Search Results (385)

Agricultural mobile platforms provide the physical foundation for sensing, field operations, and material handling in smart farming, yet their design is strongly constrained by crop geometry, terrain conditions, task-specific payloads, energy demand, and operational reliability. This review examines agricultural mobile platforms from four complementary perspectives: design and operational requirements, platform classification, powertrain and mobility technologies, and agricultural applications. Wheeled, tracked, legged and wheel-legged, and rail-guided or constrained-motion platforms are compared in terms of mobility characteristics and suitable operating environments. Power sources, drive systems, steering mechanisms, mobility control, and platform–implement integration are further discussed, with particular attention to electrification, distributed drive, dynamic loads, and coordinated power allocation. Representative applications include crop monitoring and phenotyping, precision crop management, weeding and harvesting, and transportation and multi-purpose operations. Current challenges arise from the strong coupling among terrain adaptability, payload, energy capacity, autonomy, and long-term reliability, as well as limited interoperability between platforms and implements. Future development should emphasize task-oriented reconfigurable platforms, standardized mechanical and electrical interfaces, task-level energy management, and mobility control that accounts for real-time platform and terrain conditions. Full article

A. tauschii is the wild progenitor that contributed the D genome to common wheat. Since the 1990s, however, it has progressively become a destructive weed in northern China, posing a serious threat to wheat production. This review systematically summarizes current knowledge of A. tauschii, including its taxonomy, population differentiation, mechanisms underlying infestation and crop damage, environmentally sustainable management strategies, and the exploitation of its genetic resources. Two ecotypes have been identified in China: the wild-type and the weed-type. The weed-type spreads rapidly through pathways such as contaminated seed lots. Owing to its highly synchronized life cycle with winter wheat, strong environmental adaptability, prolific reproductive capacity, and superior competitive ability for ecological niches, A. tauschii can rapidly establish populations within wheat fields, resulting in substantial yield losses. Current management strategies emphasize an integrated control system combining primary agronomic practices, chemical control for rapid intervention, and smart agricultural technologies to enhance monitoring and precision management. A. tauschii represents an invaluable reservoir of genes associated with abiotic stress tolerance, disease resistance, and yield-related traits. Future research should integrate advances across multiple disciplines to simultaneously improve weed management and maximize the utilization of this important genetic resource. Full article

While previous reviews have largely focused on individual crops or single target-site mechanisms, the full-chain comparative landscape across major cereal crops remains unexplored. Here, we fill this critical gap by providing the first systematic, cross-crop comparative review that spans herbicide targets, resistance mechanisms, and breeding applications across four major cereals—rice, maize, wheat, and sorghum. Weed infestation is a serious constraint on crop production. Chemical weed control faces challenges such as herbicide resistance evolution and ecological risks. Developing herbicide-resistant varieties is a fundamental approach to achieve green and sustainable weed management. This review systematically summarizes research progress on herbicide resistance genes from three aspects: herbicide classification, resistance mechanisms, and crop breeding applications. It highlights key differences among four major cereal crops (rice, maize, wheat, and sorghum) in resistance-gene discovery and translational progress. Rice has the richest target-site resistance-gene resources. Maize leads in commercialization of transgenic herbicide resistance. Wheat focuses on endogenous precise editing due to genome complexity and regulatory constraints. Sorghum relies on specific mutations to serve cereal–legume intercropping systems. Based on this comparison, this review identifies the core trends in resistance breeding: from single-gene to multi-gene stacking, and from exogenous gene introduction to endogenous gene editing. It also points out common bottlenecks, including insufficient systematic mining of resistance-gene resources, lagging elucidation of non-target-site resistance regulatory networks, and strong genotype dependence in genetic transformation. Future efforts should focus on exploring broad-spectrum resistance genes, optimizing precise editing technologies, and developing sustainable resistance management strategies. This review provides a theoretical framework and practical references for molecular breeding of herbicide-resistant crops. Full article

