Early information on yield has a special importance in the intensive apple production. Since the majority of older forecast methods are labor, time, organization and cost intensive a hybrid model based on image analysis and neural network was developed. From the end of fruit thinning in June till harvesting digital images of 120 trees of yellow-skin 'Golden Delicious' (fourtimes) and 120 trees of red-skin ćBraeburnć (five times) were captured from intensive orchards. Firstly, each image was processed by image analysis algorithm to receive the data on number of fruits and a yield forecast, for each sampling period separately, which served as the input information for modeling the yield with the artificial neural network (ANN). The forecast of the hybrid method showed a higher accuracy than the image analysis for both varieties, since the new procedure managed to increase the correlation betweenthe forecasted and weighed yield from 0.73 to 0.83 for 'Golden Delicious' and from 0.51 to 0.78 for 'Braeburn'. The standard deviation/image was decreased from 4.79 to 2.83 kg for 'Golden Delicious' and from 3.64 to 2.55 kg for 'Braeburn'. To introduce the new method in practice, additional tests on various locations including all important apple varieties are recommended.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3356972
The impacts of globalization in rural areas of Slovenia: examples from the Pomurje and Goriška regions Globalization processes have restructured rural areas enormously: their impacts in European rural areas were studied in order to define the balance in opportunities and reality as well as threats. In Slovenia two border rural regions were selected: the Pomurje region and the Goriška region. In the first one the main research focus was: (1) environmental capital and sustainable development of economic activities based on the region’s preserved environment (i.e. tourism); (2) migration flows in rural areas, in particular amenity migrations; and in the second one the project objectives were implemented through a study of rural business.
COBISS.SI-ID: 49621346
The growing demand for organic products in Slovenia is creating market opportunity for the farmers. The aim of the first comprehensive research of Slovenian organic market was to establish status quo and perspectives, focusing on domestic supply, and to suggest measures for improvement. The article is describing market performance and market plans of Slovenian organic farms, based on selected results of the research. Face-to face interviews of a representative sample of 256 Slovenian organic farms were used, an inventory of organic farmersʼ markets was established and 1/3 of sellers interviewed; indepth interviews with key retailers of organic foods were performed. It was established that direct sales have by far the most important role for domestic organic products, accounting for over 85 percent of sales. On-farm sales account for the largest share, while about 110 organic farms realise on average 70 percent of their sales on the farmers markets. On the other hand, the retailers reported a lack of availability of domestic organic products, in the contrast to a high interest of consumers. The estimated total volume of organic food sales is 1 percent of the total food sales (2010), where domestic organic products account only for about 20 percent The article is giving some proposals for increasing domestic organic market production, especially from the viewpoint of additional demand for organic foods (green public procurement).
COBISS.SI-ID: 49215842