Academic literature on the topic 'Accumulator pruning'

Winter and summer pruning are widely applied processes in all fruit trees, including in peach orchard management. This study was conducted to determine the effects of summer prunings (SP), as compared to winter pruning (WP), on shoot length, shoot diameter, trunk cross sectional area (TCSA) increment, fruit yield, fruit quality, and carbohydrate content of two early ripening peach cultivars (“Early Red” and “Maycrest”) of six years of age, grown in semiarid climate conditions, in 2008 to 2010. The trees were grafted on GF 677 rootstocks, trained with a central leader system, and spaced 5 × 5 m apart. The SP carried out after harvesting in July and August decreased the shoot length significantly; however, it increased its diameter. Compared to 2009, this effect was more marked in year 2010. In general, control and winter pruned trees of both cultivars had the highest TCSA increment and yield efficiency. The SP increased the average fruit weight and soluble solids contents (SSC) more than both control and WP. The titratable acidity showed no consistent response to pruning time. The carbohydrate accumulation in shoot was higher in WP and in control than in SP trees. SP significantly affected carbohydrate accumulation; postharvest pruning showed higher carbohydrate content than preharvest pruning.

Flower bud hardiness of ethephon-treated (100 mg·liter-1 in October), dormant pruned (in December) `Redhaven' peach (Prunus persica L. Batsch.) trees was studied from December through March using exotherm analysis. In early December, buds not treated with ethephon were 0.5C hardier than ethephon-treated buds. From mid-December through March, ethephon-treated buds were 0.5 to 2.1C hardier than nontreated buds. When a main effect of pruning was detected, buds from pruned trees were 0.8 to 2.8C less hardy than buds from nonpruned trees. On several dates, a significant interaction on flower bud hardiness between ethephon treatment and pruning was detected. For trees not treated with ethephon, buds from pruned trees were 1.8 to 2.2C less hardy than those from nonpruned trees. Pruning did not affect hardiness of buds from ethephon-treated trees. Ethephon delayed bloom to the 75% fully open stage by 9 days. Pruning accelerated bloom to the 75% fully open stage by 3 days compared to nonpruned trees. Flower bud dehardening under controlled conditions was also studied. As field chilling accumulated, flower buds dehardened more rapidly and to a greater extent when exposed to heat. Pruning accelerated and intensified dehardening. Ethephon reduced the pruning effect. The percentage of buds supercooling from any ethephon or pruning treatment did not change as chilling accumulated. In trees not treated with ethepbon, fewer buds supercooled as heat accumulated, and pruning intensified this effect. In pruned, ethephon-treated trees, fewer buds supercooled after exposure to heat. The number of buds supercooling in nonpruned trees did not change with heat accumulation. Flower bud rehardening after controlled dehardening was also evaluated. After dehardening in early February, there was no difference in the bud hardiness of pruned or nonpruned trees. Buds from ethepbon-treated trees were hardier than those from nontreated trees. With reacclimation, buds from pruned trees were not as hardy as those from nonpruned trees. The percentage of buds supercooling from ethephon-treated trees did not change with deacclimation or reacclimation treatments. After deacclimation in late February, buds from pruned trees were 2.2C less hardy than those from nonpruned trees. After reacclimation, buds from pruned, ethephon-treated trees rehardened 2.6C while buds from all other treatments remained at deacclimated hardiness levels or continued to deharden. Ethephon-treated pistils were shorter than nontreated pistils. Pistils from pruned trees were longer than those from nonpruned trees. Deacclimated pistils were longer than nondeacclimated pistils. Differences in hardiness among ethephon and pruning treatments were observed, but there was no relationship between pistil moisture and hardiness.

With the growing demand for quality food in the world, there is a new ambition to produce high-quality apples seeking reduced cultivation costs. The aim of this study was to evaluate the influence of agrotechnological tools on the quality of cv. Rubin apples during the harvest. The apple tree (Malus domestica Borkh.) cv. Rubin was grafted on dwarfing rootstocks P60, planted in single rows spaced 1.25 m between trees and 3.5 m between rows. Six agrotechnological tools were used—hand pruning, mechanical pruning, trunk incision, calcium-prohexadione, summer pruning and mechanical pruning one side, changing sides annually. The agrotechnical tools had no significant effect on accumulation of most sugars and elements, malic, folic and succinic acids in the fruits. Mechanical pruning resulted in significant accumulation of phenolic compounds, antioxidants, ascorbic acid, but reduced the amount of glucose compared to hand pruning. However, the trunk incision or spraying with ca-prohexadione together with mechanical pruning had no significant effect on sugar content but resulted in significantly higher amounts of phenols, antioxidants, ascorbic acid, Fe and Mn and reduced starch and citric acid.