Pesticides represent a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems due to their persistence and widespread use in agricultural areas, altering environments and exerting adverse effects on non-target organisms. Tebuthiuron is a phenylurea herbicide extensively used as an agrochemical to control pests and weeds in various crops, which often leads to contamination of aquatic environments. Despite its high water solubility and relatively long half-life in soil, studies on Tebuthiuron toxicity in fishes at environmental concentrations are limited. This study aimed to unravel the toxicity mechanisms of Tebuthiuron using the zebrafish model. Zebrafish embryos were exposed to Tebuthiuron (one concentration of either 0.1, 10, 1000 and 5000 µg/L) for 5 days and assessed for hatchability, heart rate, locomotor activity, oxygen reactive species, apoptosis and gene expression. There was no change in frequency of hatch, heart rate, or apoptosis. However, behavioral changes were noted, with hyperactivity in zebrafish larvae during the first light (at 10 µg/L), second light (at 10 and 1000 µg/L) and third dark (10 µg/L) periods of the Visual Motor Response assay. Biochemically, a significant depletion of basal ROS levels was observed at 1000 µg/L. At the molecular level, downregulation of oxidative stress-related genes (cat, sod1, and sod2) in larval fish was noted with exposure to 10 and 5000 µg/L Tebuthiuron, suggesting a depletion of antioxidant enzymes. In addition, some neurotoxicity-related genes were downregulated, such as acetylcholinesterase (ache), while some genes were upregulated, like microtubule-associated protein tau b (maptb) and synapsin 2 alpha (syn2a), with 5000 µg/L Tebuthiuron exposure. In conclusion, Tebuthiuron induces sublethal toxicity characterized by irregular, concentration-specific disruptions to photomotor behavior, basal ROS levels, and transcriptional markers of oxidative stress and synaptic function, even in the absence of acute morphological defects. Future research should prioritize functional assays targeting mitochondrial bioenergetics and antioxidant enzyme activities, alongside evaluations of later developmental stages, to fully elucidate the long-term ecological risks of phenylurea herbicides to non-target aquatic species. Full article

Allelopathy is an ecological process in which released chemicals modify the performance of neighbouring organisms, whereas phytotoxicity describes an inhibitory response to a substance under a defined assay and, by itself, does not demonstrate field-level allelopathy. This critical narrative review combines a structured re-screening of the literature with targeted updating through 21 August 2026. Searches used combinations of allelopath*, allelochemical*, phytotox*, bioherbicid*, hormesis, biostimulant*, rhizosphere, microbiome, formulation, resistance, and regulation; peer-reviewed studies were complemented by authoritative regulatory and resistance databases. Evidence was appraised according to experimental context and mechanistic strength, explicitly distinguishing field or whole-plant validation from controlled bioassays, experimentally supported molecular targets from physiological or omics associations, and computational predictions. The synthesis covers chemical diversity, botanical and microbial sources, agro-industrial by-products, mechanisms of phytotoxicity and low-dose responses, rhizosphere interactions, and formulation strategies. Important corrections emerge from this evidence hierarchy: strigolactones are carotenoid-derived apocarotenoid hormones/signals rather than sesquiterpenes; multi-target activity does not preclude resistance evolution; cyanobacterial responses cannot be directly extrapolated to weeds or crops; and hormetic stimulation under controlled conditions is not equivalent to reliable field biostimulant performance. The principal translational gaps are insufficient dose–response standardisation, limited crop-selectivity and field validation, variable biomass chemistry, incomplete carrier and non-target safety data, and regulatory uncertainty for multifunctional products. Allelochemicals therefore represent promising components of integrated crop protection, but their agronomic value depends on rigorous evidence, formulation-specific validation, and context-dependent deployment rather than on laboratory phytotoxicity alone. Full article

This study evaluated the effects of different mechanical weed control systems on weed biomass, weed flora composition and maize grain yield during a three-year field experiment conducted from 2021 to 2023 in the Zagreb area, Croatia, using a randomized complete block design with three replications. The following three weed control treatments were compared. T1—mechanical weed control between the crop rows with a motor cultivator combined with manual hoeing within the crop rows. T2—mechanical weed control between the crop rows with a motor cultivator without weed control within the crop rows. T3—without any weed control as control. The weed control system had a statistically significant effect (p < 0.001) on weed biomass and maize grain yield throughout the study. The lowest average weed biomass and the highest average grain yield were recorded in T1, whereas the untreated control (T3) had the highest weed biomass and the lowest grain yield. Regression analysis indicated a strong negative association between weed biomass and maize grain yield (R² = 0.833), demonstrating that higher weed biomass was associated with lower grain yield. During the three-year experiment, 14 weed species were recorded, with Amaranthus retroflexus, Ambrosia artemisiifolia, Sorghum halepense and Chenopodium album being the dominant species. The results indicate that combining mechanical weed control between the crop rows with manual hoeing within the crop rows was the most effective weed control strategy under the conditions of this study. Full article

