Design, construction and evaluation of a sprayer drift measurement system

Abstract

Spray drift study for reducing environmental hazards and protecting crops is of high importance as the pesticides used today are more active and many are non-selective. Drift potential can be restricted by assessing and optimizing equipment design, application parameters, the liquid spray properties, type of formulation and environmental conditions. The aim of this research was to design, construct and assess an intelligent system to determine the level of the spraying drift. The main parts of the system were liquid supply mechanism, pipes and nozzles, a controlled pneumatic system to pressurize the liquid, a nozzle moving system with a controlling panel and a tunnel for wind providing and control. To assess the performance of sprayer and drift of droplets, water sensitive papers were placed in different distances from the nozzle considering different environmental conditions including: wind speed, spraying pressure and height. The evaluation results showed that the drift was increased with increasing of sparing pressure and nozzle height.