Siva K Balasundram

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• PhD (University of Minnesota, USA)
• Professor (Full) at Universiti Putra Malaysia

Malaysia uses the approach of community garden-based urban farming to build the community awareness about the importance of food resilience, including in Selangor Region. However, most of these community gardens were struggling with the low availability of organic fertilizer due to the low efficacy of organic waste composting. This issue also occur...

The challenges and drawbacks of manual weeding and herbicide usage, such as inefficiency, high costs, time-consuming tasks, and environmental pollution, have led to a shift in the agricultural industry toward digital agriculture. The utilization of advanced robotic technologies in the process of weeding serves as prominent and symbolic proof of inn...

This chapter is a collection of selected abstracts presented at the 10th Asian-Australasian Conference on Precision Agriculture, held from October 24th to 26th in Putrajaya, Malaysia. It aims to emphasize the transformative potential of technology in precision agriculture and smart farming. The featured studies highlight the transformative impact o...

Crop digital twin is redefining traditional farming practices, offering unprecedented opportunities for real-time monitoring, predictive and simulation analysis, and optimization. This research embarks on an exploration of the synergy between precision agriculture, crop modeling, and regression algorithms to create a digital twin for farmers to aug...

Over the decades, agri-food security has become one of the most critical concerns in the world. Sustainable agri-food production technologies have been reliable in mitigating poverty caused by high demands for food. Recently, the applications of agri-food system technologies have been meaningfully changing the worldwide scene due to both external s...

Spatio-temporal variability of soil fertility and cocoa pod borer (CPB) infestation rate provides strategic information about the soil nutrients and CPB population densities at different harvest intervals. This enables the transitioning of cocoa fields (cooca-gliricidia and cocoa-coconut) from conventional to modern precision management. Geostatist...

Digital agriculture involving different tools and management practices has advanced considerably in recent years, intending to overcome climate risk and reduce food insecurity. Climate change and its impacts on agricultural production and food security are significant sources of public concern worldwide. The objective of this study was to provide a...

Hydroponic fodder production in controlled environment (CE) settings have gained more focus in recent years due to the shortage of agricultural land for food production and the adverse effect of climate changes. However, the operation costs and dry matter issues are the major concerns for the sustainability of fodder production in the CE. This stud...

False smut disease (FSD) of rice incited by Ustilaginoidea virens is an emerging threat to paddy cultivation worldwide. We investigated the spatial distribution of FSD in different paddy ecosystems of South Indian states, viz., Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, by considering the exploratory data from 111 sampling sites. Point p...

Agriculture is constantly developing into a progressive sector by benefiting from a variety of high-tech solutions with the ultimate objectives of improving yield and quality, minimizing wastes and inputs, and maximizing the sustainability of the process. For the case of Iran, adaptation of digital agriculture is one of the key economic plans of th...

Adoption of Sustainable Agricultural Practices (SAP) among smallholder dairy farmers in developing countries, especially within the Asia Pacific region remains low. This is probably attributable to the fact that psycho-social factors are not considered during the adoption process. The current study was carried out in order to increase the adoption...

Air pollution, as one of the most significant environmental challenges, has adversely affected the global economy, human health, and ecosystems. Consequently, comprehensive research is being conducted to provide solutions to air quality management. Recently, it has been demonstrated that environmental parameters, including temperature, relative hum...

Soil salinity and the water crisis are imposing significant challenges to more than 100 countries as dominant factors of agricultural productivity decline. Given the rising trend of climate change and the need to increase agricultural production, it is crucial to execute appropriate management strategies in farmlands to address salinity and water d...

The present study aimed at investigating scientific irrigation scheduling (SIS) for the sustainable production of olive groves. The SIS allows farmers to schedule water rotation in their fields to abate crop water stress and maximize yields, which could be achieved through the precise monitoring of soil moisture. For this purpose, the study used th...

Excessive use of antibiotics in the healthcare sector and livestock farming has amplified antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a major environmental threat in recent years. Abiotic stresses, including soil salinity and water pollutants, can affect AMR in soils, which in turn reduces the yield and quality of agricultural products. The objective of this...

