Development of an Intelligent Robot for an Agricultural Production Ecosystem (IV) : Experiments on Growth and Competition of Rice Plants against Weeds

Abstract

This researching addressed to develop an agricultural production ecosystem robot, we carried out experiments in lots of the rice production ecosystem at Kyushu University Farm in order to get the Lotka-Volterra's parameters for the competition between of rice plants, small umbrella sedge well knew in Japan as Tamagayatsuri (Cyperus difformis L..) and non superior weeds without predation by golden apple snails for different stages of the growing season. A Verhulst logistic model was successful to estimate the carrying capacities and intrinsic rates of the rice plants and weeds. The competition coefficients were obtained by experience, and we constructed and solved the Lotka-Volterra equations of the species in competition by the method of Runge-Kutta.