An intelligent approach to improve date palm crop yield and water productivity under different irrigation and climate scenarios

Abstract

Drought, rising demand for water, declining water resources, and mismanagement have put society at serious risk. Therefore, it is essential to provide appropriate solutions to increase water productivity (WP). As an element of research, this study presents a hybrid machine learning approach and investigates its potential for estimating date palm crop yield and WP under different levels of subsurface drip irrigation (SDI). The amount of applied water in the SDI system was compared at three levels of 125% (T1), 100% (T2), and 75% (T3) of water requirement. The proposed ACVO-ANFIS approach is composed of an anti-coronavirus optimization algorithm (ACVO) and an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). Since the effect of irrigation factors, climate, and crop characteristics are not equal in estimating the WP and yield, the importance of these factors should be measured in the estimation phase. To fulfill this aim, ACVO-ANFIS employed eight different feature combination models based on irrigation factors, climate, and crop characteristics. The proposed approach was evaluated on a benchmark dataset that contains information about the groves of Behbahan agricultural research station located in southeast Khuzestan, Iran. The results explained that the treatment T3 advanced data palm crop yield by 3.91 and 1.31%, and WP by 35.50 and 20.40 kg/m3, corresponding to T1 and T2 treatments, respectively. The amount of applied water in treatment T3 was 7528.80 m3/ha, which suggests a decrease of 5019.20 and 2509.6 m3/ha of applied water compared to the T1 and T2 treatments. The modeling results of the ACVO-ANFIS approach using a model with factors of crop variety, irrigation (75% water requirement of SDI system), and effective rainfall achieved RMSE = 0.005, δ = 0.603, and AICC = 183.25. The results confirmed that the ACVO-ANFIS outperformed its counterparts in terms of performance criteria.

Opportunities and challenges of irrigation in Morocco, Spain, and India: A critical analysis

“…The agricultural census shows a reduction in total irrigated land between 1999 and 2009 (Duran‐Ros et al, 2010). Reasons for this decline include declining profitability (low market prices and high cultivation costs for some crops, particularly citrus and other fruits, and vineyards), lack of new generations to take over farming operations, urbanization, and expropriation for infrastructure development (Dehghanisanij et al, 2023).…”

An Overview of Date (Phoenix dactylifera) Fruits as an Important Global Food Resource

“…Still, disadvantages such as labor-intensive tasks and interference with mechanical processes should be considered in this method [20]. Sprinkler irrigation is another method that works by using the spray head and extensive piping system that can cover a huge area in term of irrigation [24]. The advantages of this method is less demanding and uses water more effectively [25].…”

“…Any infection may result in partial to total necrosis of the tissues. The petioles, fruit strands, and fruit stalks develop a burned, charcoal-like look due to typical lesions that are hard, dark brown to black in color, carbonaceous, and present in masses [24].…”

Applications of AI and IoT for Advancing Date Palm Cultivation in Saudi Arabia

“…In general, date palm farming could benefit from AI and IoT technology by increasing productivity, enhancing quality assurance, and giving farmers more market access. The economic benefits of these technologies are expected to significantly increase as they develop and become more accessible [19,20,30,32,38,43,[142][143][144].…”

“…By monitoring soil bionomics, moisture content, nutrient levels, and other factors, farmers can adjust their fertilization practices to ensure that they provide their trees with the nutrients they need while minimizing excess fertilizer application. This can help reduce soil degradation and improve overall health [31][32][33][34]. However, there is a lack of review research and book chapters on the application of AI and IoT in date palm cultivation, particularly in Saudi Arabia.…”