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This survey comprehensively examines the public irrigation decision support systems (IDSS) in Italy, offering a detailed description, analysis and evaluation of their features. The study investigates the agrometeorological networks and infrastructures that support Italian IDSS, providing a clearer understanding of the national context. The evaluation criteria include relevant factors such as soil moisture monitoring, crop water requirements (CWR) estimation models, biophysical parameters along with their spatial and temporal resolutions, irrigation planning and decision support visualization. Additionally, the assessment covers accessibility, scalability and interoperability of these systems. The survey also highlights the strengths and weaknesses of various IDSS, such as IRRIFRAME, IRRISIAS and IRTO, discussing their operational methodologies, data integration and regional coverage. The aim is to provide insights that facilitate advancements in sustainable irrigation management practices and address key challenges for future developments at both regional and national levels. This comprehensive evaluation seeks to enhance the effectiveness of IDSS in promoting sustainable water management in agriculture across Italy.

The use of roller crimpers to terminate plants and obtain a natural mulch before cash crop establishment has been identified as a valid and sustainable approach to control weeds. Several enhancements have been evaluated to improve and speed up plant termination to avoid delays in cash crop planting and consequent yield losses, which can occur with standard roller crimpers. In the present study, a new prototype machine provided with a roller crimper and an undercutting blade, allowing it to simultaneously crimp plant stems and cut root systems, has been designed, realized, and tested. The aim of the research was therefore to evaluate the effectiveness of the prototype for plant termination and to compare it with a commercial roller crimper. The termination was performed on a spontaneous vegetation cover (weeds). A monophasic exponential decay model to evaluate the weed termination rate over time was performed. The fitted model showed that the prototype is able to achieve a greater and faster weed devitalization compared to the commercial roller crimper, with a lower plateau (0.23 vs. 5.35 % of greenness of plant material, respectively) and higher constant of decay (1.45 vs. 0.39 day−1, respectively). Further studies are needed to evaluate the prototype’s effectiveness in relation to different soil textures, moisture conditions, and amounts of plant biomass to manage, to further improve the machine and extend its use in a broad range of situations, including cover crop termination.

Several trials have been carried out by various authors concerning autonomous mowers, which are battery-powered machines. The effects of these machines on turfgrass quality and energy consumption have been thoroughly investigated. However, there are still some aspects that have not been studied. Among these, random trajectory overlapping is one of the most important. To investigate these aspects, two RTK-GPS devices along with the custom-built software used for previous trials has been upgraded in order to precisely calculate how many times the mower drives over the same spot using random trajectories. This parameter, the number of passages in the same position, was hypothesized to explain the autonomous mower’s overlapping and trampling action. The trial has been carried out testing a commercial autonomous mower on three areas with different levels of complexity to assess its performances. The following variables were examined: the percentage of mowed area, the distance travelled, the number of intersections, the number of passages, and the autonomous mower’s work efficiency. The average percentage of area mown (average value for the three areas) was 54.64% after one hour and 80.15% after two hours of work. Percentage of area mown was 15% higher for the area with no obstacles after two hours of work. The number of passages was slightly different among the three garden designs. The garden with no obstacles obtained the highest number of passages with an average of 37 passages. The highest working efficiency was obtained in the garden with an intermediate number of obstacles with a value of 0.40 after two hours of work. The estimated energy consumption resulted 0.31 Wh m−2 after one hour and 0.42 Wh m−2 after two hours of working. These results highlight how the correct settings of cutting time may be crucial to consistently save energy during the long period and may be useful for a complete automation of the maintenance of green areas.

Background & Objective: In recent studies visfatin has been introduced as a multifaceted protein that plays a role in pathogenesis of many disorders and disease such as obesity and type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of visfatin with fasting blood glucose, insulin resistance and body mass index in patients with type 2 diabetes / impaired fasting glucose (T2DM, IFG) compared to non-diabetic subjects. Material & Methods: This case control study was performed on 160 volunteers. 80 participants were categorized in type 2 diabetic group holding FBG ≥100 (mg/dl) and 80 participants were categorized in non-diabetic (healthy) group holding FBG 70-100 (mg/dl). Serum visfatin levels were measured using enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA) and HOMA-IR equation was used for insulin sensitivity check. Results: The result was presented as mean+ standard deviation and p

Vegetable transplanting is an important and advantageous practice in vegetables production systems. In recent years, the development of vegetable transplanting tools has increased, as well as the interest for automatic and robotic transplanters. However, at present, the feeding of transplanting machines is often still performed by hand. This paper presents the design, development and testing of a needle gripper and a two-finger gripper for vegetable transplanting. Both grippers were self-designed and tested for picking, lifting and transplanting plug seedlings. Tests have been conducted on fennel (Foeniculum vulgare L.), leek (Allium ampeloprasum L.) chicory (Cichorium intybus L.) and lettuce (Lactuca sativa L.) seedlings to determine the impact that gripper typology might have on the further growth of plants after transplanting. The average success rate of the two-finger gripper in the transplanting experiment was 95% and of the needle gripper 81.75%, respectively. Although neither gripper typology affected the growth of the seedlings after transplanting, several design implications were identified in order to improve the performance of both grippers. Furthermore, the two-finger gripper is more reliable for lettuce and chicory, while the needle gripper requires root plugs with higher firmness and cohesion to prevent shattering.

