Industry-peppers harvest mechanization.

Production of peppers for deshidration (paprika) and for extraction of natural colorants is of great importance in some Mediterranean irrigation areas. In the area of Badajoz (Spain) traditional production, handling and postharvest systems are no longer feasible, although a very good quality and potential market exist for this product. All aspects of mechanized production and handling have been addressed: direct seeding and transplanting, cultivation systems and mechanical harvesting are searched to be adopted in a new production system. A study of size, shape and fruiting pattern of the new varieties was performed. A feasibility study of mechanized harvesting was also made. Results of field testing of different types of harvesters and performance of existing picking heads are presented, some of which yield a feasible solution for the growers of industry peppers in the area. The design, construction and field testing results of a new picking head based on the double-helix principle is presented.

Effect of impacting mass on firmness sensing of fruits.

There has been an increased interest in using impact techniques for sensing firmness of fruits and vegetables. When an impacter is used to impact a fruit, the impacting mass is an important parameter which affects both the impact signal and fruit damage. Results of theoretical analysis and tests conducted on two varieties of pears indicate that lowering the impacting mass results in amplifying the measured signal, reducing sensing errors, and minimizing damage to the fruit.

Factors influencing apple and pear physical properties and bruise susceptibility.

Fruit turgidity and firmness have shown to influence impact bruise susceptibility in apples and pears. Analysis of the impact response showed that stresses in the tissues are higher in turgid fruits, so they are more susceptible to bruising. A physical parameter, deformation at skin puncture, was able to detect fruit turgidity changes and showed to be related to bruise susceptibility.

Use of electronic fruits to evaluate fruit damage along the handling process.

Two electronic fruits (SEP-1, Simulated Electronic Product, developed in Scotland, and Techmark IS-100, Instrumented Sphere, developed in USA) have been compared in laboratory tests and then used to evaluate handling operations, in several cooperatives of two areas of Spain: Lérida (pome fruits) and Valencia (stone fruits). Advantages of each device were evaluated. Harvest, mechanical bin unloading, and grading line transfers and sizers were identified as operations causing fruit damage.

Space-time analysis of the urban-rural grafient in the metropolitan area of Madrid and ist surroundings -Guadalajara and Toledo.

According to UN provisions in the period from 2007 to 2050 world population will grow up to 9200 million people. In fact, for the first time in history, in the year 2008 world urban population became higher than rural population. The increase of urban areas and their transport infrastructures has influenced agricultural land use due to their irreversible change, especially when they remain as periurban vacant land, losing their character and identity. In the Europe of the nineties, the traditional urban-rural gradient, characterized by a neat contact between both land types, has become so complex that it has change to a gradient in which it is difficult to separate urban and rural land uses. [Antrop 2004]. A literature review has been made on methodologies used for the urban-rural gradient analysis. One of these methodologies was selected that integrates ecological characterization based on the use of spatial metrics and geographical characterization based on spatial components. Cartographical sources used were Corine Land Cover at 1: 100000 scale and the Spanish Land Use Information System at 1:25000 scale. Urban-rural gradient paradigm is an analysis methodology, coming from landscape ecology, which enables to investigate how urbanization provokes changes in ecological patterns and processes into landscape. [Hahs and McDonnell 2006].The present research adapt this methodology to study the urban-rural gradient in the outskirts of Madrid, Toledo and Guadalajara. Both scales (1:25000 and 1:100000) were simultaneously used to reach the next objectives: 1) Analysis of landscape pattern dynamics in relation to distance to the town centre and major infrastructures. 2) Analysis of landscape pattern dynamics in the fringe of protected areas. The paper presents a new approach to the urban-rural relationship which allows better planning and management of urban áreas.

Quality assurance systems in the production and marketing of fresh peaches.

Due to the fast rate of peach post-harvest ripening, damage due to mechanical handling, externally appreciated as bruises and soft areas, is a real problem that leads to an early harvesting and poor quality of the fruits, as perceived by the consumers. More and more, the European consumer asks for good taste and freshness of fruits and vegetables, and these quality factors are not included in standards, nor in most of the producers' practices. Fruit processing and marketing centres (co-operatives) are increasingly interested in adopting quality controls in their processes. ISO 9000 procedures are being applied in some food areas, primarily milk and meat processors, but no generalised procedures have been developed until the present time to be applied to fresh product processes. All different peach and nectarine varieties that are harvested and handled in Murcia cooperatives and sold in a large supermarket in Madrid were analysed during the whole 1997 season (early May to late August). A total number of 78 samples of 25 fruits (co-operative) or 10 fruits (market), were tested in the laboratory for mechanical, optical, chemical and tasting quality. The variability and relationships between all these quality parameters are presented and discussed, and sampling unit sizes which would be advisable for quality control are calculated.