Conversion of native lands into agricultural use, coupled with poor land management practices, generally leads to changes in soil properties. Understanding the undesirable effects of land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes on soil properties is essential when planning for sustainable land management. This study was conducted in Al Jabal Al Akhdar re...

Potassium (K) nutrition in pineapple grown on tropical peat can be problematic due to high precipitation which encourages leaching losses. Non-destructive tools that can assess K deficiency and the accompanying changes in biophysical and biochemical properties within pineapple is a good strategy to employ. In this study, we assessed the biophysical...

Phytophthora meadii (McRae) is a hemibiotrophic oomycete fungus that infects tender nuts, growing buds, and crown regions, resulting in fruit, bud, and crown rot diseases in arecanut (Areca catechu L.), respectively. Among them, fruit rot disease (FRD) causes serious economic losses that are borne by the growers, making it the greatest yield-limiti...

The consequences of COVID-19 on the economy and agriculture have raised many concerns about global food security, especially in developing countries. Given that food security is a critical component that is affected by global crises, beside the limited studies carried out on the macro-impacts of COVID-19 on food security in Iran, this paper is an a...

Automation of greenhouse environment using simple timer-based actuators or by means of conventional control algorithms that require feedbacks from offline sensors for switching devices are not efficient solutions in large-scale modern greenhouses. Wireless instruments that are integrated with artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and knowledge-ba...

A greenhouse is a complex environment in which various biological and non-biological phenomena occur. For simulation and prediction of the climate and plant growth changes in the greenhouse are necessary to provide mathematical models. The dynamic greenhouse climate models are classified in mechanistic and black-box models (ARX). Climatic models ar...

Optimum microclimate parameters, including air temperature (T), relative humidity (RH) and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) that are uniformly distributed inside greenhouse crop production systems are essential to prevent yield loss and fruit quality. The objective of this research was to determine the spatial and temporal variations in the microclimat...

The decline in mangrove coastlines over the years has instigated the need to investigate and document the soil quality of microsites within a regenerating and an established mangrove stand. An established mangrove stand (back portion) and a newly regenerating mangrove stand (front portion) were selected in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. We...

The detection of pigments in cacao pods together with colourless flavonoids serves as a useful indicator for pod maturity using a fast and non-destructive multiparametric fluorescence sensor. In this study, the contents of anthocyanin, flavonol, chlorophyll and nitrogen balance were determined monthly (1-5 months) after flower fertilization as pod...

The region of Al-Jabal Al-Akhdar in northeastern Libya has undergone rapid, wide-ranging changes in the land use and land cover (LULC) intensified by the conversion of natural resources for food purpose, urbanization, and other socioeconomic benefits. This study examined the use of geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing techniques t...

Environmental concerns are growing about excessive applying nitrogen (N) fertilizers, especially in oil palm. Some conventional methods which are used to assess the amount of nutrient in oil palm are time-consuming, expensive, and involve frond destruction. Remote sensing as a non-destructive, affordable, and efficient method is widely used to dete...

Emission-free closed-field crop cultivation at a commercial scale necessitates microclimate evaluation for embracing the production uncertainties and maximizing the returns. This paper presents an application of the Internet-of-Things for model-based evaluation of microclimate parameters inside two greenhouse crop production systems. The objectives...

Plant diseases contribute 10–16% losses in global harvests each year, costing an estimated US$ 220 billion. Abundant use of chemicals such as bactericides, fungicides, and nematicides to control plant diseases are causing adverse effects to many agroecosystems. Precision plant protection offers a non-destructive means of managing plant diseases bas...

Spectral screening can play an important role in successful detection of viroid-infected oil palm seedlings from nursery stage prior to transplanting into the field. Coconut cadang–cadang viroid (CCCVd) is the main causal agent of orange spotting (OS) disease. OS disease is an emerging disease in Malaysian plantation. In this study, a glasshouse ex...

