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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Testing and Correcting Airblast Pressure

The role of pressure is often underappreciated in spraying. Many airblast operators (still) don’t use rate controllers, so the only way to monitor sprayer pressure is using a single liquid-filled pressure gauge located near the pump… and it may not be trustworthy. An inaccurate pressure gauge may cause you to spray more or less product […]

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Establishing an optimal airblast carrier volume

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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Riparian vegetation or low-drift nozzles for water protection?

Authors: T M Wolf, B C Caldwell and J L Pederson. Originally published in Aspects of Applied Biology 71, 2004, in expanded form. Abstract Spray drift deposition into water bodies may pose environmental and health hazards, and buffer zones have been suggested as a means of mitigating water contamination.  Field trials were conducted to determine […]

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Drift is… good?

OK, fine. We confess to the shameful use of click-bait in our title. Nevertheless, it’s absolutely true: Drift can be good. The reason this statement is unsettling is because of the lack of context, which is really what this article is about. The majority of sprayer-related information available to ag stakeholders relates to horizontal boom […]

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