Bush tea (Athrixia phylicoides DC.) is a popular medicinal South African indigenous plant and it has been used for many decades as a health beverage and medicine. The objective of the study was to profile metabolites for assessment of quality of bush tea (A. phylicoides DC.) subjected to different pruning levels. Treatments consisted of untreated control, top-branch pruning, middle pruning, and basal pruning arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) using 10 single trees as replications. The liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC–QTOF–MS) was carried out to annotate the bush tea metabolites present in bush tea. Orthogonal partial least square-discriminatory analysis (OPLS-DA) from 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) revealed a separation between the basal, middle, top pruning, and the unpruned bush tea plants. The pruned (top) and unpruned tea plants, exhibited higher levels of metabolites than the basal and middle pruned. Pruning bush tea showed a significant effect on accumulation of secondary metabolites and thus could enhance bush tea quality. The study successfully annotated 28 metabolites (compounds), which elucidated canonical differences in pruning treatment of bush tea, as validated through multivariate analysis. Top pruning (apically pruned) resulted in improved metabolite accumulation than other treatment and can be recommended in bush tea cultivation. Future studies to enhance vegetative enhancement after pruning will be evaluated.

Particulate matter (PM) is a mixture of solid and liquid substances of organic and inorganic character suspended in air. Plants are used as biological filters of air. However, PM can be deposited on their edible parts, with a negative effect on people’s health. The aim of this study was to document the PM accumulation on apples and plums harvested from orchards located alongside roads with differing amounts of traffic. Plums accumulated more PM than apples. The deposition of PM on apples increased during fruit development and was highest at harvest. The impact of road type, traffic intensity, and distance from the road on PM accumulation on fruit was small. The least PM was adsorbed by apples harvested from an orchard located close to a road with the highest traffic, while in the case of plums, no effect of the road on PM deposition was recorded. The amount of PM accumulated on fruits depended on the species (fruit morphology, harvest period), activities undertaken in the orchard (early pruning exposes fruits to PM, ecological preparations increase fruit viscosity), and sources of pollution other than the roads located close to the orchard. Washing fruits with water removed half of the accumulated PM.

The objective of this work was to evaluate the influence of rootstocks and pruning times on yield and on nutrient content and extraction by pruned branches and harvested bunches of 'Niagara Rosada' grapevine in subtropical climate. The rootstocks 'IAC 766', 'IAC 572', 'IAC 313', 'IAC 571-6', and '106-8 Mgt' were evaluated. Treatments consisted of a combination between five rootstocks and three pruning times. At pruning, fresh and dry matter mass of branches were evaluated to estimate biomass accumulation. At harvest, yield was estimated by weighing of bunches per plant. Branches and bunches were sampled at pruning and at harvest, respectively, for nutrient content analysis. Nutrient content and dry matter mass of branches and bunches were used to estimate total nutrient extraction. 'Niagara Rosada' grapevine grafted onto the 'IAC 572' rootstock had the highest yield and dry matter mass of bunches, which were significantly different from the ones observed in 'Niagara Rosada'/'IAC 313'. 'Niagara Rosada' grafted onto the 'IAC 572' rootstock extracted the largest quantity of K, P, Mg, S, Cu, and Fe, differing from 'IAC 313' and 'IAC 766' in K and P extraction, and from '106-8 Mgt' in Mg and S extraction. Winter pruning results in higher yield, dry matter accumulation by branches, and total nutrient content and extraction.

In a 2-year experiment (1994 and 1995), plants of primocane-fruiting red raspberry cultivar ‘Autumn Bliss’ grown in a plastic greenhouse were destructively harvested at different growth stages to determine the effect of pruning date and cane density on dry matter distribution, carbohydrate concentration, and soluble protein concentration in different plant parts. Three summer-pruning dates (early, mid, and late July) and four cane densities (8, 16, 24, and 32 canes/m row) were imposed. Relative root biomass decreased from pruning to first flower stage and remained constant thereafter for all pruning dates. Earlier pruning dates corresponded to earlier fruit production, but yield was significantly reduced on later pruning dates and higher cane densities. Sucrose concentration was higher in fine roots than in suberized roots and had a slight decrease during flowering and the beginning of harvest. Soluble protein concentrations did not differ significantly between pruning dates. Reserve carbohydrates in the root system were unaffected by pruning and cane density, and were rapidly used during active vegetative growth, began to recover just after bloom, and were fully recovered at the end of the season. Our experiment suggested that in red raspberry plants grown under poor environmental conditions, current yield is reduced but there is enough carbohydrate accumulation to support next year's growth.

