What are some modern agricultural technologies? These three treasures are products of technological development

The Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute's fruit and vegetable cultivation greenhouse uses a double-net and insect-proof walkway design to reduce pest problems inside the greenhouse, and by adjusting crop cultivation row and plant spacing to reserve space for small agricultural machinery to move through, the number of plants cultivated per unit area not only does not decrease, but can also be coordinated with agricultural machinery operations, reducing the cost of manual management.

Using a verification site to enable new facility technologies to be put into practical use

Domestic agricultural research institutions have long developed some new facility technologies, but during the research and development process it was impossible to confirm whether the new technologies could actually be applied in industry. Therefore, starting in the 103rd year of the Republic of China (2014), the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute established an "Agricultural Facility Experimental Research Verification Platform" within the institute, using newly developed facility technologies to cultivate crops in order to verify whether the new technologies can actually be applied in industry. Once the new technologies have been revised and become more mature, demonstration and promotion can be carried out.

The Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute stated that the verification site can carry out experimental verification in 5 major areas, including fruit and vegetable cultivation technology, fruit tree cultivation technology, cultivation environment control technology, pest and disease control technology, and energy-saving cultivation technology. Internally there are a total of 3 greenhouses available for the introduction and verification of new facility technologies: an energy-saving flower cultivation greenhouse, a vegetable cultivation double-wing open-top greenhouse, and a wind-resistant and rain-proof reinforced fruit tree cultivation double-wing open-top greenhouse.

Taking the facility cultivation model for cut Oncidium orchids as an example, Oncidium orchids bring more than 3 billion in output value domestically each year, but in the past Oncidium orchids were cultivated using black netting, often encountering pest and disease problems and being easily affected by weather, resulting in poor quality Oncidium orchids.

Considering the premise of cost input, the Flower Research Center used simple rain-proof facilities (about 1 fen of land) within the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute verification site to cultivate cut Oncidium orchids. The average construction cost of the greenhouse is about 5,700 yuan per ping, and a facility environmental microclimate monitoring system is built in, integrating remote monitoring hardware and software equipment to achieve the purpose of efficient environmental control, carrying out verification of the simple facility model for Oncidium orchids.

Using this facility for flower cultivation saves about 40% of water, 80% of fertilizer, and 50% of pesticides compared with open-field cultivation, can save about 90,000 yuan per year, and can shorten cut Oncidium orchid production to 10 months. The proportion of Grade A products also increases by more than 25% compared with traditional planting methods, and the quality is also relatively better.

The Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute developed integrated management technology for facility cultivation of organic papaya and guava, first isolating most pests and diseases through facility greenhouses, and introducing innovative technologies and related materials at the appropriate time. The picture shows Chrysopa basalis.

With reinforced greenhouses, there is no need to worry too much even when typhoons strike

In addition to using the verification site to conduct applied research on new facility technologies, the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute has also conducted research on facility structures. The team explored the wind resistance theory of greenhouse structures, investigated and analyzed the causes of facility damage, analyzed the strength of structural connectors and the external wind field of facilities, and used structural mechanics analysis and finite element analysis methods to carry out overall structural strength simulation analysis in order to design better greenhouse structures.

The reinforced greenhouses and net houses promoted by the Council of Agriculture include 4 types: steel-frame structurally reinforced roll-up plastic film greenhouse, roll-up plastic film greenhouse, reinforced plastic film greenhouse, and reinforced horizontal trellis net house. They can withstand strong winds of up to level 11 to level 13. The Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute began guiding operators to use reinforced facilities starting this year (106th year of the Republic of China, 2017), and is expected to guide and promote 2,000 hectares of facility area by the 110th year of the Republic of China (2021). At present, guidance cases covering 200 hectares have already been received.

Smart granaries monitor rice quality

In addition to the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute conducting related research on technology and industry, in fact many private enterprises have also cooperated with academic institutions to develop new technologies. Yale Mi Enterprise Co., Ltd. cooperated with National Taiwan University's Teaching and Research Center for Bio-Industry Automation and the Yunlin Lunbei Township Farmers' Association to set up an automated warehouse management and monitoring platform at the Dayou branch of the Lunbei Township Farmers' Association.

This system was developed in response to public grain storage problems. Traditional public grain storage methods in the past often faced grain acidification, rice weevil invasion, and rat gnawing, and 5%-10% of grain was lost every year. Therefore, Yale Mi used past experience in building grain storage equipment and customer experience to develop granary environmental sensing lines and an intelligent monitoring and management system.

Users only need to input the moisture content or temperature they wish to maintain for grain storage in the system, and the system will intelligently regulate the temperature and humidity during cold storage and the air-conditioning supply time according to actual conditions, greatly simplifying user operations and effectively improving management efficiency.

Yale Mi Company estimates that this system can subsequently increase the silo business by about more than 12 million yuan in output value each year. Combined with the gradual transformation of domestic farmers' and government public grain warehouses into low-temperature silos or silo grain storage methods, the subsequent market demand is expected to reach more than 250 million yuan. If it can be applied to the public grain management system in the future, as long as customer consent is obtained, the cloud analysis database data and analysis results established through the system can provide public grain management units with a management basis, helping to formulate sound granary management policies.

The automated warehouse management and monitoring platform developed by the private sector can remotely and intelligently regulate the temperature and humidity of refrigerated grain and the air-conditioning supply time, effectively improving management efficiency.

Supercritical extraction patented technology highly purifies active substances

Universal Biotechnology previously obtained exclusive authorization for "bitter gourd Hualien No. 4" from the Council of Agriculture's Hualien District Agricultural Improvement Station, and used its raw materials in the development of health foods and beauty care products. The company developed a complete set of agricultural product value-added processes, and through supercritical extraction patented technology, fully extracted and purified the key essence of wild bitter gourd to 99.99%.

According to research results, bitter gourd Hualien No. 4 has high functional nutritional value and a variety of special components, has the ability to improve metabolic syndrome, and also contains skin-whitening components at the level of care products. The operator stated that bitter gourd Hualien No. 4 has special components in both the fruit and the leaves, so the bitter gourd leaf part is also made into tea. Universal Biotechnology uses organic farming methods to cultivate bitter gourd Hualien No. 4, and through cooperation with contracted agricultural production, stabilizes agricultural product supply and demand and ensures farmers' income, hoping that next year the total output of bitter gourd Hualien No. 4 can increase by more than 10 times.