In 2014 one of our OMAFRA summer students designed a short-and-gritty demonstration using a backpack sprayer, a variable-speed fan and some water-sensitive paper positioned downwind at 1.5 metre intervals. The intent was to illustrate how sprayer operators could reduce the potential for off-target drift by recognizing and accounting for three factors: Apparent wind speed (i.e. […]
Read More… from Three manageable factors that affect spray drift
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 […]
Read More… from Riparian vegetation or low-drift nozzles for water protection?
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 […]
Choosing the right time to spray can be tricky. Our gut tells us that spraying when it’s windy is wrong. The experts tell us that spraying when it’s calm is wrong. So when can you actually spray? I’ve always advised my clients to spray in some wind, because it has a few advantages. The main […]
The year 1989 marked my first spray drift trial under the watchful eye of Dr. Raj Grover and John Maybank. We evaluated the performance of several spray shrouds, Flexi-Coil, AgShield, Brandt, and Rogers, and wanted to measure just how effective they were. But in my heart I wasn’t interested in drift. I wanted to study […]