A collection of 23 red and six white wine grape (Vitis vinifera) cultivars were evaluated for viticultural performance in Parma, ID. Vine yield, fruit composition, and vegetative growth were measured over four growing seasons, and data were used to compare relative cultivar performance based on yield to pruning ratio and fruit maturity. Relative differences among cultivars in budbreak day of year [96 (6 Apr.) to 122 (2 May)] and days from budbreak to harvest (143 to 179 days) varied from year to year. The earliest and latest maturing cultivars in 3 of 4 years were ‘Blauer Portugieser’ (143 days), ‘Nebbiolo’ (177 days), ‘Barbera’ (179 days), ‘Orange Muscat’ (144 days), ‘Flora’ (149 days), ‘Muscat of Alexandria’ (166 days), and ‘Viognier’ (168 days). Cultivars differed in yield (2.4 to 7.0 tons/acre), vegetative vigor (4.6 to 20.4 yield/pruning weight), and harvest soluble solids concentration (21.1 to 26.5), but differences in harvest pH (3.0 to 4.1) and titratable acidity (2.48 to 13.03 g·L−1) varied from year to year. Average heat unit accumulation (1646) was 160 units higher than the 78-year site average. Few (less than 150) units accumulated in April and October, most units accumulated in July, and diurnal difference in air temperature was ≈15 °C. Performance results from this study can assist cultivar site selection by comparing climate data for an intended site with that of Parma. For example, the low acidity and earliness of ‘Blauer Portugieser’ suggests it is best suited to a site with less heat unit accumulation than Parma, and the high acidity and late maturity of ‘Barbera’, ‘Nebbiolo’, and ‘Carignan’ suggest these cultivars are best suited to a site with more heat unit accumulation than Parma. The inconsistent relationship between onset of budbreak and earliness observed in this study suggests opportunity to match short-season cultivars late to break bud such as Flora to short-season growing sites prone to late-season frost.

The grape crop is important in Sonora State, Mexico, even though the grape growers have some problems that put in risk its continuity. To decide the moment of pruning time is one of the important decisions that the grower must done, because that depends partly the moment and the magnitude the budbreak appeared. The objective of this study was to determine the pruning time using the Effective Chilling Hours (ECH) obtained from the climatologic station. In a commercial lot of the Superior Seedless variety, we studied the effects of pruning at different times depending on the accumulation of ECH (150, 200, 250, 350, and 400). The ECH was calculated by adding the hours that the temperature stayed in following rank 0 °C < X < 10 °C, reducing the hours when the temperature was greater or equal to 25 °C. The data used to calculate this were obtained from the two climatologic stations near the lot in study. The effect in the budbreak was studied in canes and spurs. The results obtained in this study show that the final budbreak in canes as in spurs were not affected by the treatments in study and it was 76.5% and 81.8% for canes and spurs respectively. There is a direct relation (R2 = 0.94) between the ECH at pruning time and the percentage of early budbreak in the canes—from 5.6% (150 ECH) to 54.1% (400 ECH). Whereas in spurs, the early budbreak was favored when pruning is done after at least 200 ECH.

SUMMARYThe economics of coffee plantations is intrinsically linked to pruning, which can improve the canopy architecture and thereby increase productivity. However, recommended pruning times on conilon coffee plantations have been made on an entirely empirical basis. In this study, by evaluating growth, photosynthetic gas exchanges, starch accumulation and crop productivity, the effects of pruning at different times between harvest and flowering were investigated for six conilon coffee clones with distinct stages of fruit maturation (early, intermediate and late). Clones with an early maturation stage were pruned at four different times: 0, 30, 60 and 90 days after harvest (DAH). Intermediate clones were pruned at 0, 30 and 60 DAH, and late clones were pruned at 0 and 30 DAH. Overall, the rates of shoot growth and net photosynthesis, the stomatal conductance and the crop yield were not affected by the pruning treatments in any of the clones. In addition, pruning times did not affect the concentrations of starch or the photochemical efficiency of photosystem II. The carbon isotope composition ratio was marginally affected by the treatments. These results suggest that the pruning time after harvests is relatively unimportant and pruning operations can be scheduled to optimise the use of labour, which directly impacts the production costs of coffee.

