Abstract

The ultimate goal of agricultural spraying application system is to put the correct amount of pesticides, in the correct place, at the correct time to reduce the pest to a level below the economic threshold in order to improve agricultural production. A spray patternator was fabricated for the selection of a suitable nozzle to have uniform distribution of the spray liquid. Experiments were conducted on a spray patternator through two types of spray nozzles (even flat fan nozzle TPE for banding application and standard flat fan nozzle TP for broadcasting application). Spray distribution was determined and compared by using single nozzle, at a height of 0.5 m under laboratory conditions. In addition, this paper examined the effect of spray fan angles 65 and 80° and liquid pressures 200 and 300 kPa on the spray distribution. The best distribution of the spray application was obtained by using banding nozzles, whereas the broadcasting nozzle gave an uneven spray distribution with a high peak just below the nozzle centre and taper off towards the edges of the spray pattern. For the two nozzle types tested, results revealed that increasing nozzle angle and pressure reduce the value of the coefficient of variation CV%.

Key words: Static spray distribution, nozzle, patternator, coefficient of variation (CV).