• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1115-1126
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• 2021

Plant disease is one of the most irritating problems for agriculture growers. Thus, timely detection of plant diseases is of high importance to practical value, and corresponding measures can be taken at the early stage of plant diseases. Therefore, numerous researchers have made unremitting efforts in plant disease identification. However, this problem was not solved effectively until the development of artificial intelligence and big data technologies, especially the wide application of deep learning models in different fields. Since the symptoms of plant diseases mainly appear visually on leaves, computer vision and machine learning technologies are effective and rapid methods for identifying various kinds of plant diseases. As one of the fruits with the highest nutritional value, apple production directly affects the quality of life, and it is important to prevent disease intrusion in advance for yield and taste. In this study, an improved deep residual network is proposed for apple leaf disease identification in a novel way, a global residual connection is added to the original residual network, and the local residual connection architecture is optimized. Including that 1,977 apple leaf disease images with three categories that are collected in this study, experimental results show that the proposed method has achieved 98.74% top-1 accuracy on the test set, outperforming the existing state-of-the-art models in apple leaf disease identification tasks, and proving the effectiveness of the proposed method.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.459-475
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• 2020

This study analyzes weather derivatives as an alternative risk management tool to stabilize farm revenue to complement the existing crop insurance program which suffers from asymmetric information problems such as adverse selection, moral hazard, and verifiability. We estimated apple yield functions to observe the relationship between yields and weather indices such as temperature and precipitation. Based on the estimated yield functions we designed weather futures and options products underlying temperature and precipitation, and calculated the prices of futures and options by two different approaches, historical distribution and Monte Carlo simulation. We found that weather futures and options stabilize farm revenue based on the estimated four risk indicators: Coefficient of Variation, Value at Risk, Certainty Equivalence, and Risk Premium. As a result, weather derivatives could be considered as a potential farm risk management tool through studying more in legal and institutional strategies and developing various derivatives products.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.91-101
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• 2003

This study was tried to examine the efficacy of apples that had grown with agro-chemical alternatives in an apple orchard. The chlorophyll content of apple leaves was a little higher in the plot of Charcoal powder, Chitosan, and Peat moss treatment among the other agro-chemical alternatives. On the contrary, the sugar content of apple fruits was higher in the plot of Amino acids, and Green ion calcium treatment, but there was quite a difference among them. Vitamin C content of apple fruits was high at the cell division period. It became lower at the hypertrophic period and then got higher again at the harvest. Vitamin C content was the highest in the chemical fertilizer plot as well. In an apple orchard where agro-chemical alternatives were used only, the commercial grade of ripened apples had declined by 25％, compared to those in customary cultivation. The commercial grade of ripened apples with agricultural chemicals using fertilizers and pesticides was over 90％ with over 250g of its weight in the plot of Charcoal powder, Amino acids, and Vitamin C treatment. Therefore. we guessed the environment-friendly method of cultivation in an apple orchard shall be established by reducing the usage of agricultural chemicals gradually and increasing the agro-chemical alternatives at the same time.

• The Plant Pathology Journal
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.168-173
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• 2013

Apple ring rot disease, caused by Botryosphaeria dothidea (Moug. ex. Fr) Ces. et de Not., is one of the most important diseases on apple fruits. In this study, strain 9001 isolated from healthy apple fruits from an infested orchard was evaluated for its biocontrol activity against apple ring rot in vitro and in vivo. Strain 9001 showed obvious antagonistic activity to B. dothidea YL-1 when plated on potato dextrose agar. Soaking healthy apples in the bacterial suspensions of strain 9001 prior to artificial inoculation of fungal pathogen resulted in a dramatic decrease in disease incidence when compared to the control. Moreover, either field application in the growth season or postharvest treatment of apples from infected orchards with bacterial suspensions of strain 9001 resulted in significantly reduced disease incidence within the storage period for 4 months at room temperature. Based on the phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA and the gyrA gene, strain 9001 was identified as Bacillus amyloliquefaciens. These results indicated that B. amyloliquefaciens 9001 could be a promising agent in biocontrol of apple ring rot on fruit, which might help to minimize the yield loss of apple fruit during the long postharvest period.