All practical text search systems use inverted indexes to quickly resolve user queries. Offline index construction algorithms, where queries are not accepted during construction, have been the subject of much prior research. As a result, current techniques can invert virtually unlimited amounts of text in limited main memory, making efficient use of both time and disk space. However, these algorithms assume that the collection does not change during the use of the index. This thesis examines the task of index maintenance, the problem of adapting an inverted index to reflect changes in the collection it describes. Existing approaches to index maintenance are discussed, including proposed optimisations. We present analysis and empirical evidence suggesting that existing maintenance algorithms either scale poorly to large collections, or significantly degrade query resolution speed. In addition, we propose a new strategy for index maintenance that trades a strictly controlled amount of querying efficiency for greatly increased maintenance speed and scalability. Analysis and empirical results are presented that show that this new algorithm is a useful trade-off between indexing and querying efficiency. In scenarios described in Chapter 7, the use of the new maintenance algorithm reduces the time required to construct an index to under one sixth of the time taken by algorithms that maintain contiguous inverted lists. In addition to work on index maintenance, we present a new technique for accumulator pruning during ranked query evaluation, as well as providing evidence that existing approaches are unsatisfactory for collections of large size. Accumulator pruning is a key problem in both querying efficiency and overall text search system efficiency. Existing approaches either fail to bound the memory footprint required for query evaluation, or suffer loss of retrieval accuracy. In contrast, the new pruning algorithm can be used to limit the memory footprint of ranked query evaluation, and in our experiments gives retrieval accuracy not worse than previous alternatives. The results presented in this thesis are validated with robust experiments, which utilise collections of significant size, containing real data, and tested using appropriate numbers of real queries. The techniques presented in this thesis allow information retrieval applications to efficiently index and search changing collections, a task that has been historically problematic.

The growing complexity of neural networks makes their deployment on resource-constrained embedded or mobile devices challenging. With millions of weights and biases, modern deep neural networks can be computationally intensive, with large memory, power and computational requirements. In this thesis, we devise and explore three quantization methods (post-training, in-training and combined quantization) that quantize 32-bit floating-point weights and biases to lower bit width fixed-point parameters while also achieving significant pruning, leading to model compression. We use the total accumulated absolute gradient over the training process as the indicator of importance of a parameter to the network. The most important parameters are quantized by the smallest amount. The post-training quantization method sorts and clusters the accumulated gradients of the full parameter set and subsequently assigns a bit width to each cluster. The in-training quantization method sorts and divides the accumulated gradients into two groups after each training epoch. The larger group consisting of the lowest accumulated gradients is quantized. The combined quantization method performs in-training quantization followed by post-training quantization. We assume storage of the quantized parameters using compressed sparse row format for sparse matrix storage. On LeNet-300-100 (MNIST dataset), LeNet-5 (MNIST dataset), AlexNet (CIFAR-10 dataset) and VGG-16 (CIFAR-10 dataset), post-training quantization achieves 7.62x, 10.87x, 6.39x and 12.43x compression, in-training quantization achieves 22.08x, 21.05x, 7.95x and 12.71x compression and combined quantization achieves 57.22x, 50.19x, 13.15x and 13.53x compression, respectively. Our methods quantize at the cost of accuracy, and we present our work in the light of the accuracy-compression trade-off.
Master of Science
Neural networks are being employed in many different real-world applications. By learning the complex relationship between the input data and ground-truth output data during the training process, neural networks can predict outputs on new input data obtained in real time. To do so, a typical deep neural network often needs millions of numerical parameters, stored in memory. In this research, we explore techniques for reducing the storage requirements for neural network parameters. We propose software methods that convert 32-bit neural network parameters to values that can be stored using fewer bits. Our methods also convert a majority of numerical parameters to zero. Using special storage methods that only require storage of non-zero parameters, we gain significant compression benefits. On typical benchmarks like LeNet-300-100 (MNIST dataset), LeNet-5 (MNIST dataset), AlexNet (CIFAR-10 dataset) and VGG-16 (CIFAR-10 dataset), our methods can achieve up to 57.22x, 50.19x, 13.15x and 13.53x compression respectively. Storage benefits are achieved at the cost of classification accuracy, and we present our work in the light of the accuracy-compression trade-off.

