PULVERIZADOR HIDRONEUMÁTICO DE ALTA EFICIENCIA PARA APLICACIÓN FITOSANITARIA EN LA MASA FOLIAR

Pulverization technology is the most used technique to pest control on foliar applications. Air assisted sprayers have been developed for decades and they supplied good results about cover area and droplet distribution on medium and large trees. The principal disadvantages of this technology are the high levels of losses generates by airborne and above the ground. This trouble is related to large distances between nozzles and foliar mass. This work shows a hydro-pneumatic sprayer based on a mechanical system. One major issue is that it can be adapted to trees geometry and plantation pattern. Some tests emphasize the advantages of the proposed system compared to conventional hydro-pneumatic systems. Results are based on covered areas after treatments, and they show reductions in drift losses from 45,0% in the case of conventional sprayer to 18,5% for the case of the proposed prototype. In addition, the amount of product wasted over the ground was reduced from 79.8% in conventional sprayer to 17.9% for the presented prototype. Both sprayers achieved a similar outer and inner canopy droplets distribution. In addition, the power consumption was substantially reduced for the prototype presented.