• Proceedings of the Plant Resources Society of Korea Conference
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• 2019.04a
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• pp.54-54
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• 2019

Apple (Malus domestica) is one of the most economically important fruits in Korea. But virus infection has decreased sustainable production of apple and caused the serious problems such as yield loss and poor fruit quality. Virus or viroid infection including Apple chlorotic leaf spot virus (ACLSV), Apple stem pitting virus (ASPV), Apple stem grooving virus (ASGV), Apple mosaic virus (ApMV) and Apple scar skin viroid (ASSVd) has been also reported in Korea. In many cases, apple is infected with virus and viroid with no specific symptoms, the damage caused by the virus are unaware significantly. In our research, we tried to eliminate viruses in the rootstock for the disease-free seedlings of the apple dwarfing rootstock M.9 and M.26. The method of virus elimination was meristem culture, heat($37^{\circ}C$, 6weeks) treatment and chemistry($Ribavirin^{(R)}$) treatment. The analytical methods commonly used for the detection of virus is Enzyme-linked Immuno-Sorbent Assay(ELlSA) and Reverse Transcription-polymerase Chain Reaction(RT-PCR). RT-PCR method was more 30% sensitive than ELISA method. Efficiency of method eliminate virus appeared meristem method > heat treatment > chemistry treatment. The higher acquisition rate of disease-free seedlings is 30~40% on meristem treatment. In meristem treatment, the apple dwarfing rootstock M.9 gained infection ratio of ACLSV, ASPV and ASGV were 45%, 60% and 50% respectively. In the apple dwarfing rootstock M.26, infection ratio of ACLSV, ASPV and ASGV were 40%, 55%, 55%, respectively. Based on our results, it was found that most effective method of disease-free seedlings apple dwarfing rootstocks was by meristem treatment than heat method and chemistry treatment.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.403-411
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• 2013

This study was performed to examine whether it is possible to promote rice growth by midsummer drainage without damage of golden apple snails in environment-friendly rice farming. The effect of drainage on the life of snails was examined in a greenhouse before the filed experiment. Spats (young shells) of snails survived 100% at 12 days after drainage, and 93.3% at 15 days after drainage. The midsized shells survived 100% at 9 days, 93.3% at 12 days, and 86.6% at 15 days after drainage. In the field experiment, 10-days drainage did not affect the snail population and there was no significant difference of weeding activity of snails between the midsummer drainage treatment and the continuous submerged treatment. The plant height and the effective tiller number in the midsummer drainage treatment were higher than those of the continuous submerged treatment. The rice yield of midsummer drainage plot was 511kg/10a, which was 66kg/10a higher than 445kg/10a of continuous submerged plot. In conclusion, midsummer drainage could increase rice growth and yield without damage of golden apple snails in the environment-friendly rice farming.

• Korean Journal of Weed Science
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.454-459
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• 2010

This study was conducted to investigate the phytotoxic reaction and the impact on the growth of apple fruit included the yield amount by misuse of non-selective herbicide, glufosinate-ammonium in apple field and for the study, 4 cultivars of apple were tested. The results showed that the highest phytotoxic degree was observed on Sansa-cultivar and then the degree was diminished on Tsugaru, Hongro and Fuji in order in the application year. In one year after application, the highest phytotoxic degree was showed on Fuji and then diminished on Tsugaru, Hongro and Sansa in order. However, in one year after application, the phytotoxic symptom was negligible in comparison with the degree in the year of application and the flowering and fruiting were reduced 30% only in Fuji, but in the other cultivars, the phytotoxic symptoms were not observed. Meanwhile, the residue of glufosinate-ammonium was below the detection limit as 0.04ppm in all tested cultivars and in 2years after application, the phytotoxic symptom was not observed in all cultivars of the apple.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.68-73
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• 1999