Weed management in woody perennial crops relies mainly on broadcast herbicide application, with well-documented costs to soil health, biodiversity, and crop physiology. Robotic platforms offer a path toward selective, site-specific control, but orchard environments present challenges such as irregular geometries, trunks, and strong illumination variability under the canopy that have limited fully integrated solutions. This work presents an autonomous robotic platform for selective under-canopy weed control in woody crops, combining multi-sensor perception, a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm with a mechanical trunk-avoidance mechanism, and a precision spraying module with independently controlled nozzles. A weed image dataset tailored to Mediterranean orchard conditions was built from controlled-cultivation and commercial-orchard imagery under a two-phase training strategy, and the platform was evaluated in a commercial almond orchard in southern Spain. Field trials confirmed the platform’s ability to avoid tree trunks (presenting an average of 1.28% coverage near the tree trunks) and spray only selected targets under typical orchard operation but weed detection accuracy dropped substantially between winter conditions (mAP@0.5 = 93.5%) and summer conditions (mAP@0.5 = 47.8%), with uneven canopy lighting identified as the main cause. These results confirm the technical feasibility of integrating perception, navigation, and actuation into a single autonomous platform, while highlighting robust perception under canopy-induced illumination heterogeneity and tighter perception–navigation integration as the main remaining challenges. Full article

Haloxyfop-P-methyl (HPM) is widely used for grass weed control in oilseed rape production. However, whether its residues affect subsequent seed germination and the underlying mechanisms remains unclear. In this study, seeds harvested from HPM-treated fields exhibited a significantly reduced germination rate of 36.5%, compared with 100% in the control group, accompanied by abnormal cell morphology. Residue analysis revealed an HPM concentration of 3.36 mg kg⁻¹ in the treated seeds, exceeding the Chinese maximum residue limit (MRL) of 3 mg kg⁻¹ (GB 2763). Given that herbicides often induce oxidative stress, we measured a range of antioxidant markers (H₂O₂, MDA, SOD, POD, GSH, GSSG, AsA, and DHA) during germination (12 h and 24 h) but detected no significant changes, which did not support oxidative stress as the primary mechanism during this phase. Relative electrical conductivity measurements further indicated that membrane integrity was already compromised in dry seeds, suggesting that oxidative injury—if it occurred—may have taken place during seed development rather than during germination. To elucidate the molecular basis, we performed transcriptomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic analyses, which revealed significant downregulation of fatty acid biosynthesis genes and marked alterations in the lipidome profile. Collectively, our multi-stage investigation demonstrates that HPM residue accumulation is associated with impaired seed germination, primarily through metabolic disruption of lipid reserves rather than oxidative damage during germination, highlighting a non-target phytotoxic effect of this herbicide on the crop itself. These findings provide a theoretical basis for understanding the potential toxicity of persistent HPM residues in rapeseed, with implications for pesticide environmental risk assessment and the safe production of rapeseed. Full article

The reciprocating cutterbar is evolving from a conventional harvesting mechanism into an intelligent end-effector for crop harvesting, mechanical weeding, and selective cutting. However, plant anisotropy, moisture-dependent fracture, root-soil constraints, vibration, and wear still hinder low-energy cutting, long service life, and robust control. This review integrates harvesting and mechanical weeding within a unified analysis of reciprocating cutterbar technologies. It first links plant tissue structure and dynamic fracture to blade penetration, fiber stretching, crack propagation, and energy dissipation. It then examines how cutting speed, sliding-cut angle, blade clearance, and root-soil anchorage jointly affect performance. Advanced testing, response surface methodology, discrete element method, finite element method, and multiphysics simulations are compared for failure analysis, parameter optimization, and contact modeling. The review further assesses bionic blade design, surface strengthening, composite coatings, novel transmissions, multisource perception, and adaptive control. Key barriers include inconsistent plant-mechanics datasets, computationally intensive models, limited field robustness, and conflicts among performance objectives. We therefore identify digital twins, modular electric cutterbars, and closed-loop control as priorities for translating mechanistic insight into reliable field performance. Full article

