How to interpret a water quality test result

It’s common advice: Test your water before using it as a spray carrier. You dutifully sample the well or dugout and await lab results. And what comes back is a whole lot of numbers. How to make sense of it all? All three of these tests report a large number of properties and identify specific […]

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Exploding Sprayer Myths (Ep.13): Reading Nozzles and Nozzle Tables

After a long hiatus, it’s lucky episode 13! In this installment, Dr. Tom Wolf, intrepid reporter, braves the unforgiving wilds of Saskatoon as he investigates claims of mysterious devices popping up all over the city. Colloquially referred to as “nozzles” these items are imprinted with obscure codes that scientists are struggling to decipher. Be the […]

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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.

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 overlap, nozzle spacing and boom height on coverage uniformity (Check here and here […]

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Pesticide redistribution: an important aspect of synthetic pesticides

What is Redistribution? If you’re a sprayer operator with some experience behind you, you may have applied mercury arsenate, nicotine, Paris green, or perhaps even DDT. All of these historical pesticides were effective, but they were also toxic to both the applicators and the environment. Fortunately, today’s agrochemical manufacturers produce pesticides that are effective while […]

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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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