In order to overcome same disadvantages of acidic solubilization of pectin from apple pomace, enzymatic selective solubilization with exo-polygalacturonase was developed. According to analyses of the effects of temperature, pH and reaction time on extraction yield, the maximum yield by the enzymatic method, shown under the extraction condition of $45^{\circ}C$, pH 7 and 60 hours, was 31.0%, whereas the yield from an acidic method was 8%. Also the quality of pectin extracted by the enzymatic method was to that from acidic solubilization. The purity and methoxyl content of enzyme-extracted pectin were 80.1% and 6.36%, respectively, which were higher than 75.7% and 2.44% of acid-solubilized pectin. Viscosity average molecular weights of enzymic extracted and acid solubilized pectins were $1.50{\times}10^4\;and\;7.66{\times}10^4$, respectively.

• Horticultural Science & Technology
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.38-49
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• 2013

Prohexadione-calcium (Pro-Ca), ethephon and transient water stress were evaluated in a factorial design, as potential inhibitors of early-season shoot growth of high density orchard management of apple (Malus domestica Borkh.) trees. In the experiment, water stress was imposed to one-half of the 7-year-old 'Golden Delicious'/M.9 apple trees in each of 5 blocks, by stopping irrigation for 3 weeks between 35 and 56 days after full bloom (AFB). Within each whole unit, the following Pro-Ca and ethephon treatments were randomly allocated at $2{\times}2$ factorial: a) 0 or 250 $mg{\cdot}L^{-1}$ a.i. Pro-Ca applied at 28 days AFB and b) 0 or 300 $mg{\cdot}L^{-1}$ a.i. ethephon applied twice (35 and 71 days AFB). All trees were hand thinned to king flowers prior to treatments. Vegetative shoot growth was markedly reduced by Pro-Ca, with its effect being obvious within 14 days after application, while ethephon and water stress treatments were less effective. Pro-Ca had no effect on fruit set and yield but slightly increased fruit size. Ethephon substantially reduced the fruit size and yield but had no effect on fruit set. Water stress reduced fruit set, fruit size and yield. With regard to fruit quality, Pro-Ca did not influence fruit shape, flesh firmness and soluble solids contents (SSC) but slightly reduced titratable acidity. Ethephon had no effect on fruit shape but increased firmness, SSC and acidity, while water stress did not influence these fruit quality attributes. Dry weight of dormant spur buds was reduced by both Pro-Ca and water stress, while increased by ethephon. The larger dormant buds led to the larger spur flowers at the tight cluster stage the following spring. Return flowering was promoted only by ethephon, especially on previous season's shoots. There were no significant interactions between Pro-Ca and ethephon or water stress on most variables observed in this study.

• Korean Journal of Organic Agriculture
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.1-16
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• 1999

In this study, questionnaire were made to environment-friendly producers of apples regarding farm management methods in low-input production method. utilizing organic materials, production and marketing of apples with lower agricultural chemical residues. Besides, five apples farms were visited to find out their management situation by employing the low-input production method in order to protect the environment as well as consumer's health. Those five low-input apple farms were scattered in Kyungbuk, Chungnam, and Chonnam Provinces, There were not many low-input apple farms across the nation from the beginning and, as a result, increasing the sample size was basically very difficult. Most of these farms were using 140hrs of labor per 10a, of which 30hrs in pre-season management, 25hrs in plowing and weed control, 15hrs in disease and pest control, 20hrs in harvest and marketing and 50hrs in miscellaneous activities. Relatively, pest control takes much time in that they would spray pesticides 7-10 times a season to control the apple disease, 9 times on the average. The average gross revenue of low-input apple farms was about \2,000,000/10a, and their average yield was 2,000kg/10a, which are 25% and 13% lower, respectively, than the ordinary apple production case. This means the low-input farmers are inefficient in marketing their products. On the other hand, their production costs were 20.4% higher than the ordinary apple farms on the average. Since the imported foreign fruits including apples must use various agricultural chemicals on their way to the export markets, the domestic low-input apples have competitive edge over them in therms of food safety. In order to improve the low-input apple industry, active cooperation is needed among the producers, government and researchers more than ever. Among other things, production cost reduction and quality improvement with lower chemical residues are part of the urgent matters to be done.