How Spot Spraying will Affect Sprayer Design

Some years ago, a friend recommended that I read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, Gladwell tries to understand why some things catch on, and others don’t. It’s a compelling read full of Gladwell’s trademark stories and his knack to deftly interpret scientific studies. He talks of connectors, mavens, and salesmen, as […]

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John Deere See & Spray Select

On March 2, 2021, John Deere entered the optical spot spray (OSS) market with its first product, See & Spray Select™. This “Green on Brown” system identifies green material on a non-green background and is thus suited for pre-seed burnoff, chem fallow, or post harvest. It is competing for the same market space as Cropland’s […]

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The Droplet Size Debate

Funny how some issues never go away. For as long as I’ve been in the sprayer business, the question of ideal droplet size for pesticide application has remained a hot topic.  At its root are the basic facts that small droplets provide better coverage, making better use of water, but large droplets drift less.  So […]

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Ground vs Aerial Application of Fungicide in Chickpeas

This article was originally published in the Proceedings of the Soils and Crops Workshop, 2005. Authors Tom Wolf (AAFC), Brian Caldwell (AAFC), Cheryl Cho (CDC), Sabine Banniza (CDC), Yantai Gan (AAFC) Background: Fungicide application is an important disease management strategy for ascochyta blight (caused by Ascochyta rabiei) in chickpea due to the poor host resistance […]

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The pressure/spray/coverage relationship

Pressure is integral to nozzle performance. Reducing hydraulic pressure reduces nozzle flow rate, increases median droplet size, and typically reduces spray fan angle. Increasing pressure increases nozzle flow rate, reduces median droplet size and typically increases spray fan angle. You can watch this Exploding Sprayer Myths video to learn how pressure, boom height and nozzle spacing […]

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