Editorial Team

Embracing smart irrigation management techniques empowers growers to irrigate with greater efficiency, thereby promoting sustainable agricultural production. In this context, growers often rely on crop evapotranspiration (ETc) as a key factor in making informed irrigation decisions, underscoring the significance of accurately determining and spatially mapping crop water status. Technological progress, exemplified by the emergence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), has brought about a revolutionary shift in agricultural monitoring. UAV platforms can capture high-resolution images with centimeter-level spatial accuracy and offer higher temporal coverage compared to satellite imagery. Considering these advancements, this study introduces a robust method for classifying water stress in cotton using a compact UAV platform and convolutional neural networks (CNN). The experiment was conducted at the USDA-ARS Cropping Systems Research Laboratory (CSRL) in Lubbock, Texas, where the cotton field was divided into 12 drip zones. The study included three replications to evaluate four irrigation treatments: “rainfed”, “full irrigation”, “percent deficit of full irrigation”, and “time delay of full irrigation”. The results demonstrated that the CNN model successfully classified the cotton water stress using the UAV-based RGB image, achieving an overall best prediction accuracy of approximately 91%. By segmenting the original cotton images into separate canopy and soil areas using morphological image processing methods, the authors also isolated and analyzed the individual contributions of these components to cotton water stress. Additionally, a random forest classifier revealed the relative importance of different image features in the classification process through feature importance analysis. These findings highlighted the state-of-the-art performance of the proposed system in cotton water stress classification and provided valuable insights into the key image features contributing to accurate classification. The authors concluded that integrating UAV-based RGB imagery and CNN models had great potential for assessing water stress in cotton.

A new approach to measure spatial variability of soil parameters and field technique to test-value specific fertilizer

Information on the distribution of soil properties is important to know the status of nutrients in the soils based on which fertilizer nutrients are recommended. Given the variability of nutrients in the soils, making a site-specific fertilizer recommendation seems to be a compelling work. To determine the spatial variability of soil nutrients and to make judicious and precise fertilizer recommendations, new measures are designed with this study. These measures are tested against the soil samples (n = 43) for total nitrogen (N), organic matter (OM), phosphorus (P2O5), and potassium (K2O) in the study area. The descriptive statistical analysis indicated an average of low nitrogen and organic matter, while phosphorus was found to be very high and the level of potassium was high. The spread of nutrients across the data sets, however, included low, medium, high, and very high levels of ratings. The Deviation Square Index was developed and applied for the variability measurement and found that the largest variation was with phosphorus distribution, followed by potassium, nitrogen, and organic matter. The coefficient of variation (CV%) analysis also exhibited similar trends in nutrient distributions. Nitrogen was the main determinant explaining the variations in rice yield, while phosphorus and potash were negatively related to the yield. An index of fertilizer nutrient recommendation called Test-Value Specific Dose (TVSD) was developed and used to calculate the nutrient recommendation for each sampled location. This new method gave easy and more accurate doses of fertilizer over the blanket recommendation to fit the variations across the soil samples.

Editor-in-Chief

Prof. Zhengjun Qiu

Zhejiang University
China

Honorary Editor-in-Chief

Cheng Sun

Academician of World Academy of Productivity Science; Executive Chairman, World Confederation of Productivity Science China Chapter
China

Editorial Board Members

Prof. Haluk Caglar Kaymak

Atatürk University
Turkey

Dr. Khongdet Phasinam

Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University
Thailand

Dr. Altaf Hussain Lahori

Scindh Madresstul Islam University
Pakistan

Prof. Meisam Zargar

RUDN University
Russia

Prof. Morteza Taki

Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources University of Khozestan
Iran

Prof. Weiqiang Fu

Intelligent Equipment Technology Research Center of the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry
China

Dr. Burhan Uddin Choudhury

ICAR-Research Complex for NEH Region
India

Prof. You-Cai Xiong

Lanzhou University
China

Prof. Zhao Zhang

Beijing Normal University
China

Dr. Ram Swaroop Meena

Banaras Hindu University
India

Prof. Noureddine Benkeblia

The University of the West Indies
Jamaica

Prof. Renjie Dong

China Agricultural University
China

Prof. Daniel Mierlita

University of Oradea
Romania

Dr. Muhammad Moaaz Ali

Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University
China

Dr. Giuseppe Pulighe

CREA Research Centre for Agricultural Policies and Bioeconomy
Italy

Dr. Joan Estrany

University of the Balearic Islands
Spain

Prof. Luis Eduardo Akiyoshi Sanches Suzuki

Federal University of Pelotas
Brazil

Prof. Xueqian Fu

China Agricultural University
China

Prof. Zhiyuan Tan

South China Agricultural University
China

Prof. Ying Feng

Zhejiang University
China

Prof. Gideon Oron

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Israel

Prof. Gaetano Pandino

University of Catania
Italy

Assoc. Prof. Maduraimuthu Djanaguiraman

Tamil Nadu Agricultural University
India

Prof. Dr. Khaled A. A. Abdelaal

Kafrelsheikh University
Egypt

Dr. Riaz Ahmad

Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences
China

Prof. Dr. Elsayed Abouelfotowh Omer

National Research Centre
Egypt

Prof. Vitalii S. Nitsenko

Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas
Ukraine

Dr. Clara Inés Nicholls

University of California Berkeley
United States

Prof. Hao Li

Institute of Farmland Irrigation of CAAS
China

Prof. Johannes P.F. de Bruijn

Universidad de Concepción
Chile

Dr. Camillus Abawiera Wongnaa

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Ghana

Prof. Houshang Ghamarnia

Razi University
Iran

Prof. Mohammad Kazem Souri

Tarbiat Modares University
Iran

Editor-in-Chief

Prof. Zhengjun Qiu

Zhejiang University, China

Honorary Editor-in-Chief

Cheng Sun

Academician of World Academy of Productivity Science; Executive Chairman, World Confederation of Productivity Science China Chapter, China

Indexing & Archiving

News & Announcements

2025-02-01

Highlight article: Innovations in Modern Agriculture: UAVs and CNNs Transform Cotton Water Stress Monitoring

In the realm of modern agriculture, the integration of cutting-edge technologies is revolutionizing the way we approach sustainable farming practices. A recent study published in Advances in Modern Agriculture titled "Classification of cotton water stress using convolutional neural networks and UAV-based RGB imagery" has garnered significant attention for its innovative approach to precision irrigation management. Conducted by researchers from Institute of Data Science and the AgriLife Research and Extension Center of Texas A&M University (authors's information is below). This study introduces a novel method for classifying cotton water stress using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and convolutional neural networks (CNNs), offering a powerful solution for optimizing water use in agriculture.

2024-09-11

Smart agriculture is becoming a reality!

Modern agricultural technology is evolving rapidly, with scientists collaborating with leading agricultural enterprises to develop intelligent management practices. These practices utilize advanced systems that provide tailored fertilization and treatment options for large-scale land management.

2024-05-01

Notice on the prohibition of using AI techniques to generate papers!

This journal values human initiative and intelligence, and the employment of AI technologies to write papers that replace the human mind is expressly prohibited. When there is a suspicious submission that uses AI tools to quickly piece together and generate research results, the editorial board of the journal will reject the article, and all journals under the publisher's umbrella will prohibit all authors from submitting their articles.

Readers and authors are asked to exercise caution and strictly adhere to the journal's policy regarding the usage of Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools.

More Announcements...

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