) (Rott et al., 2018). Amplicon sequences (510 bp (L), 645 bp (M) and 799 bp (S)) were confirmed with bi-directional Sanger sequencing. Fifty-nine additional pear samples were surveyed in 2021 for ARWV-2 using the M segment assay as mentioned above. The survey included the Koue Bokkeveld and Elgin areas, and cultivars Bosc (22 samples), Abate (10 samples), Rosemarie (3 samples), Forelle (9 samples), Packham’s Triumph (12 samples) and Early Bon Chretien (3 samples). A total of 27 samples (11 samples from the Koue Bokkeveld region and 16 samples from the Elgin region) tested positive for ARWV-2, demonstrating the common presence of this virus in pears in South Africa. This is the first report of ARWV-2 infecting pear in South Africa. Although no association with disease symptoms were observed, this study expands the data on the incidence and distribution of this virus in South Africa.

Design and Production of Man Powered Olive Harvest Machine

Today, agricultural sector develops in many areas. So, we have decided to make a project that can bring facileness by using the developing technology. We aimed to harvest the olives easily to work in these agricultural areas with a mechanical machine. We knew that there are many olive trees in our country and that people spend a lot of time collecting olives in these trees and they work costly. Therefore, we decided to design a machine that would also protect the environment by reducing the cost that would lead to saving. We met with many people and companies who went to the machine production industry and made studies in this field. Based on this information, we have decided to make a mechanism that works with shaking tree branch thanks to the gear system. As a result of our work, we think that this mechanism will be operated in a healthy manner and ready for production. The mechanism requires 159.2 N.m of torque, 1620 N force and 1 ~1.7 kW of manpower.

MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF THE FOREST FIRE IMPACT ON THE BRANCH OF A CONIFEROUS TREE

It is necessary to develop quantitative methods to assess the formation of thermal burns in the morphological parts of coniferous trees. The purpose of the study can be formulated as follows: mathematical modeling of heat transfer in the layered structure of a coniferous tree branch under the influence of a forest fire front. The heat propagation in the “branch-needles-flame zone” system is described by a system of non-stationary differential equations of heat conduction with the corresponding initial and boundary conditions. As an object of research, a digital model of a branch of a coniferous tree for various species, namely, pine, larch and fir, was used. Temperature distributions are obtained for different variants of the branch structure and conditions of the impact of the forest fire front. Conclusions are made about the need for further modernization of the mathematical model. The developed model is the basis for creating software tools for specialized geographic information systems.

Exploring the Planning and Configuration of the Hospital Wayfinding System by Space Syntax: A Case Study of Cheng Ching Hospital, Chung Kang Branch in Taiwan

With regard to the outpatient areas of a hospital, the smoothness of the route is now taken into consideration in the process of configuring the wayfinding system. As patients often spend time on ineffective wayfinding processes, and there is limited manpower at hospitals and a lack of clarity in the information provided by the wayfinding system, it is difficult to provide effective and timely consultation services for patients. This study was conducted at Cheng Ching Hospital, Chung Kang Branch (CCH/CKB) in Taiwan. This study attempts to investigate the relationships between the wayfinding system of the outpatient areas and the patients’ behaviors in the hospital. Depthmap software based on space syntax is adopted to assist in the route analysis and wayfinding behaviors. It integrates axial mapping analysis and isovist analysis and gives suggestions on the location, format and content of the wayfinding system. The final results of the study show that in the wayfinding task experiment gender has no significant impact on the effect of wayfinding efficiency, while a significant difference is found for age. Older people need more time to complete the wayfinding task, which means that they have poorer performance in wayfinding efficiency. The analysis of the results of space syntax shows that a good wayfinding system should be a symmetric tree-branch structure rather than circular structure in a medical building, that areas where it is easy to become lost should have a clear signage guiding system planning and configuration, and that clear guidance information should be provided to the patients to achieve the goal of saving consultation time and improving the quality of the medical environment.

Removal of a Penetrating Tree Branch in the Orbitofrontal Region—A Unique Application of an Orbitofrontal Craniotomy Through a Supraciliary Brow Approach

BACKGROUND AND IMPORTANCE Orbitocranial penetrating injury (OPI) is associated with neurological, infectious, and vascular sequalae. This report describes unique application of an orbitofrontal craniotomy through a supraciliary approach to remove a wooden stick penetrating through the orbit and frontal lobe, postoperative management, and antimicrobial therapy. CLINICAL PRESENTATION A 51-yr-old male presented after a tree branch penetrated beneath his eye. He had no loss of consciousness and was neurologically intact with preserved vision and ocular motility. Computed tomography (CT) and CT angiogram revealed an isodense hollow cylindrical object penetrating though the left orbit and left frontal lobe. The object extended into the right lateral ventricle, abutting the left anterior cerebral artery. There was minimal intraventricular hemorrhage without arterial injury. The patient was treated with broad-spectrum antimicrobial coverage. The foreign body was removed and the dural defect repaired via an orbitofrontal craniotomy through a supraciliary eyebrow incision. He was treated with an extended course of antimicrobial therapy, and after 18 mo remained neurologically intact. CONCLUSION OPI are a subset of penetrating brain injuries with potential for immediate injury to neurovascular structures and delayed complications including cerebrospinal fluid leak and infection. Treatment includes attempted complete removal of the foreign body and antimicrobial therapy. An orbitofrontal craniotomy through a supraciliary eyebrow incision may be effective in selected patients.