Garlic is one of the major seasoning vegetables in Korea and consumed mostly in a form of peeled cloves. Conventional Korean standards for garlic grading consist of four classes according to the size of bulb and its shape. Sorting and grading of garlic are manually done but could be in the process of automated mechanization using machine vision system in the near future. The proportion of mass of cloves in a garlic bulb to the volume of the bulb (g/ml) was determined to find out the best way of representing both the quantity and quality of cloves in each bulb. Garlic bulb was assumed as an ellipsoid and its major and minor axis and its height were measured to calculate its volume. The mass proportions and density of a garlic bulb and cloves were measured for four domestic varieties of garlic to propose it as a standard for Korean garlic grading machine.

Quality attributes of apple are greatly affected by the cooling rate and environmental conditions during storage. Studies were conducted to evaluate the effect of cooling rate on different quality attributes of apple. The effect of $O_2$ pulldown rate of the CA chamber on the quality of apple was also determined. Two methods were used viz. conventional CA procedure and rapid CA procedure. Apples stored by medium and slow cooling methods lost its flesh firmness significantly from an initial level of 4.55 kg to 2.83 kg and 2.27 kg, respectively on 35 days after storage whereas, in rapid cooling, the firmness level changed from 4.55 kg to 3.20 kg on 35 days after storage. At the end of 35 days of storage, titratable acidity decreased insignificantly from an initial value of 0.24l% to 0.239% in the case of rapid CA whereas in the case of conventional CA it dropped significantly to 0.215% from its initial level. The initial flesh firmness of 4.55 kg also changed significantly to 4.05 kg on 35 days after storage in conventional CA whereas in rapid CA it changed to 4.36 kg, which was found to be non-significant at 5% level of significance. Total soluble solids increased from an initial level of $12.43^{\circ}$Bx to $12.60^{\circ}C.$ Bx on 35 days after storage in rapid CA whereas it increased to $13.07^{\circ}$ Bx in conventional CA. Ascorbic acid content of apple juice decreased insignificantly from 6.67 mg/100 mL to 5.87 mg/100 mL on 35 days after storage in rapid CA whereas in conventional CA, it decreased significantly to 5.27 mg/100 mL from its initial level.

Neural network based models were developed and evaluated for predicting corn yield from aerial images based on 1998 and 1994 image data. The model used images in multi-spectral bands such as R, G, B, and IR (Red, Green, Blue and Infrared). The inputs to the neural network consisted of mean and standard deviation of multispectral bands of the aerial images. Performances of several neural network architectures using back-propagation with momentum were compared. The maximum yield prediction accuracy obtained was 97.81%. The BPNN model prediction accuracy could be enhanced by using more number of observations to the model, other data transformation techniques, or by performing optical calibration of the aerial image.

Two charging methods of electrostatic nozzle, i.e. induction and ionized field corona charging, were designed and evaluated for orchard sprayer application. An artificial (metallic) target was constructed and used in this experiment. The charge-to-mass ratio for the induction electrode was measured by using the Faraday cage. Two conventional pressure-swirl nozzles have been employed with different orifice diameters under the same experimental operating conditions. A commercial pressure-swirl nozzle with orifice diameter of 1.0 was used for the conventional spray. The diameter of the electrostatic was 0.59 mm. The experiment was carried out for individual nozzle sprays at $0^{\circ}$, $20^{\circ}$ and $50^{\circ}$ oriented angles and three nozzles, sprayed simultaneously at a distance of 1.0 and 2.0 m from the nozzle tip to the target. The nozzles were mounted on a carriage with constant speed of 1.26 km/h with a blower attached. The weighing method was employed to evaluate for the spray deposition, ground loss and estimated drift. The results show more promising for the induction charging method, especially at $20^{\circ}$oriented angle at a distance of 1.0 m from the target for a single nozzle and when all three nozzles were operated simultaneously for spray deposition. The results of the induction charging method show promising with the developed electrostatic technique.

The spectral color resolution of an image is very important in color image analysis. Two factors influencing the spectral color resolution of an image are illumination intensity and lens aperture for a selected vision system. An optimal combination of illumination intensity and lens aperture for color image analysis was determined in the study. The method was based on a model of dynamic range defined as the absolute difference between digital values of selected foreground and background color in the image. The role of illumination intensity in machine vision was also described and a computer program for simulating the optimal combination of two factors was implemented for verifying the related algorithm. It was possible to estimate the non-saturating range of the illumination intensity (input voltage in the study) and the lens aperture by using a model of dynamic range. The method provided an optimal combination of the illumination intensity and the lens aperture, maximizing the color resolution between colors of interest in color analysis, and the estimated color resolution at the combination for a given vision system configuration.

A brief review of current status in the field of agricultural spray and future research challenges are presented. Researches on the pesticides sprays, pollen sprays, postharvest sprays, and biological control agent sprays among the various applications of agricultural spray were selected and reviewed. In the agrochemical sprays, the techniques to increase the deposition such as electrospray and reduce the drift such as introductions of drift retardants and of mechanical means are reviewed. The introduction of mechanical means includes low drift, air-assisted, air inclusion, shield or shroud assisted and pulse flow nozzles. For flat fan nozzles, the data of breakup length and thickness of liquid sheet are essential to understand the atomization processes and develop the transport model to target In the air-assisted spray technology to reduce drift, further works on the effect of application height on drift and air assistance on droplet size should be followed. In addition, methods for quantifying the included air in the air inclusion techniques are required. The atomization characteristics of biopesticides spray are not being elucidated and the formulations of biopesticides should be taken into account the spray characteristics of existing nozzle and sprayer. A few researches on the droplet size of fallout can be found in the literature. A combined technology with electrostatic method into one of method for the reduction of drift may be an effective strategy for increasing deposition and reducing drift. Only an integrated approach involving all stakeholders such as engineers, chemists, and biologists, etc. can result in improved application of agricultural spray.