"Digital Agriculture", also known as "Electronic-Agriculture", or "Agriculture 4.0" is a relatively new and broad concept that utilizes digital tools such as wireless communication, IoT platforms, and mobile apps, as well as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and robotics to influence agri-food value chain in order to achieve "sustainable pr...

Orange Spotting (OS) is an emerging disease in oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq) that has been associated with Coconut cadang-cadang viroid (CCCVd; Cocadviroid, Pospiviroidae). This study was aimed at selecting efficient wavebands in the Visible/near infrared (VNIR) spectrum (400-1050 nm) for estimation of chlorophyll content in CCCVd-inoculated oi...

This study reports on evaluating a new transplanting operation by taking into accounts the interactions between soil, plant, and machine in line with the System of Rice Intensification (SRI) practices. The objective was to modify planting claw (kuku-kambing) of a paddy transplanter in compliance with SRI guidelines to determine the best planting sp...

Unmanned aerial vehicles carrying multimodal sensors for precision agriculture (PA) applications face adaptation challenges to satisfy reliability, accuracy, and timeliness. Unlike ground platforms, UAV/drones are subjected to additional considerations such as payload, flight time, stabilization, autonomous missions, and external disturbances. For...

A prototype robot that moves on a monorail along the greenhouse for weed elimination between cucumber plants was designed and developed. The robot benefits from three arrays of ultrasonic sensors for weed detection and a PIC18 F4550-E/P microcontroller board for processing. The feedback from the sensors activates a robotic arm, which moves inside t...

Greenhouse automation, Microclimate evaluation

BACKGROUND A series of fluorescence indices (anthocyanin, flavonol, chlorophyll and nitrogen balance) were deployed to detect the pigments and colourless flavonoids in cacao pods of three commercial cacao (Theobroma cacao L.) genotypes (QH1003, KKM22 and MCBC1) using a fast and non‐destructive multiparametric fluorescence sensor. The aim was to det...

Keynote talk. Research and Development in Agricultural Robotics and Digital Farming. Video file: https://youtu.be/ZW_C8HafcNw

Non-invasive approaches for plant disease assessment and monitoring

Plant disease assessment is conducted to analyze the measurement of disease/pathogens (phythopathometry) which is fundamental for estimation of disease intensity and crop loss. Plant disease assessment aids researchers and farmers to evaluate the cause of disease and extent of damage (physical and economical). Accurate and reliable approach is need...

Digital farming is the practice of modern technologies such as sensors, robotics, and data analysis for shifting from tedious operations to continuously automated processes. This paper reviews some of the latest achievements in agricultural robotics, specifically those that are used for autonomous weed control, field scouting, and harvesting. Objec...

Research efforts for development of agricultural robots that can effectively perform tedious field tasks have grown significantly in the past decade. Agricultural robots are complex systems that require interdisciplinary collaborations between different research groups for effective task delivery in unstructured crops and plants environments. With...

Runoff causes soil loss and is a continuous ecological problem in Seremban, Malaysia. It is crucial to collect data on soil loss for improved agricultural productivity and to manage natural resources effectively. This research maps the distribution and estimates the yearly mean value of soil erosion through the utilization of techniques of remote s...

Digital farming is the practice of modern technologies such as sensors, robotics, and data analysis for shifting from tedious operations to continuously automated processes. This paper reviews some of the latest achievements in agricultural robotics, specifically those that are used for autonomous weed control, field scouting, and harvesting. Objec...

Research efforts for development of agricultural robots that can effectively perform tedious field tasks have grown significantly in the past decade. Agricultural robots are complex systems that require interdisciplinary collaborations between different research groups for effective task delivery in unstructured crops and plants environments. With...

This paper reviews advanced Neural Network (NN) techniques available to process hyperspectral data, with a special emphasis on plant disease detection. Firstly, we provide a review on NN mechanism, types, models, and classifiers that use different algorithms to process hyperspectral data. Then we highlight the current state of imaging and non-imagi...