A quality assessment system for fresh fruits in hypermarkets and fruit trading centres.

When the fresh fruit reaches the final markets from the suppliers, its quality is not always as good as it should, either because it has been mishandled during transportation or because it lacks an adequate quality control at the producer level, before being shipped. This is why it is necessary for the final markets to establish their own quality assessment system if they want to ensure to their customers the quality they want to sell. In this work, a system to control fruit quality at the last level of the distribution channel has been designed. The system combines rapid control techniques with laboratory equipment and statistical sampling protocols, to obtain a dynamic, objective process, which can substitute advantageously the quality control inspections carried out visually by human experts at the reception platform of most hypermarkets. Portable measuring equipment have been chosen (firmness tester, temperature and humidity sensors...) as well as easy-to-use laboratory equipment (texturometer, colorimeter, refractometer..,) combining them to control the most important fruit quality parameters (firmness, colour, sugars, acids). A complete computer network has been designed to control all the processes and store the collected data in real time, and to perform the computations. The sampling methods have been also defined to guarantee the confidence of the results. Some of the advantages of a quality assessment system as the proposed one are: the minimisation of human subjectivity, the ability to use modern measuring techniques, and the possibility of using it also as a supplier's quality control system. It can be also a way to clarify the quality limits of fruits among members of the commercial channel, as well as the first step in the standardisation of quality control procedures.

Testing equipment for the improvement of mechanical devices to minimize damage to fruit in commercial packing lines.

Damages -reduced in fruit packing lines is a major cause of grace reduction and quality loos in fresh marks: fruit. Fruit must be treated gently during in sir handling to improve their qualityin order to get a good price in a competitive market. The correct post-hardvest handling in fruit packing lines is a prerequisite to cut down the heavy post-harvest losses. Fruit packing lines must be evaluated, studying their design, the impacts applied to the fruits, the characteristics of the materials, etc. This study establishes the possibility of carrying out modifications and tests in a packing line during a long period of time. For this purpose, an experimental fruit packing line has been designed and located in the Agricultural Engineering Department of the Polythecnic University of Madrid with the aim of improving mechanical devices and fruit handling conditions to minimize damage to fruit. The experimental line consists of several transporting belts, one rollers transporter, one sizer, one elevator, one singularizer, and three trays to receive the calibrated fruit. The line has a length of 6.15 m and a width cf 1.9 m. Movement of the different components is regulated by electric motors with variable velocity electronically controlled. The height of the transfer points is variable and can be easily modified. The experimental line has been calibrated using two instrumented spheres IS 100 (8.8 cm Ø and6.2cm Ø). Average acceleration values obtained in all the transfers of the experimental line lay under 80 g's, although there is big variation for some of them being some values above 100 g's.

Tutorial 2.0 on Technical Drawing 3D and Visualization

In recent years, the continuous incorporation of new technologies in the learning process has been an important factor in the educational process [1]. The Technical University of Madrid (UPM) promotes educational innovation processes and develops projects related to the improvement of the education quality. The experience that we present fits into the Educational Innovation Project (EIP) of the E.U. of Agricultural Engineering of Madrid. One of the main objectives of the EIP is to "Take advantage of the new opportunities offered by the Learning and Knowledge Technologies in order to enrich the educational processes and teaching management" [2].

A comparative analysis of ABE Bachelor of Science programs in European and US Universities.