The advancement of computer vision technology has allowed for the easy detection of weeds and other stressors in turfgrasses and agriculture. This study aimed to evaluate the feasibility of single shot object detectors for weed detection in lawns, which represents a difficult task. In this study, four different YOLO (You Only Look Once) object detectors version, along with all their various scales, were trained on a public ‘Weeds’ dataset with 4203 digital images of weeds growing in lawns with a total of 11,385 annotations and tested for weed detection in turfgrasses. Different weed species were considered as one class (‘Weeds’). Trained models were tested on the test subset of the ‘Weeds’ dataset and three additional test datasets. Precision (P), recall (R), and mean average precision (mAP_0.5 and mAP_0.5:0.95) were used to evaluate the different model scales. YOLOv8l obtained the overall highest performance in the ‘Weeds’ test subset resulting in a P (0.9476), mAP_0.5 (0.9795), and mAP_0.5:0.95 (0.8123), while best R was obtained from YOLOv5m (0.9663). Despite YOLOv8l high performances, the outcomes obtained on the additional test datasets have underscored the necessity for further enhancements to address the challenges impeding accurate weed detection.

Robotic solutions and technological advances for turf management demonstrated excellent results in terms of quality, energy, and time consumption. Two battery-powered autonomous mowers (2 WD and 4 WD) with random patterns were evaluated according to different trampling levels (control, low, medium, high) on a typical warm season turfgrass at the DAFE, University of Pisa, Italy. Data on the percentage of area mowed, the distance traveled, the number of passages, and the number of intersections were collected through RTK devices and processed by a custom-built software (1.8.0.0). The main quality parameters of the turfgrass were also analyzed by visual and instrumental assessments. Soil penetration resistance was measured through a digital penetrometer. The efficiency significantly decreased as the trampling level increased (from 0.29 to 0.11). The over-trampled areas were mainly detected by the edges (on average for the medium level: 18 passages for the edges vs. 14 in the central area). The trampling activity caused a reduction in turf height (from about 2.2 cm to about 1.5 cm). The energy consumption was low and varied from 0.0047 to 0.048 kWh per cutting session. Results from this trial demonstrated suitable quality for a residential turf of the Mediterranean area (NDVI values from 0.5 to 0.6), despite the over-trampling activity. Soil penetration data were low due to the reduced weight of the machines, but slightly higher for the 4 WD model (at 5 cm of depth, about 802 kPa vs. 670 kPa).

Conservation agriculture practices, such as reduced tillage and the incorporation of cover crops, play a crucial role in improving the sustainability of organic farming systems. The aim of this two-year field trial was to evaluate five different organic technical itineraries (ST, IN1, IN2, M1, and M2) which differed on soil management practices adopted before processing tomato transplantation and regarding weed control strategies performed. Soil management practices in comparison consisted of conventional deep tillage (ST and M1) or reduced tillage together with the use of a cover crop mixture composed of common vetch and barley (IN1, IN2, and M2). Weed control strategies involved the use of biodegradable mulch together with mechanical weeding (ST and M2), or false seedbed technique and mechanical weeding (IN1, IN2, and M1). Weed biomass at harvest, tomato yield, and the operational and economic performance of each of the technical itineraries was evaluated. No significant differences emerged in terms of weed biomass at harvest between itineraries. Best yield results were obtained tendentially by ST and M2 when biodegradable mulch was used, with values equal to 42.14 and 41.47 Mg ha−1 in 2020 and 30.68 and 31.19 Mg ha−1 in 2021, respectively. Even though the itineraries where mulch film was used (ST and M2) resulted in significantly onerous processes, they also obtained the highest gross income compared to the other itineraries, with values of 30,998 and 29,900 € ha−1 in 2020, and of 16,060 and 15,186 € ha−1 in 2021, respectively. These results revealed the importance of using mulching to help cope with critical climatic conditions, such as drought seasons. Further studies are needed to evaluate the yield and economic advantages of both the effect of shallower soil tillage over a longer period in this specific context and the creation of ground cover with cover crops managed as dead mulch.

Tetanus is caused by the toxin secreted by Clostridium tetani. Due to the rapid infection with this bacterium, it is so important to investigate the tetanus immunity of people. Therefore, electrochemical biosensors, as one of the most effective tools in this regard, have demanded characteristics such as being fast, simple, cost-effective and portable. However, their detection sensitivity is not sufficient. Hereon, silver enhancement of gold-nanoparticles was proposed for the improvement of detection. Hence, the current study applied gold-nanoparticles as label, following with silver enhancement, to investigate the yes/no electrochemical detection of anti-tetanus toxoid antibodies in the indirect immunoassay utilizing glassy-carbon electrodes modified by carbon nanotubes. The analytical procedure consists of the reactions of the tetanus toxoid with the antibody at electrode, so that followed by the interaction of gold-labeled secondary antibody and then silver enhancement process. In this study, the cyclic-voltammeter variation and difference of gold to silver signal based on silver ions fluctuations were also investigated. The results indicated that ∆Ep increased from 0.24 V before silver enhancement reaction to 0.57 V after the silver enhancement. The results also demonstrated that after silver enhancement, current significantly increased and current plot at Ecp transferred to positive potentials and at Eap moved to negative potentials. In conclusion, this method increases the detection sensitivity and can simply use to other bio-molecules detection.

