This study looked at the recent development of a novel spot applicator for applying granular agrochemicals. The system was specifically designed for use with dichlobenil in wild blueberry fields. Economic analysis of the system involved three costing scenarios. These included 1) cost to purchase all application equipment, 2) cost if the user already owns a rate controller, GNSS receiver and swath control, and 3) cost if the user already owns a rate controller, GNSS receiver, swath control and a pneumatic applicator. Payback periods were based on the cost of upgrading equipment, operational costs, dichlobenil’s $1873 ha-1 uniform application cost and the 33.89% hair fescue field coverage measured from aerial imagery in selected fields. Through spot treatment, application costs for dichlobenil were reduced to $634.76 ha-1 in sampled fields. The breakeven point in terms of savings to applied hectarage was 43.44 ha, 20.83 ha and 4.27 ha for costing scenarios 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Beyond the economic benefits, the spot applicator is more efficient from a temporal perspective. Applied hectarage per hopper of dichlobenil increases from 1.92 ha to 5.66 ha when switching from broadcast to spot application configurations, improving the total uptime. In all, the analysis demonstrates the considerable potential, economic, and temporal benefits of the applicator for applying dichlobenil. Given the industry largely only applies pronamide to control hair fescue, reduction in dichlobenil application costs adds a second option to limit possible selection for herbicide resistance. Future work will consider how the applicator can benefit other cropping systems.

The growing need for pea protein products demands sustainable industrial quality control tools. To ensure the quality of pea products, processors must control the product’s quality indices. Conventionally, these pea quality attributes are determined by tedious, time-consuming, and expensive methods. Therefore, there is a need for a rapid, non-invasive, high-throughput, and efficient technique that could assess the quality parameters of pea products. In this work, the possibility of developing a rapid and high throughput technology based on hyperspectral imaging coupled with deep chemometrics (convolutional neural network, CNN) or standard chemometrics approaches (partial least squares, PLS; and support vector machines, SVM) for assessing the quality of attributes of pea flours and proteins was conducted. Hyperspectral images were collected from pea flours (PF), pea protein concentrate (PPC), and pea protein isolate (PPI). Images were processed, and the extracted data was coupled with the laboratory-obtained quality parameters such as proteins, fat, starch, moisture, etc. in order to build predictive models using CNN, PLS, or SVM algorithms for assessing various quality attributes of pea products. The results confirmed the feasibility of CNN, SVM, and PLS algorithms for prediction from hyperspectral imaging spectra with excellent performances. The study showed that a high throughput and rapid coupled with chemometrics algorithms could be potential alternatives to standard methods for real-time applications of hyperspectral imaging for assessing the various quality parameters of pea flours and proteins.

In this work we analyze the supply of biomass from field to an in-land or port destination. The biomass is pelletized to increase its bulk density to extend its storage period and for ease of its transport. We envisioned that the farmer collects bales from field and transports the bales to farmstead during the harvest season. The bales are then processed into pellets using small scale pellet equipment. A custom operator with expertise in pelletization may engage in handling and densifying the biomass. The business case for the mobile mill will be similar to the well established custom grain and forage harvesting operations. The pellets are stored in hopper bottom grain bins at the farmstead. From this point, the handling of pellets would be similar to the handling and marketing of grain. The farmer trucks a specified volume of pellets from farmstead to the nearest elevator where the pellets are transferred to larger bins or silos. Pellets are extracted from silos and loaded onto the rail cars. The cost of delivering ag pellets to biorefinery or to the shipping port is $86.09/dt. This cost does not include the equivalent value of removing biomass from the farm (e.g. fertilizer replacement) and return on investment. The GHG emissions to produce and transport ag pellets add up to 185.9 kg of CO2 per dt of biomass. The cost of producing pellets without drying feedstock is $35.05/dt and the corresponding GHG for palletization amounts $146.30/dt.

Lentil and other pulses are the great source of plant-based proteins, providing a healthy, reliable, and sustainable source of energy for the growing world population. Their important macromolecules are starch and protein due to nutritional values and potential functional attributes, suggesting them as the main ingredients in food formulations. However, the inherent limitation in digestibility and functionality of native lentils force the need of processing to overcome them and modify lentils’ characteristics. This work aimed to apply conventional and volumetric heating techniques in drying of soaked/germinated lentil seeds to produce modified lentil flours and investigate their microstructure, nutritional and functional properties. The micro computed tomography visually illustrated the differences in spatial coordinates of starch gelatinization in the whole seed due to different heat intensities and directions in these methods. The structural studies of flour using FT-MIR, X-ray scattering and diffraction showed drying at temperatures higher than starch gelatinization and protein denaturation temperatures caused less short-range crystalline order and relative crystallinity of starch granules and order-disorder transformation of protein (β-sheet to intermolecular β-sheet and α-helix to random coil), suggesting higher water holding capacity, rapidly digestible starch, and protein digestibility but reduced protein solubility and emulsifying properties. While drying at lower temperatures than those temperatures brought about rearrangement and formation of ordered crystalline structure, increase in slowly digestible starch, and marginal increase in water holding capacity and emulsifying stability in some cases. Generally, this study obtained modified flours through structural alteration of starch and protein, proposing them as a promoting food ingredient.