Purpose: Accurate monitoring of soil strength is a key technology applicable to various precision agricultural practices. Soil strength has been traditionally measured using a cone penetrometer, which is time-consuming and expensive, making it difficult to obtain the spatial data required for precision agriculture. To improve the current, inefficient method of measuring soil strength, our objective was to develop and evaluate an in-situ system that could measure horizontal soil strength in real-time, while moving across a soil bin. Methods: Multiple cone-shape penetrometers were horizontally assembled at the front of a vertical plow blade at intervals of 5 cm. Each penetrometer was directly connected to a load cell, which measured loads of 0-2.54 kN. In order to process the digital signals from every individual transducer concurrently, a microcontroller was embedded into the measurement system. Wireless data communication was used between a data storage device and this real-time horizontal soil strength (RHSS) measurement system travelling at 0.5 m/s through an indoor experimental soil bin. The horizontal soil strength index (HSSI) measured by the developed system was compared with the cone index (CI) measured by a traditional cone penetrometer. Results: The coefficient of determination between the CI and the HSSI at depths of 5 cm and 10 cm (r 2 = 0.67 and 0.88, respectively) were relatively less than those measured below 20 cm (r 2 ≥ 0.93). Additionally, the measured HSSIs were typically greater than the CIs for a given numbers of compactor operations. For an all-depth regression, the coefficient of determination was 0.94, with a RMSE of 0.23. Conclusions: A HSSI measurement system was evaluated in comparison with the conventional soil strength measurement system, CI. Further study is needed, in the form of field tests, on this real-time measurement and control system, which would be applied to precision agriculture.

This study was performed to design and to construct a digital soil cone index(CI) measuring device replacing conventional analog type devices. The device developed in the study consisted of a load cell, a rotary encoder and a motor with a decelerator as its main parts. The cone speed was controlled lower than 3.0 m/s which keeps the standard suggested by the ASABE S313.3 specification. The experiment was conducted in a soil bin system as well as in various fields. The CI data measured by the developed device were compared with those by an existing measurement device(SC900, Spectrum, USA). Based on the experiments at various field conditions, the CI measuring characteristic of the device was quite similar to that of the conventional device within a acceptable R 2 range of more than 0.5(mean=0.76). It was concluded that the digital cone index measuring device was an effective and comprehensive sensor for measuring soil strength.

Purpose:To ascertain the increase of the farm income that predominantly relies on human resources by mechanizing Welsh onion harvesting, a tractor-mounted Welsh onion harvester was developed in this study. Method: An experiment for evaluating harvesting performance was performed for the developed Welsh onion harvester in an actual Welsh onion farm. The harvest performance was evaluated at the tractor running speeds of 5.0 cm/s, 11.4 cm/s and 15.8 cm/s, by comparing the operating efficiency, harvest rate, and damage rate of the Welsh onion harvester. Results: The performance of the harvester was rated as very good, with a 100% harvest rate, regardless of tractor running speed. Furthermore, it is shown that work efficiency of the harvester is expected to increase as the running speed increases. Nonetheless, the damage rate of the harvested Welsh onions at running speeds 5.0 cm/s, 11.4 cm/s, and 15.8 cm/s, increased correspondingly and proportionally to speeds from 4.55% to 6.53% and to 11.29%. The residual amount of soil on the harvested Welsh onions was about 0.24% of their weight showing excellent soil-removal performance of the harvester. Conclusion: The developed Welsh onion harvester is believed to improve the labor productivity and cultivation environment of Welsh onion farmhouses by the mechanization of the harvesting process that is currently associated with the largest amount of labor hours.

Purpose: Soil strength has been measured using a cone penetrometer, which is making it difficult to obtain the spatial data required for precision agriculture. Our objectives were to evaluate real-time horizontal soil strength (RHSS) to measure soil strength in real time while moving across the field. Using the RHSS data, the tillage depth was determined, and the power consumption of a tractor and rotavators were compared. Methods: The horizontal soil-strength index (HSSI) obtained by the RHSS was compared with the cone index (CI), which was measured using a cone penetrometer. Comparison analysis in accordance with the measurement depth that increased at 5-cm interval was conducted using kriged maps at six sensing depths. For tillage control and evaluation of the power consumption, the system was installed with a potentiometer for tillage depth, a torque sensor from the rear axle, and a power take-off (PTO) shaft. Results: The HSSI was lower than the CI, but they were the same at 54.81% of the total grids for the 5-cm depth and at 3.85% for the 10-cm depth. In accordance with the recommended tillage map, tillage operations between 0 and 15 cm left 2.3% and 7% residue cover on the soil, and that between 20 and 10 cm covered a wider utilization of 3% and 18.4%, respectively. When the tillage depth was 15 cm, the comparison result of the power requirements between the PTO and rear axle in terms of control performance revealed that the maximum power requirements of the axle and PTO were 44.63 and 23.24 kW, respectively. Conclusions: An HSSI measurement system was evaluated by comparison with the conventional soil strength measurement system (CI) and applied to a tractor to compare the tillage power consumption. Further study is needed on its application to various farm works using a tractor for precision agriculture.