Establishing an optimal airblast carrier volume

An orchardist taught me this trick: If you want to know if spray will penetrate a canopy, you should be able to see sunlight through the shadow at high noon.

Thanks to Mark Ledebuhr of Application Insight LLC for his contributions to this article. North American product labels may or may not include carrier volume recommendations. When they do, it could be based on a two-dimensional value like the planted area, or perhaps on row length which is more appropriate for trellised crops that form […]

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Crop-Adapted Spraying – A Multiyear Study in Highbush Blueberry (2024 Update)

This case study is taking place on a 15 acre highbush blueberry operation in southern Ontario. In 2016, considerable pressure from spotted-wing drosophila (SWD) prompted the growers to make changes to their crop management practices and their spray program. They employed a three-pronged approach to improving crop protection: We have been tracking pesticide use, water […]

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Determining an ideal airblast sprayer travel speed using the “Air Displacements” method

The concept of Air Displacements was developed by Dr. David Manktelow, Applied Research and Technologies Ltd. What is the “right” speed to drive when spraying? Airblast sprayer operators must know their average travel speed to calculate how much pesticide and time is required to complete a spray job. Note that it’s an average, not a […]

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Calibrating a Plot Sprayer for Airblast Crops

The calibration of handheld plot sprayers is an important part of agricultural research, and this article already covers all the bases… as long as you are spraying broadacre or row crops. But what happens when you are trying to emulate an airblast sprayer and treating a tree, bush, cane or vine? The key difference is […]

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Airblast Nozzles – Distributing Flow

There’s a certain deer-in-headlights expression that creeps onto a sprayer operator’s face when we discuss nozzle selection. We sympathize with our field sprayer clients given the variety of brands, styles, flow rates and spray qualities they must choose from. And PWM has made the process even more complex. However, airblast operators face an additional challenge; Unlike […]

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