Research efforts for development of agricultural robots that can effectively perform tedious field tasks have grown significantly in the past decade. Agricultural robots are complex systems that require interdisciplinary collaborations between different research groups for effective task delivery in unstructured crops and plants environments. With...

Digital farming is the practice of modern technologies such as sensors, robotics, and data analysis for shifting from tedious operations to continuously automated processes. This paper reviews some of the latest achievements in agricultural robotics, specifically those that are used for autonomous weed control, field scouting, and harvesting. Objec...

Land suitability evaluation (LSE) is a valuable tool for land use planning in major countries of the world, including Malaysia. Previous LSE studies focused mostly on the use of biophysical and ecological datasets for the design of equally important socioeconomic variables. This study presents sub national level estimation of suitable agricultural...

The use of hyperspectral remote sensing techniques for plant disease diagnosis is gaining much prominence due to its non-destructive feature. The steep gradient in reflectance between visible and near-infrared region is known as the red-edge, which is located between 680 and 780 nm. Red-edge is a stress diagnostic indicator that provides for non-de...

Determination of plant stress factors is often challenging as it can be a compound result of water deficit, nutrient deficiency and disease infection. Symptoms arising from these stress factors may also be similar. Hence, visual observation alone could result in flawed diagnosis which would eventually disrupt remedial action for the affected plant/...

Forest floor carbon stocks, which include different components of litter, hemic and sapric materials, have not been empirically quantified in tropical montane forest, although they influence soil carbon (C) pools. To date, the contribution of arbuscular mycorrhizae in C sequestration potentials in tropical montane forests have not been clearly inve...

In this study, the trends of water and sediment data collected from three hydrometer stations over the past 25 years of development in the state of Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia, were analyzed using the Mann–Kendall and Pettitt’s tests. Landscape metrics for establishing the relationship between land use changes and trends of hydrological time seri...

JEYANNY V, BALASUNDRAM SK, AHMAD-HUSNI MH & WAN-RASIDAH K. 2016. Spatial variability of forest floor thickness for estimation of refined carbon stocks in a tropical montane forest. Spatial variations of forest floor thickness in tropical montane forest influences carbon stocks estimates in forest floor and soil, microbial decomposition and soil con...

Land suitability evaluation (LSE) is a valuable tool for land use planning in major countries of the world as well as in Malaysia. However, previous LSE studies have been conducted with the use of biophysical and ecological datasets for the design of equally important socio-economic variables. Therefore, this research has been conducted at the sub...

The basal stem rot (BSR) disease has been reported as the most destructive disease of oil palms in Southeast Asia. Adequate contents of nutrient in soil and leaf helps improve the plant health and its productivity. This study aims to determine the spatial variability of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) in soil and leaf collected in BSR infected oil...

Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is an important economic tree crops in the tropic. However, more than 95 % of oil palms grown in Southeast Asia are on acid, low fertility and highly weathered soils. Optimum value of micronutrients in the soil was required to enhance the efficiency of use of macro-nutrients. Hence, to observe and predict the fertility...

2015. Leaf litter decomposition and soil carbon dioxide fluxes across climatic gradient in tropical montane and lowland forests. Leaf litter decomposition and soil respiration are of great interest in climate change studies due to their roles in recycling carbon and nutrients. These processes can be markedly different in tropical montane and lowlan...

This study addresses resolution of a multi-objective land allocation problem and simulation of land change in the south west of Selangor state, Malaysia. The landscape experiences three conflicting objectives of land change, including urban/built-up development, oil palm development, and forest protection. The three conflicting objectives were simu...

The measurement of canopy reflectance during early infection stage of the plant may differentiate infected and healthy plants. Orange spotting is an emerging disease in oil palm caused by Coconut Cadang Cadang Viroid (CCCVd). Typically, symptoms are manifested as yellow spotting followed by orange spotting. However, infected oil palm can also be as...

Analyzing the effects of urban development on dynamic and spatial patterns of land use is vital to establish more efficient land management policies. However, in Malaysia, such effects are usually explained without quantitative metrics. This research quantified the future impact of urban expansion on the dynamic of land use by developing the area-i...

Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at alarming rates have triggered the need to revisit potential opportunities in conserving and monitoring carbon (C) stocks for climate change mitigation. The dynamic nature of tropical forests based on topographic variations and biomass components needs reliable estimation of forest C to support...

The Hulu Langat basin, a strategic watershed in Malaysia, has in recent decades been exposed to extensive changes in land-use and consequently hydrological conditions. In this work, the impact of Land Use and Cover Change (LUCC) on hydrological conditions (water discharge and sediment load) of the basin were investigated using the Soil and Water As...

Orange Spotting (OS) disease is an emerging problem in oil palm. This work explores the use of spectral reflectance as a tool to detect OS disease, to classify OS disease severity and to predict OS disease severity based on vegetation indices. This assessment was conducted at a commercial oil palm plantation located in Sungai Buloh, Selangor. Leave...

In Malaysia, areas under oil palm plantations have increased dramatically since the early twentieth century and have resulted in multiple conversions of land change. This paper presents a spatial and temporal model for simulation of oil palm expansion in the Kuala Langat district, Malaysia. The model is an integration of cellular automata (CA), mul...

In recent decades, the Hulu Langat Basin in Malaysia has been exposed to extensive changes in land use pattern and consequently hydrological conditions. Maintaining a reasonable balance between environmental currents and governmental/population demands is a difficult task. In this work, 3 land use scenarios were defined, which are the present (base...

The impacts of land use/cover changes (LUCC) on a developed basin in Malaysia were evaluated. Three storm events in different intensities and durations were required for KINEROS2 (K2) calibration and LUCC impact analysis. K2 validation was performed using three other rainfall events. Calibration results showed excellent and very good fittings for r...

Prediction of highly non-linear behaviour of suspended sediment flow in rivers is of prime importance in environmental studies and watershed management. In this study, the predictive performance of artificial neural network (ANN) integrated with genetic algorithm (GA) was assessed. GA was used to optimize the parameters and architecture of the ANN....

Based on the Système Pour l'Observation de la Terre-5 imagery, two main techniques of classifying land-use categories in a tropical landscape are compared using two supervised algorithms: maximum likelihood classifier (MLC) and K-nearest neighbor object-based classifier. Nine combinations of scale level (SL10, SL30, and SL50) and the nearest neighb...

Agricultural land suitability evaluation for crop production is a process that requires specialized geoenvironmental information and the expertise of a computer scientist to analyze and interpret the information. This paper presents ALSE, an intelligent system for assessing land suitability for different types of crops in tropical and subtropical r...

A better understanding of spatial variability of forest soil properties related to carbon (C) sequestration will improve management strategies towards conserving forest areas that project higher C stocks. This study was aimed at determining spatial variability of soil C, C:N (nitrogen) and forest foor depth in tropical lowland and montane forests a...

Red tip disease on pineapple (Ananas comosus) was first recognized about 20 years ago in a commercial pineapple stand located in Simpang Renggam, Johor, Peninsular Malaysia. Since its discovery, there has been no confirmation on the causal agent of red tip disease. The epidemiology of red tip disease is still not fully understood. However, based on...

A single-date archived QuickBird satellite imagery and oil palm yield data collected over a 12-year time series were used to generate empirical oil palm yield models under Malaysian conditions. Vegetation indices and yield data were subject to correlation analysis, followed by regression modeling and model validation using standard metrics. Results...

Industrial wastes and mining related activity are main sources of zinc contamination in soils and groundwater. The quality of soil, crop and water will also be affected by high concentrations of heavy metals. The adsorption behaviour of clinoptilolite (natural Iranian zeolite) and clinoptilolite-tridymite (Chinese zeolite) at different pHs has been...

The spatial variability of Orange Spotting (OS) disease severity was quantified in an effort to augment the effectiveness of OS phytopathometry appraisal. OS disease incidence in the study area was 74.3%.Measured OS disease severity ranged from 0 to 92.3%. The spatial structure of OS disease severity was described by an exponential model with an ef...