Peppers belong to the Solanaceae family and are highly valued worldwide for their flavor, nutritional content, and economic benefits. They contain various antioxidant compounds and vitamins associated with numerous health advantages, such as boosting metabolism and reducing inflammation. In addition, peppers are an important agricultural crop, contributing significantly to income along their value chain and serving as an indispensable ingredient in many dishes. However, domestic pepper production has steadily declined, mainly due to increased production costs. Peppers require a significant amount of labor during the harvest season, leading to high labor expenses. As a result, mechanized harvesting is emerging as a potential solution to address this issue. Research on mechanical harvesting of peppers has focused on developing harvesting machines, breeding suitable varieties, and exploring innovative cultivation methods appropriate for mechanization. Although similar research has been conducted in Korea, significant results have yet to be achieved. This review summarizes cases of mechanical pepper harvesting and outlines the traits and cultivation methods required for its effective implementation. For successful mechanical harvesting, the ideal cultivar should be suitable for once-over harvesting, with characteristics such as simultaneous and uniform ripening, low plant height, narrow branching angles, resistance to lodging, and ease of pedicel detachment from the stem. Moreover, fundamental research is essential for developing cultivation methods that do not rely on stacking and for determining optimal planting distances.

Pepper cultivation requires a great amount of manual labor, especially for varieties needing support stakes to prevent them bending or breaking in heavy winds or rain. In Korea, it is recommended to secure support stakes and string lines carefully, so as to minimize the risk of damage caused by typhoons. The harvesting of peppers is a labor-intensive process with low rates of mechanization.The removal of stakes is particularly time-consuming during mechanical harvesting, and lodging is a major issue during cultivation and mechanical harvesting. Given increased mechanization during pepper harvesting, it is important to consider these issues when undertaking variety development and cultivation method improvements. Further research and development are required to improve cultivation practices and develop pepper varieties that are more resistant to lodging. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the impact of different cultivation methods on pepper lodging, thus broadening our knowledge on the desirable architecture of pepper plants required for lodging tolerance.

The term ‘lodging’ in agriculture is usually used when the crops fall from their upright position before harvesting. Various factors may be responsible, including inherent weaknesses in the stem, resulting from low lignin content or small root systems.Weather, such as strong winds or rains, will also likely increase lodging. Insect or disease damage can also weaken the plants, and cultural practices, such as fertilization, irrigation, and cultivation techniques, may increase the risk. Most of the research studies on lodging have been undertaken on cereal crops, but this is also an issue with many vegetable crops, and especially those that require mechanized harvesting. In this review, the issue of lodging in solanaceous vegetable crops is discussed, with an emphasis on the key risk factors and potential areas for future research that can identify damage mitigation strategies.

We investigate the plausibility of mass return, from stellar mass loss processes within the central ~100 pc region of the Milky Way (the inner nuclear bulge), as a mass supply mechanism for the Circumnuclear Disk (CND). Gas in the Galactic disk migrates inward to the Galactic centre due to the asymmetric potential caused by the Galactic bar. The inward migration of gas stops and accumulates to form the central molecular zone (CMZ), at 100{200 pc from the Galactic center. It is commonly assumed that stars have formed in the CMZ throughout the lifetime of the Galaxy and have diffused inward to form a 'r-2 stellar cusp' within the inner nuclear bulge. We propose that the stars migrating inward from the CMZ supply gas to the inner nuclear bulge via stellar mass loss, resulting in the formation of a gas disk along the Galactic plane and subsequent inward migration down to the central 10 pc region (CND). We simulate the evolution of a gas distribution that initially follows the stellar distribution of the aforementioned stellar cusp, and illustrate the potential gas supply toward the CND.