# Evaluation of Autonomous Mowers Weed Control Effect in Globe Artichoke Field
## 3 Results
### Comparison of the Two Weed Management Systems  
#### 3.2.1 Energy Consumption of the Flail Mower  
The estimated energy consumption of the Orec HR531 walk-behind flail mower are shown in Table 5.  
Comparing the total primary energy consumption of the selected autonomous mower (Table 4) with the flail mower consumption, it is possible to observe the higher consumption of the conventional weed management system with a difference of 704.63 kWh\(\cdot\)ha\({}^{-1}\cdot\)year\({}^{-1}\). 2.2 Average Weeds Height, Weed Cover Percentage, Above-Ground Weed Biomass and Globe Artichoke Yield  
The three-way Anova test revealed that the interactions between the three factors (weed management systems, positions, and dates) and the positions did not affect average weeds height, weed cover percentage and above-ground biomass. The weed management systems had a significant effect on average weed height (\(p<0.01\)), weed cover percentage (\(p<0.001\)), and above-ground weed biomass (\(p<0.05\)). Dates affected only the weed cover percentage (\(p<0.01\)). The one-way Anova highlighted that there were no significant differences between the autonomous mower and the conventional system, in terms of both the number and weight of heads per hectare. Results of both the three-way Anova and one-way Anova are reported on Table 6.  
The autonomous mower weed management system showed a higher weed control effect compared to the conventional system. When plots were managed with the autonomous mower, the average weed height was lower than plots conventionally managed, with a difference of 10.23 cm. Weed cover percentage resulted higher in conventionally managed plots compared to plots managed with the autonomous mower, with an increase of 98.41%. Moreover, the above-ground weed biomass was lower in plots managed with autonomous mower compared to plots conventionally managed, with a decrease of 50.05%. Concerning the factor \"dates\", in April the weed cover percentage (7.67%) was significantly lower than in May and June (\(p<0.05\)), while in May and June the percentages were statistically similar with an average value of 17.31% (\(p<0.05\)). Artichoke yield was similar in the two \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c} \hline \hline  & **Average** & **Weed Cover** & **Above-Ground** & **Number of Artichoke** & **Weight of Artichoke** \\  & **Weeds Height** & **Percentage** & **Weed Biomass** & **Heads per Hedtare** & **Heads per Hedtare** \\  & **Pr(p-F)** & **Pr(p-F)** & **Pr(p-F)** & **Pr(p-F)** & **Pr(p-F)** \\ \hline Factors & & & & & \\ Weed management systems & 0.0064 \({}^{**}\) & 0.0007 \({}^{***}\) & 0.0402 \({}^{*}\) & ns & ns \\ Positions & ns & ns & 0.0593 & \(-\) & \(-\) \\ Dates & ns & 0.0015 \({}^{**}\) & ns & \(-\) & \(-\) \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular} No significant interactions were observed. \({}^{***}p<0.001\); \({}^{**}p<0.01\); \({}^{*}p<0.05\); \(p<0.1\); ns, not significant.  
\end{table} 
Table 6: Results of three-way Anova testing the effect of weed management systems, positions and dates on average weeds height, weed cover percentage and above-ground weed biomass, and results of one-way Anova testing the effect of weed management systems on artichoke yield parameters. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline  & \multicolumn{2}{c}{**Fail Mower**} \\ \cline{2-3}  & **Unit** & **Values** \\ \hline Hourly gasoline consumption & kg\(\cdot\)h\({}^{-1}\) & 0.75 \\ Estimated work capacity & m\({}^{2}\cdot\)h\({}^{-1}\) & 567.06 \\ Hourly Energy requirement & kWh\(\cdot\)h\({}^{-1}\) & 9.20 \\ Time needed to move 1 ha & h & 17.63 \\ Number of treatments per year per hectare & & 7 \\ Total mowing time per year & h & 123.44 \\ Primary energy consumption per year & kWh\(\cdot\)ha\({}^{-1}\cdot\)year\({}^{-1}\) & 1135.13 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 5: Estimated energy consumption of the flail mower. - weed management systems, which resulted in an average number and weight of artichoke heads per hectare equal to 33,641.98 heads-ha \({}^{-1}\) and 6.35 Mg-ha \({}^{-1}\).