Toward an Optimal Control Strategy for Sweet Pepper Cultivation - 1. A Dynamic Crop Model

Abstract

Sweet pepper production is characterized by large fluctuations in fruit yield per week. Synchronization of yield patterns between nurseries in response to weather conditions leads to variations in market supply and affects price formation. In order to improve supply chain efficiency, auctions and wholesalers require nurseries to supply production forecasts several weeks in advance. At the nursery level, yield prediction is helpful for efficient labour planning. Because the dynamics of sweet pepper production are complex, growers find it difficult to understand and effectively control the production process. A model can be useful to assist growers in making efficient decisions with regard to crop and climate management. It is hypothesized that a phase-shift in the feedback-regulation of fruit set by growing fruits could be the cause of the periodic yield pattern observed in practice. This paper describes a dynamic model of sweet pepper production based on this principle. Model output was compared with measurements of sweet pepper production obtained from a commercial nursery. The calibrated model was able to simulate the measured data fairly well, in particular the yield fluctuations. These results are consistent with the hypothesis and serve as a promising starting point for further research aiming at a better understanding of the underlying processes and, consequently, model improvement.

Harvesting Robots for High‐value Crops: State‐of‐the‐art Review and Challenges Ahead

“…Different climate management can smooth yield peaks, and as a result the required number of robots, i.e., the required investment, on a site might reduce. Such climate management techniques have been proposed for sweet‐pepper cultivation (Buwalda, Van Henten, De Gelder, Bontsema, & Hemming, ; Van Henten et al., ). Shifting plant dates over the season can also spread yield peaks, as is done in melon cultivation (Edan, Benady, & Miles, ), and it is also applied in cauliflower and broccoli cultivation.…”

Growth and antioxidant phenolic compounds in cherry tomato seedlings grown under monochromatic light-emitting diodes

“…Tomato seedlings undergo both vegetative and reproductive growth at the same time so that the seedlings stage crucially affects the growth and yield of fruit of tomato plants (Buwalda et al, 2006). Moreover, sound seedlings can be well adapted when they are transplanted in fields or greenhouses (Johkan et al, 2010).…”

Reducing the Bullwhip effect in a supply chain network by application of optimal control theory

“…During the past decade, some other authors have also proposed models studying the dynamics of supply chains by means of control theory and specially, optimal control principles (for instance see, Bemporad and Giorgetti [5], Buwalda et al [7], Fagunde and Facó [19], Zhang and Lv [71], Dong and Li [17], Sun et al [63], Miranbeigi et al [42], Udenio et al [66], and Pinho et al [49]). The current work presents a practical modeling approach to deal with the dynamics of the supply chains by the considerations of the cost and inventory level fluctuations.…”