Mechanized agriculture has created important pathways for weed seed dispersal; yet, the influence of seed morphological and phenological traits on harvester-mediated dispersal remains poorly understood. Field surveys and simulated dispersal experiments were conducted to investigate the factors affecting weed seed dispersal in rice–wheat cropping systems. Field investigations across 60 fields identified 54 weed species retained on combine harvesters after rice and wheat harvesting, with Poaceae species dominating the retained seed assemblage. Seed retention was strongly associated with plant height, seed size, appendage type, and phenological synchrony with crops. Species with a tall stature, large seeds, and synchronized maturity were disproportionately retained by harvesters. Cluster analysis classified weed species into four mechanical dispersal types according to their dispersal potential. Simulated dispersal experiments demonstrated that seed deposition followed an exponential decay pattern with increasing harvesting distance. Seeds possessing rough surfaces or appendages showed lower attenuation coefficients and longer dispersal distances than smooth seeds. Harvester-mediated dispersal distances exceeded 2 km during continuous field operation. These findings demonstrate that combine harvesters act not only as dispersal vectors but also as selective filters favoring weed species with specific trait combinations. Integrating harvest weed seed control technologies with machinery hygiene practices will therefore be essential for sustainable weed management. Full article

Soil degradation in vineyards represents an increasing concern. Among vineyard management practices, under-row weed control is often performed through mechanical methods relying on equipment that may negatively affect soil health, highlighting the need to evaluate more sustainable solutions for soil preservation. This study, conducted during the 2024 growing season in Palaia (Pisa, Italy), aimed to evaluate and compare three under-row weed management strategies, each characterized by the implementation of two weed control interventions. One strategy was based on low-impact soil tillage, consisting of two operations: a first intervention performed with a rollhacke and a second one with a blade weeder. The other two strategies relied on weed cutting without soil disturbance from the implements: one involved two interventions with an under-vine mower, while the other included two interventions with a wire mulcher. No significant differences were observed in terms of weed biomass among the tested strategies, although the tillage-based solution generally resulted in greater weed height (41.31 cm), yet always below the cluster zone. In terms of total weed cover, the mowing-based strategy achieved the highest value (28.33%). The mowing-based strategy also showed higher species richness (2.17) compared with the mulching-based strategy, and a higher Shannon index (0.25) than both other strategies, highlighting the potential ecological value of this approach. However, from an operational perspective, the tillage- and mulching-based strategies proved to be the most efficient, both in terms of operating time (2.54 and 2.02 h ha⁻¹, respectively) and fuel consumption (10.63 and 11.47 kg ha⁻¹, respectively). On average, these two strategies reduced operating time and fuel consumption by 73.79% and 74.39%, respectively, compared with the mowing-based strategy. Full article

Rhus typhina L. is widely recognized as a landscape ornamental plant and its extracts have demonstrated biological activity against multiple weed types. This makes it a promising candidate in sustainable agriculture as a bioherbicide by offering a solution to mitigate the growing problem of herbicide resistance. Therefore, this study was designed in agar culture to analyze the effect of powders of the branch, fallen leaf, and pericarp from Rhus typhina L. against seed germination of Portulaca oleracea L. and evaluate its inhibitory mechanisms based on anatomical structure and the activities of antioxidative enzymes, α-amylase, and β-amylase. The main allelopathic compounds were also identified based on high-performance liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC-MS), and their bioherbicidal effects were evaluated. Brassica napus L. was used as the object for biosafety evaluation. The results showed that the seed germination of Portulaca oleracea L. under treatment with powder extract from Rhus typhina was inhibited by exhhibting swelling and deformation in endosperm cells and chaotically scattered starch granules in seed embryos with a shorter radicle length than the control. During the period of treatment, antioxidative enzymes were quickly activated to scavenge the suddenly surging reactive oxygen species (ROS) as a measure of boosted malonaldehyde (MDA) content. Antioxidative enzyme (POD, SOD, and CAT) activities were also activated to mitigate the oxidative damage. In contrast, both α-amylase and β-amylase activities were significantly suppressed. A total of 16 allelochemicals were identified in the branch, fallen leaf, and pericarp of Rhus typhina L. Among these, gallic acid, methyl gallate, and tyrosol were identified as exhibiting the most significant inhibitory effect during the whole germination process of Portulaca oleracea L., resulting in browned seedlings and stunted radicle length compared with the control, while far weaker inhibitory effects were found against Brassica napus L. In summary, extracts from Rhus typhina L. targeted α-amylase and β-amylase activities rather than antioxidative enzyme activities to inhibit the germination of Portulaca oleracea L. Gallic acid, methyl gallate, and tyrosol were the key compounds that inhibited its germination. Full article

