Physical Methods in Agriculture: Approach to Precision and Quality - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0306474301 ISBN 13: 9780306474309

Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2003

Synopsis

The frrst attempts to use physical methods in agriculture can be found in nineteenth century as a necessary component of farm and food machinery. There were mechanics, electricity and physical chemistry that were the first physical disciplines used in agriculture and food industry. In the same time period the studies on physical properties of soils started to be one of main topics of soil science. The twentieth century was a century of research on physical properties of agromaterials. The physical properties of agromaterials have been studied e. g. in the USA, where a big role has been played by ASAE (1907), and in the Soviet Union where the special Institute of Agrophysics was founded (1932) by Academician Ioffe. The ASAE's activity was enlarged in 1960s and 1970s, especially with the role playing by the Mohsenin's group and its followers. At that time the Institute of Agrophysics of Polish Academy of Sciences was founded in Lublin and conferences on physical methods in agriculture began to be organised. The participants of the last conference - "Physical Methods in Agriculture - Approach to Precision and Quality", held on August 27-30, 2001, have prepared the basis for this book. Part of the conference participants decided to enlarge their conference papers to be more general and more instructive in relation to further development of the science. New papers prepared under this deciSion were reviewed, discussed and revised, repeatedly, to be presented in this book.

About this title

Synopsis

The papers in this book deal with both the physical theories and their applications in the full broad range of agriculture: soils, their parameters and transport processes, soil technology, precision agriculture, agricultural products and their processing, testing and storage and products, genetic modification of agricultural plants. In all those subjects the physical aspects are studied. The majority of the papers belong to the category of interdisciplinary sciences. The papers are divided into three groups. In the first group are papers dealing with soil physical properties. The research was aimed at direct observation of soil porous systems from which the appropriate theory of transport was derived. Special attention was paid to estimation errors of physical parameters. High accuracy in determination of data monitoring location is reflected by papers on allocation agriculture, precision farming. The second group contains papers with experimental and theoretical improvement in product properties knowledge. The possibilities of application of such methods in modern genetic engineering are discussed too.

The third group of papers represents recent physical approach to technological properties of fruits, especially in relation to their pre-harvest and storage softening, as well as to their susceptibility to damage.

Edition details

• Publisher: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0306474301
• ISBN 13: 9780306474309
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 471
• Editor: Blahovec Jirí, Kutílek Miroslav