Articles that discuss general field sprayer operation and productivity factors
Sprayer manufacturers have all but offloaded the entire responsibility for drift management to the sprayer nozzle. It’s asking too much. Sprayers have changed a lot over the past 25 years. They have become larger, with more tank capacity, boom width, and, if self-propelled, horsepower. They are more comfortable and ergonomic, with more sophisticated swath control […]
This short article is a thought exercise designed to give some perspective on chemical rates, carrier volumes and the foliar area we expect them to protect. Imagine we are spraying the fungicide Captan on highbush blueberry. In Canada, the label rate is to apply 2kg/ha (28.5oz/ac) of planted area. Captan is 80% active ingredient, so […]
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 tips, and they’re applying herbicides and fungicides with low water volumes, often 5 gpa, sometimes less. They call because they want to know how much wind they can spray in. Is […]
This short article is a reminder for sprayer operators to respect the possibility of tipping a sprayer. Every spring I catch wind of someone tipping over. When I can ask the operator questions I start with “Is everyone alright?” and “Was the sprayer full?“. Hopefully the answers are “Yes” and No“, but not always. The […]
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 resistant weeds has shown a linear increase both globally (currently at about 500 documented unique weed species x mode of action cases) and within Canada (at about 70 such cases), according […]
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