Application techniques of pesticides in greenhouse tomato crops

Sustainability

The cultivation of vegetables in greenhouses requires seedlings produced in nurseries with high levels of practice specialisation. The nurseries are dedicated to the early stages of growth, from sowing to the first leaves. There, the seeding density and the hydro-climatic conditions favour diseases. Plant protection treatments are carried out with the use of low-cost machines, whose efficiencies and safety conditions depend on the workers’ ability. The irrigation system with a mechanised horizontal spray boom could be an alternative solution to the hand-held spray gun. This research aimed to investigate the use of a horizontal boom sprayer for the distribution of pesticides in different pressure conditions and forward speeds compared with a spray gun, in relation to tomato growth stages. The tests were carried out on tomato seedlings grown in polystyrene seeding boxes and arranged on hanging benches. Deposits on the seedlings (µL cm−2) and losses in the soil (µL cm−2) were assessed ...

Pest Management Science, 2009

BACKGROUND: Increasingly, Flemish greenhouse growers are using spray booms instead of spray guns to apply plant protection products. Although the advantages of spray booms are well known, growers still have many questions concerning nozzle choice and settings. Spray deposition using a vertical spray boom in tomatoes and strawberries was compared with reference spray equipment. Five different settings of nozzle type, size and pressure were tested with the spray boom.

Crop Protection, 2021

Manual spray operations of conventional pesticides in the greenhouse are highly dependent on labor and have been associated with potential health risks. To overcome the constraints the narrow crop space and the complexity of auxiliary facilities impose on ground autonomous sprayers, this study developed an autonomous air-assisted sprayer based on a single hanging track for solar greenhouses. The spray distribution from the boom and spray patterns were evaluated. Laboratory tests were conducted to investigate the airflow distribution and static spray distribution of the boom. The sprayer was tested on cucumber crops in a solar greenhouse to evaluate the performances of two spray patterns: spraying during boom rising-traveling (P1) and during traveling-falling (P2). The coefficient of variation of the static axial spray distribution was 33% based on liquid collection. The coefficient of variation of axial and radial spray distribution of P1 and P2 (based on coverage rate) were 37.2% and 58.3%, as well as 46.3% and 69.4%, respectively. This confirmed that the motion direction of the boom strongly influenced the spray distribution. The structure of the airflow also affected the radial spray distribution. Moreover, the axial spray distributions of both spray patterns had high correlation coefficients of 0.921 and 0.889 with a static distribution detected in the laboratory. Optimizing the configuration of the nozzles and airflow of the boom is expected to further improve the uniformity of the radial and axial spray distributions. This autonomous air-assisted sprayer based on single hanging track provides a predictable solution for plant protection in solar greenhouses.

HortScience: a publication of the American Society for Horticultural Science

As a result of the decreasing availability of authorized plant protection products, adequate pest control becomes more difficult in many ornamental crops and almost no information is available about the optimization of spray application techniques in ornamental crops. Yet, spray boom systems-instead of the still predominantly used spray guns-might improve crop protection management in greenhouses considerably. Application rate, nozzle type, and configuration will influence the spray deposition and, as such, its efficiency. In this study, spray deposition in ivy pot plants [Hedera algeriensis cv. Montgomery, Hibb.], grown on hanging shelves in greenhouses, was compared with a traditional spray gun with a disc-core nozzle and a manually pulled trolley equipped with two vertical spray booms. The sprayings with the spray gun were performed at an application rate of 8500 L.ha(-1). For the vertical spray boom system, two different reduced application rates (2500 and 5000 L.ha(-1)) with fi...

Soybean Physiology and Biochemistry, 2011

The variable flow rate system (VFRS) provides a unique capacity for the grower to treat fields with different spray volumes while retaining optimum droplet sizes determined from pest population scouting data and other field conditions such as plant susceptibility, density, and growth stage, etc. In this study, we have tried to investigate vi This dissertation is devoted to my wife And our children Saeed, Somiah, and Abdullah I hope that I may in some measure repay you for your love and support through these many years of emotional and physical sacrifice. I also dedicate this effort to my adviser Dr. Franklin R. Hall whom I am proud to be one of his students. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the first place I want to thank sincerely my advisor, Dr. Franklin R. Hall for his intellectual guidance throughout my graduate program. His great support, encouragement, enthusiasm, and patience made this dissertation become possible. Without him none of this would have been possible. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my advisory committee Dr.

Crop Protection, 2020

Crop Protection, 2021

This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

Spanish Journal of Agricultural Research, 2016

adjustment of the dose and spray volume (SV) of plant protection products the concept of "treated area" has been proposed (Weisser & Koch, 2002). The SV in agricultural crops can be finally calculated by means of the leaf area index (LAI), leaf surface area and biomass (

2021

Spraying is one of the critical operations in agriculture. The importance of the use of chemical pesticides was well recognized in agriculture. Consumption of pesticides was increasing year by year, on the other hand, wastage of chemical pesticides also alarming. Droplet size and droplet densities are critical parameters to identify the effectiveness of sprayer. The smaller droplets were prone to drift and not retained on the plant, whereas larger droplets also not adhere to the plant canopy, hence it is important to consider droplet size as a critical parameter while evaluating the performance of any sprayer. In the scientific community, there are different techniques to analyze the deposition of spray with tracers. Different types of droplet collectors such as natural collectors, artificial collectors, Water Sensitive Papers (WSP) and polyethylene collectors were used by different researchers. Researchers intending to use these new results need to understand with clarity what exac...