Despite the growing demand for sustainable agricultural systems, the long-term effects of tillage practices remain controversial. No-tillage (NT) systems offer several potential benefits, including improved soil structure, enhanced soil biological activity, and reduced environmental stress, but their application can also be associated with challenges such as difficulty in weed control or variable crop yield. Although previous studies have extensively investigated the effects of NT systems on soil and crop, limited knowledge is available about the cellular adaptation mechanisms of plants, especially gene expression and biochemical responses. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of conventional tillage (CT) and NT systems in sunflower plants using an integrated transcriptomic and biochemical approach. We performed genome-wide transcriptomic analysis based on next-generation sequencing on leaf samples from three different field sites, supplemented by measurements of biochemical parameters related to selected metabolic processes. Exploratory transcriptomic analysis indicated that several gene expression changes related to primary metabolic processes occurred in plants grown in the NT system compared to the CT system. These included processes related to photosynthesis, cellular respiration, carbohydrate metabolism and the biosynthesis of some amino acids. In parallel, we observed transcriptional patterns indicating increased activity of several secondary metabolic pathways, which may be related to adaptation mechanisms to environmental stress. Determination of total soluble sugar, crude protein, total phenolics and total flavonoids provided independent biochemical support for the changes indicated by the transcriptomic results. Our results suggest that the tillage system affects the cellular regulatory processes of sunflower. During adaptation to a no-tillage environment, plants can simultaneously maintain basic metabolic processes and activate defense mechanisms that may contribute to adaptation to changed growing conditions. Our study contributes to a better understanding of the molecular and physiological consequences of tillage systems in plants. Full article

Sustainable agricultural production requires environmentally friendly weed management solutions. Steam-based thermal weed control is a promising alternative to conventional herbicide-based weed management. However, optimizing steam delivery systems remains computationally expensive due to the repeated simulation-based design evaluations required. This paper presents a design optimization framework for a novel root-targeted steam injection module intended for integration into an autonomous agricultural platform for sustainable thermal weed management. The mechanical behavior of different nozzle geometries was evaluated using finite element analysis using the ABAQUS/CAE software, generating the simulation dataset used for optimization. To reduce the computational cost associated with repeated finite element simulations, a Kriging surrogate model was constructed from this dataset and coupled with an evolutionary optimization algorithm to identify the optimal nozzle geometry. The evaluated nozzle geometries exhibited maximum stresses ranging from 5.12 to 20.41 N/mm². The stress value predicted by the Kriging model for the optimized configuration was validated through an additional finite element simulation, showing a deviation of only 6.6%. Furthermore, an artificial neural network model implemented in PyTorch 2.7.1 was trained on the simulation dataset and used as an independent validation tool to estimate the stress corresponding to the optimized nozzle geometry, with a prediction deviating by approximately 5.4% from the corresponding finite element result. The proposed approach significantly reduces computational cost while maintaining high accuracy in stress prediction, enabling the identification of a structurally reliable nozzle geometry for sustainable herbicide-free thermal weed management. Full article

Intensified use of fertilizers enhances crop yield; however, it can also make weed management more challenging. In addition to providing nutrients to crops, fertilizers also provide nutrients to weeds when they grow together with crops. All this leads to competition between crops and weeds, which is an important source of biotic stress. As a defense mechanism against biotic stress, plants accumulate polyphenolic compounds and increase antioxidant activity. This study aims to quantify the influence of organic and synthetic fertilizers on weed behavior and competitiveness in agroecosystems by evaluating total phenol content, polyphenolic acids (chlorogenic, ferulic, p-coumaric, and trans-cinnamic) content, and their antioxidative activity in weeds (Avena fatua and Abutilon theophrasti) and wheat and their rhizospheres across different cultivation systems (monoculture vs. competitive conditions). Our study showed that under competitive conditions, the use of fertilizers significantly increased the concentration of selected individual phenolic acids in all tested species (weeds and wheat) compared to monoculture. In addition, the level of antioxidant activity and total phenolic content in the weed leaves (Avena fatua and Abutilon teophrasti) was higher compared to the control after the application of all tested fertilizers when grown in competition with wheat (total phenolic content in Avena fatua: C vs. F1 p = 0.025 *, C vs. F3 p = 0.008 **; in Abutilon teophrasti: C vs. F2 p = 0.0000 **). The application of all tested fertilizers affected the increase in antioxidant activity in weed plants (p = 0.0000 ** in Avena fatua and in Abutilon teophrasti C vs. F1, p = 0.013 *, and C vs. F2, p = 0.0012 **). This shows that, in plants, response to stress levels not only total phenol, but also their antioxidative activity should be taken into consideration. Full article