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In order to reach the strengthening and the development of family agriculture as well as the premise of diversification of the productive sources, there appears as an alternative the cultivation of common vineyards destined to the production of home-grown wine, juices and derivatives. Attempts were made to evaluate the existing relationships among local meteorological variables and handling practices, dry pruning and green pruning and the effects on phenological behavior, productive aspects and on the quality of the cultivated grape under the conditions of the region of Pelotas/RS. For this purpose, a family based agricultural property was selected located in the 8TH district of Pelotas/RS, in which the experiment was carried out and where the experimental delineation was composed for a (2 x 2 x 2) factorial, these being: (Bordô and BRS Violeta) cultivar, period of dry pruning (normal and late) and green pruning (with and without defoliation). Evaluations were carried out during harvest of total soluble solids, of the mass of clusters, of the number of clusters of grapes per cluster and production per plant. Moreover, global solar radiation was measured in each treatment, reflected by the canopy and available at the level of clusters as well as the daily temperature of the vineyards, Results demonstrate that the period of dry pruning affected the production and the accumulation of total soluble solids and on cv. BRS Violeta, only the total soluble solids. When relating the period of dry pruning with defoliation over total soluble solids, these differed only in the treatment with defoliation, being greater in the late period. Defoliation carried out on cv. Bordô reduced the number of grapes per cluster. However, it increased weight of the clusters and presented no differences for the BRS Violeta . Defoliation associated with the normal period increased the production per plant and the number of clusters on Bordô and presented no differences on the cv. BRS Violeta. The results demonstration that the average albedo presented short variation 0,287, 0,280, 0,295, 0,297, 0,304 e 0,287 for the respectively treatments BNC, BTC, BTS, VNC, VTC and VTS, being B e V refer of the cultivars Bordô and BRS Violeta, N and T of the dry pruning and C and S with and without. The cv. BRS Violeta presented greater availability of solar radiation at the level of clusters and higher rate of total soluble solids during harvest when compared with cv. Bordô. The period of dry pruning did not represent difference in the quantity of solar radiation available at the level of clusters but the defoliation propitiated increase in incident radiation a the level of clusters for cv. Bordô and BRS Violeta. Solar radiation available at the level of clusters showed itself related to the accumulation of total soluble solids, being greater when the available radiation was greater on cv. Bordô.
A fim de atingir o fortalecimento e o desenvolvimento da agricultura familiar e a premissa da diversificação da matriz produtiva das unidades familiares, tem-se como alternativa o cultivo de videiras comuns destinadas à produção de vinhos coloniais, sucos e derivados. Buscou-se avaliar as relações existentes entre variáveis meteorológicas locais e as práticas de manejo, poda seca e poda verde, e seus efeitos no comportamento fenológico, nos aspectos produtivos e na qualidade da uva cultivada nas condições da região de Pelotas/RS. Para tanto, foi selecionada uma propriedade agrícola familiar localizada no 8º Distrito de Pelotas/RS, na qual foi realizado o experimento, sendo o delineamento experimental composto por um fatorial (2 x 2 x 2), sendo estes: cultivar (Bordô e BRS Violeta); época de poda seca (normal e tardia); e poda verde (com e sem desfolha). Foram realizadas durante a colheita avaliações de sólidos solúveis totais, da massa dos cachos, do número de cachos e de bagas por cacho e da produção por planta. Ainda em cada tratamento foi medida a radiação solar global, refletida pelo dossel e disponível ao nível dos cachos e também a temperatura diária no vinhedo. Os resultados demonstram que a época da poda seca exerceu influência sobre o comportamento fenológico, sobre a necessidade térmica e o número de dias para completar o ciclo. Na cv. Bordô a época da poda seca afetou a produção e o acúmulo de sólidos solúveis totais (SST) e na cv. BRS Violeta apenas o SST. Ao relacionar a época da poda seca com a desfolha, sobre os sólidos solúveis totais, estes diferiram apenas no tratamento com desfolha, sendo maior na época tardia. A desfolha realizada na cultivar Bordô reduziu o número de bagas por cacho, entretanto aumentou o peso de cachos e sem diferenças para a BRS Violeta . A desfolha associada à época normal aumentou a produção por planta e o número de cachos na Bordô e sem diferenças para a cultivar BRS Violeta. O albedo médio para os tratamentos BNC, BTC, BTS, VNC, VTC e VTS foi respectivamente, 0,287, 0,280, 0,295, 0,297, 0,304 e 0,287. A cultivar BRS Violeta apresentou maior disponibilidade de radiação solar ao nível dos cachos e maior teor de sólidos solúveis totais na colheita quando comparada a cultivar Bordô. A época de poda seca não representou diferença na quantidade de radiação solar disponível ao nível dos cachos, já a realização da desfolha propiciou aumento na radiação que incide ao nível dos cachos para a cv. Bordô. A radiação solar disponível ao nível dos cachos mostrou-se relacionada ao acúmulo de sólidos solúveis totais, sendo maior este acúmulo quando a radiação disponível foi maior na cultivar Bordô.