Sprayers101 Archive
Search our archive of expert-written, data-driven analysis of spraying techniques, equipment, strategies, and more.
Pumps for Applying Crop Protection Products
The pump is the heart of the sprayer and a key component for producing the flow of spray material and sprayer output. Because various…
Sprayer Wheel Maintenance
This article was co-written with Murray Thiessen, Consulting Agricultural Mechanic. Sprayer wheel assemblies should be cleaned and inspected as part of regular annual maintenance. Wheel bearing…
Airblast Nozzles – On or Off?
Spray that is not directed at the target is wasted spray. Many pesticide labels specifically require the operator to restrict spray to the target…
The Droplet Size Debate
Funny how some issues never go away. For as long as I’ve been in the sprayer business, the question of ideal droplet size for…
Micron Woman – Guide to the World of Spray Droplets
You just finished a great spray day. Everything felt right! Your timing and product choice were bang-on, the weather was good, and your sprayer was…
Developing Criteria for the Ideal Agricultural Spray – a Biologist’s Perspective
Originally published in: Wolf, T.M. and Downer, R.A. ILASS Americas, 11th Annual Conference on Liquid Atomization and Spray Systems, Sacramento, CA, May, 1998 Note…
For Sale: Gently Used 1950s Boom Sprayer
This article isn’t about best practices, or social contracts, or innovative new technologies. It’s just a fascinating bit of history. If it has any…
The Most Important Developments in Spraying
Some things have improved a lot. Others have lost ground. Some years ago, a few of us weed scientists sat around a table and…
Perspective on Rates, Volumes and Coverage
This short article is a thought exercise designed to give some perspective on chemical rates, carrier volumes and the foliar area we expect them…
What’s the Relationship Between Vapour Drift and Inversions?
Drift symptoms can take a few weeks to be discovered, and to figure out the cause, people need to reconstruct the conditions during the…
Ground vs Aerial Application of Fungicide in Chickpeas
This article was originally published in the Proceedings of the Soils and Crops Workshop, 2005. Authors Tom Wolf (AAFC), Brian Caldwell (AAFC), Cheryl Cho…
Ragweed Control
When a grower asks two specialists the same question, they can receive skewed (or even contradictory) answers. In this case, however, we were all…
Don’t try this tempting shortcut
There’s a call that I’ve been getting for 20 years now. It came again this week. Someone has a twincap with two small air-induced…
What Nozzle is This? (Field Sprayers)
Us this handy visual guide to identify a mystery nozzle you may find on a field sprayer. We’ve included the most common low-drift nozzles…
Categorizing air-assist sprayers by air-handling design
Air handling systems Air handling systems can be specialists or generalists; some are designed to do one thing very well while others are more…
Nozzle Selection for Boom Sprayers
Picking the correct nozzle for a spray job can be a daunting task. There is a lot of product selection, and a lot of…
Pesticide Safety for Student Workers
This article is based on a presentation by Dr. Melanie Filotas, who delivered it as part of the 2019 agriculture summer student orientation day. Most…
Rate Controllers on Air-Assist Sprayers
There are many advantages to using rate controllers, but their primary role is to maintain a constant application rate. All sprayers change speed on…
Tipping Sprayers and Spills
This short article is a reminder for sprayer operators to respect the possibility of tipping a sprayer. Every spring I catch wind of someone…
Reducing Selection Pressure for Herbicide Resistance
Herbicide resistance has been called the number one threat to conventional herbicide-based weed management strategies. Since the 1970s, the number of cases of herbicide…
Thermal Inversions for Sprayer Operators
In April 2014, NDSU extension published an excellent factsheet explaining what thermal inversions are, how to detect them and how they affect pesticide spray…
Reading Airblast Nozzle Tables
Airblast operators should know how to read a nozzle table. They are found on dealer and manufacturer websites as well as in their catalogs.…
The Pressure-Spray-Coverage Relationship
Pressure is integral to nozzle performance. Reducing hydraulic pressure reduces nozzle flow rate, increases median droplet size, and typically reduces spray fan angle. Increasing pressure…
Loading a Sprayer? Add Time and Patience!
What’s the most underused active ingredient when creating a proper tank mixture in a sprayer? Patience. Spray season is never long enough. The days which…
Airblast Maintenance Inspection – the Morning Walkaround
An airblast sprayer inspection is part of preventative maintenance. This daily activity identifies small problems before they become big ones. You can do it…