Erigeron canadensis L. directly competes with vines for nutrients, light, and water, and its management represents a challenge, especially under a vineyard trellis. Conventional weed control in the under-trellis area is achieved by cultivation or multiple herbicides applications, thus leading to relevant environmental issues. For this reason, several eco-friendly or nature-based weed control strategies such as the use of cover crops (CC) that become more relevant in last years. A two-year trial was conducted on a vineyard aimed at evaluating the effect of CC (sown both inter-rows and under-trellis) managed with an autonomous mower (AM) on E. canadensis under trellis control. The combination of CC and AM provided an E. canadensis reduction between 61 and 84% compared to conventional management. The AM work when managing a spontaneous cover provided a density reduction of 26%. Moreover, an analysis of the trampling effect of the AM on the vineyard floor and E. canadensis density was conducted.

Wild oats are worldwide grassy weeds that cause substantial yield losses, particularly in winter cereal crops. In addition, wild oat herbicide resistant cases have increased; indeed, up to 52 cases have been registered. Despite this, no wild oat herbicide resistant cases have been described in Spain, where farmers and technicians have reported poor herbicide efficacy in sterile oats (Avena sterilis subsp. sterilis L.). A dose-response experiment was conducted comparing the behavior of two populations of A. sterilis from southern Spain to a susceptible population. These populations were collected from two commercial farms where a low efficacy of chemical control had been described. Clodinafop-propargyl and Pinoxaden were tested as active ingredients in the dose-response experiment. Additionally, an alternative herbicide, which consisted of a mixture of Mesosulfuron-methyl and Propoxycarbazone-Na, was also tested at a field dose. The two populations of A. sterilis studied provided a resistant factor higher than 10 for Clodinafop-propargyl and higher than 4 for Pinoxaden. A total control was achieved for plants treated with Mesosulfuron-methyl and Propoxycarbazone-Na.

Thermal weed control plays an important role in managing weeds in synthetic herbicide-free systems, particularly in organic agriculture and in urban areas where synthetic herbicides are prohibited. This study compares the impact on weed control of increased doses of hot water and hot foam (i.e. 0, 0.67, 1.67, 3.33, 5.00, 6.67 and 8.33 kg m–2). The doses were applied using the same machine. The temperatures, weed control effectiveness, weed regrowth after the death of the aboveground vegetative weed tissues, and weed dry biomass 30 days after the treatments were studied in two experimental fields with a different weed composition (i.e. Site I and Site II). The results showed that difficult weeds to control, such as Cynodon dactylon (L.) Pers., Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. and Taraxacum officinale Weber, like all the other species in the initial weed populations in the two experiments, died after lower doses of hot foam compared to hot water. Adding foam to hot water made it possible to lower the required dose of water by at least 2.5-fold compared to hot water used alone. By insulating the weeds, the foam led to higher peak temperatures and slower temperature decay, thus determining an effective weed control with lower doses compared to hot water. Starting from 11 days and 16 days after treatments (for Site I and Site II, respectively), there were no statistically significant differences in weed regrowth between hot foam and hot water at all the doses applied. There were no differences between the dry biomass of weeds collected 30 days after treatments when the same doses of hot foam and hot water were used.

In the area under tree rows of alley cropping systems, coarse plant material as well as pruning material or stones may be present, so the use of a mower equipped with chains as cutting a tool could be advantageous. A mower designed for under-row weed control in orchards, equipped with an automatic tree-skipping mechanism, was modified by replacing blades with chains with the aim of evaluating its performance in an alley cropping system. A first trial was carried out in an open field to preliminarily compare the chain mower with the version equipped with blades in relation to different settings of working speed (1.6 and 2.4 km·h−1) and rotation speed of the cutting tool (1830 and 2500 rpm). Weed biomass reduction, weed cover reduction, weed height reduction, weed biomass regrowth, and clipping size were assessed. In a second trial, the performance of the mowers with different setting configurations was assessed in an alley cropping system under a more critical environmental condition for mowing, i.e., the presence of dew. Weed biomass reduction, weed cover reduction, weed height reduction, and the mowers’ field capacity with different working speed settings were assessed. No major differences emerged between the mowers and the chain mower performance was comparable to that of the standard blade mower. The setting with the high working speed and high rotation speed of the cutting tool turns out to be the best compromise, obtaining a weed biomass reduction of 59.6%, a weed cover reduction of 40.9%, and a higher field capacity compared to the setting with the low working speed, with an increase of 47.9%.