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Using automation, a system is being developed that monitor and grows plants. Similar to an incubator, the system maintains the right temperature, provides protection, and hydrates each plant. The System detects the soil moisture content and irrigates the plants accordingly. Moreover, temperature and humidity are constantly monitored to ensure the plant's health and growth. The light sensor ensures that the plants receive enough light to carry out photosynthesis, which is a vital element in plant growth. The system is programmed to close all agricultural areas during adverse weather conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moisture content indicates the amount of water present in a substance. In hydroponics context, the seed moisture content affects the germination efficiency, while the air moisture content affecting plant growth. Seed water uptake is the first process in germination. The first objective of this research is to study the effect of seed water content on germination efficiency. Seeds were soaked in different periods which were 60, 120, 180 and 240 minutes respectively. Results demonstrated that the seed moisture content increased with increasing in soaking period. The highest seed moisture content was 43.5±1.4% at 240 minutes soaking period, also corresponds to the highest germination rate at 100%. The germination efficiency increased with increasing seed moisture content. When the seed moisture content was too low, the enzyme in the seeds fails to activate. To analyze the effect of air moisture content on plant growth of Lactuca Sativa, a growth chamber with varying air relative humidity at 55, 75 and 95% was constructed. The growth efficiency in terms of plant height, plant growth per day, width and length of leave, fresh and dry weight of lettuce decreased when relative humidity increased from 55% to 95% due to the transpiration rate was the lowest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Oil palm, Elaeis guineensis is well thought-out as an agricultural waste from oil palm plantation. At this time, the necessities of wood are becoming more restricted, and oil palm trunk could be potential alternative source to replace wood. However, oil palm trunks consist of very extraordinary moisture content in spite of uses. This study was expected to examine the properties of oil palm trunk lumber after microwave radiation process. Microwave drying of oil palm trunk samples was conducted by using microwave operated at 2.45 GHz with the maximum rated power of 1000 watt. The samples were microwave-treated at three different power intensities of 600,800 and 1000 watt with the exposure duration of 10 minutes. Oven drying technique also was involved as a comparison of the conventional drying process in this research. Impact and compression of the samples were tested. The analysis of properties of the fresh material and dry samples was employed by scanning electron microscopy. From this study, microwave drying with 800 watt and 10 minutes improved the characteristics of the specimens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The experiment was conducted to determine the effects of storage temperature on moisture content of encapsulated Orthosiphon stamineus spray-dried powder when stored under different temperatures (10 and 25 °C) for 4 weeks of storage period. The moisture content of the samples was measured using moisture analyzer. The results showed that the moisture content of the samples increased when temperature of storage increased. However, it was noticed that the content of samples moisture not affected by method of packaging (vacuum and non-vacuum packaging) at both storage temperatures (10 and 25 °C). The moisture content increased slightly by storage time at all treatments during experimental storage period (4 weeks). Thus, to prolong the shelf-life of the encapsulated herbal products, it is suggested to keep the products at low temperature (10 °C). A higher storage temperature may change the physical characteristic of the capsule itself during storage. The permeability of the capsules may affected by the changes of the storage temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Orthosiphon stamineus or also known as misai kucing is one of the popular Malaysian herbal plant. Synthetically, normally this herbal plant is offered with high measure of flavones, polyphenols, bioactive dynamic proteins, proteins, glycosides, unstable oil, and endless amounts of potassium. These bioactive compounds are beneficial for human healthy. In this current study, the moisture sorption behavior of 0. stamineus ground powder was investigated. The study on moisture sorption behavior is important to monitor the storage stability criteria and shelf life of 0. stamineus ground powder. Moisture sorption behavior of 0. stamineus ground powder were determined through the gravimetric method at two selected temperature (4 and 30 °C). Five type of different saturated salts such as lithium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium carbonate, sodium bromide and potassium nitrate were used in this study. The setup range of equilibrium relative humidity (ERH) were 11 to 95%. Based on the results, it was noted that the equilibrium moisture content (EMC) of the samples increased when the ERH increased at both temperature (4 and 30 °C) during storage. In addition, it also can be observed that the EMC of the ground powder samples were higher when stored at low temperature (4 °C) compared to the samples stored at ambient temperature (30 °C). However, it is not suggested to expose the 0. stamineus ground powder samples at high ERH (90%) because that condition could stimulate the growth of microbial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding of water distribution in plant-based food material is crucial for developing an accurate heat and mass transfer drying model. Generally, in plant-based food tissue, water is distributed in three different spaces namely, intercellular water, intracellular water, and cell wall water. For hygroscopic material, these three types of water transport should be considered for actual understanding of heat and mass transfer during drying. However, there is limited study dedicated to the investigation of the moisture distribution in a different cellular environment in the plant-based food material. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the proportion of intercellular water, intracellular water, and cell wall water inside the plant-based food material. During this study, experiments were performed for two different plant-based food tissues namely, eggplant and potato tissue using ¹H-NMR-T2 relaxometry. Various types of water component were calculated by using multicomponent fits of the T2 relaxation curves. The experimental result showed that in potato tissue 80-82% water exist in intracellular space; 10-13% water in intercellular space and only 4-6% water exist in the cell wall space. In eggplant tissue, 90-93% water in intracellular space, 4-6% water exists in intercellular space and the remaining percentage of water is recognized as cell wall water. The investigated results quantify different types of water in plant-based food tissue. The highest proportion of water exists in intracellular spaces. Therefore, it is necessary to include different transport mechanism for intracellular, intercellular and cell wall water during modelling of heat and mass transfer during drying. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the several decades tea factories all over the world use horizontal bed static type withering trough to wither tea leaves. The limitations with this type of troughs are non-uniformity of moisture content in withered leaves, large space requirement and high energy consumption during withering process. The present work aims to address these issues through designing and developing a circular rotating type withering trough. Experiments have been conducted on the newly developed and fabricated trough for different operating conditions. The comparison of results obtained for the newly designed circular withering trough and the conventional horizontal bed withering trough has been presented. The results show that the new circular withering trough is capable of achieving uniformity of moisture content in withered leaves with less space utilization and with less energy requirement. Hence it has potential for industrial adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]