European Universities are involved in series of great changes regarding teaching and education organization during the last few years. The origin of these changes is the creation of the so-called European Higher Education Area (EHEA), which main target is to harmonize the different University studies throughout Europe. As a consequence, most of the programs of studies in all degrees are suffering changes in order to converge to common structures. Taking advantage of the actual process, some European universities are moving from traditional Agricultural Engineering programs to a more wide discipline named recently as Biosystems Engineering, which is a science- based engineering discipline that integrates engineering science and design with applied biological, environmental and agricultural sciences, broadening in this way the area of application of Engineering sciences not strictly to agricultural sciences, but to the biologic al sciences in general, including the agricultural sciences. This paper presents a comparative study of different Bachelor of Science degrees offered by American and European Universities in the field of Agricultural/Biosystems Engineering. To carry out the analysis 40 programs accredited by ABET in American Universities and 50 European programs. Among other questions, the total number of credits, the number of semesters, the kind of modules and the distribution of subjects in groups (Basic Sciences, Engineering Fundamentals, Agricultural/Biological Sciences, Humanities & Economic Sciences, Applied Agricultural/Biological Engineering and electives) are discussed in the paper. The information provided can be an useful starting point in future definitions of new or renewed degrees with the aim of advancing in internationalization of the programs and helping student’s mobility.

Tutorial 2.0 on Technical Drawing 3D and Visualization

In recent years, the continuous incorporation of new technologies in the learning process has been an important factor in the educational process (1). The Technical University of Madrid (UPM) promotes educational innovation processes and develops projects related to the improvement of the education quality. The experience that we present fits into the Educational Innovation Project (EIP) of the E.U. of Agricultural Engineering of Madrid. One of the main objectives of the EIP is to Take advantage of the new opportunities offered by the Learning and Knowledge Technologies in order to enrich the educational processes and teaching management (2).

Desing and development of a robotic platform for the evaluation of search algorithms

Plant diseases represent a major economic and environmental problem in agriculture and forestry. Upon infection, a plant develops symptoms that affect different parts of the plant causing a significant agronomic impact. As many such diseases spread in time over the whole crop, a system for early disease detection can aid to mitigate the losses produced by the plant diseases and can further prevent their spread [1]. In recent years, several mathematical algorithms of search have been proposed [2,3] that could be used as a non-invasive, fast, reliable and cost-effective methods to localize in space infectious focus by detecting changes in the profile of volatile organic compounds. Tracking scents and locating odor sources is a major challenge in robotics, on one hand because odour plumes consists of non-uniform intermittent odour patches dispersed by the wind and on the other hand because of the lack of precise and reliable odour sensors. Notwithstanding, we have develop a simple robotic platform to study the robustness and effectiveness of different search algorithms [4], with respect to specific problems to be found in their further application in agriculture, namely errors committed in the motion and sensing and to the existence of spatial constraints due to land topology or the presence of obstacles.

Elimination of variability sources in NIR spectra for the determination of fat content in olive fruits

Models for prediction of oil content as percentage of dried weight in olive fruits were comput- ed through PLS regression on NIR spectra. Spectral preprocessing was carried out by apply- ing multiplicative signal correction (MSC), Sa vitzky–Golay algorithm, standard normal variate correction (SNV), and detrending (D) to NIR spectra. MSC was the preprocessing technique showing the best performance. Further reduction of variability was performed by applying the Wold method of orthogonal signal correction (OSC). The calibration model achieved a R 2 of 0.93, a SEPc of 1.42, and a RPD of 3.8. The R 2 obtained with the validation set remained 0.93, and the SEPc was 1.41.

HR Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy for Authentication of Olive Oil Quality

The present work is a preliminary study to settle the optimum experimental conditions and data processing for accomplishing the strategies established by the Action Plan for the EU olive oil sector. The objectives of the work were: a) to monitor the evolution of extra virgin olive oil exposed to indirect solar light in transparent glass bottles during four months; b) to identify spectral differences between edible and lampant virgin olive oil by applying high resolution Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (HR-NMR) Spectroscopy. Pr esent study could contribute to determine the date of minimum storage, their optimum conditions, and to properly characterize olive oil.

Spatial variability of seed depth placement of maize under no tillage in Alentejo, Portugal

Among the various factors that contribute towards producing a successful maize crop, seed depth placement is a key determinant, especially in a no-tillage system. The main objective of this work was to evaluate the spatial variability of seed depth placement and crop establishment in a maize crop under no-tillage conditions, using precision farming technologies. The obtained results indicate that seed depth placement was significantly affected by soil moisture content, while a very high coefficient of variation of 39% was found for seed depth. Seeding depth had a significant impact on mean emergence time and percentage of emerged plants. Shallow average depth values and the high coefficient of variation suggest a need for improvement in controlling the seeders sowing depth.