Dealing with Pesticide Shortages in 2022

We’ve had dire warnings about possible pesticide shortages and price hikes for 2022. Price hikes are one thing. But if the products we need simply won’t be available, we have a tougher challenge.  It’s time to plan pesticide conservation. But first, what’s behind the product shortage? Emily Unglesby of dtnpf.com provided an excellent overview of […]

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Pressure Changes Spray Angles

Soybean demo plot sprayed with a contact herbicide using 110 degree air induction flat fans at 20 psi. The collapsed spray pattern did not overlap sufficiently to burn the entire crop down, leaving a striped pattern and demonstrating the poor coverage.

This work was performed with Victoria Radaukas, 2015 OMAFRA application technology summer student. When we consult a nozzle catalogue we are interested in the flow and droplet sizes produced at a given pressure. Perhaps we should also consider the effect of pressure on spray angle. We have several articles discussing the collective impact of spray […]

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Coverage is King

In the case of fungicide applications, subsequent sprays fill in gaps left by previous sprays. If timing is prompt, residual activity will see you through.

We’ve often heard the adage “Coverage is King” but what does that mean, exactly? It means that in order for your spray application to yield acceptable results, a threshold amount of the active ingredient in your tank must end up on the target. But at what point have we achieved sufficient spray coverage without wastefully […]

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Broadcast Boom Nozzle Spacing

North American built boom sprayers have nozzle spacings of 20” (50 cm in the rest of the world), but other spacings such as 15” (37 cm) and 10” (25 cm) also exist. What are the reasons for these alternative spacings and do they offer any inherent advantages? Why spacing matters Nozzles are spaced along a […]

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The Ideal Sprayer (an open letter to sprayer manufacturers)

Today’s sprayer has to excel at a lot of things. It has to have capacity and low weight. It has to go fast but be comfortable. It needs wide booms that stay level over complex terrain. It has to deliver the right spray volume at the right spray quality for the job. It has to […]

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