Air Assisted Sprayer for Improved Spray Penetration in Greenhouse Floriculture Crops: Fid-Bau Portal

Air Assisted Sprayer for Improved Spray Penetration in Greenhouse Floriculture Crops

Wandkar, Sachin V. / Mathur, Shailendra M. / Dhande, Kishor G. / Jadhav, Pravin P. / Gholap, Babasaheb S.

Abstract Air assisted spraying is considered as one of the better pesticide application technique. Incorporation of air assistance in the spraying system improves the deposition uniformity in the entire plant canopy structure and spray deposition on the lower part of the plant leaves. In the view of this, an air assisted sleeve boom sprayer was developed for greenhouse floricultural crops. The developed sprayer consisted of air delivery system and spray delivery system. Air delivery system consisted of blower, lance assembly and a tapered air sleeve. Spray delivery system consisted of a pesticide tank, horizontal triplex pump, pressure hose and nozzles. Blower and pump were operated by 5 HP electric motor. Air sleeve and nozzles were supported on horizontal boom. The whole assembly of the sprayer was mounted on the trolley. The developed sprayer was tested in the laboratory to study the effect of different air velocity (9, 12, 16 and 20 m/s) and pump discharge (2.5, 4.5, 7 and 9 L/min) levels on droplet size (VMD), droplet density and uniformity coefficient at six different positions of the artificial plant canopy. Test results revealed that an increase in air velocity resulted in better spray penetration and uniform spray coverage. The optimum results of droplet size (100–150 µm), droplet density (25–35 droplets per cm2) and uniformity coefficient at all plant positions were observed for air velocity of 20 m/s and pump discharge of 2.5 L/min.