• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.60 no.3
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• pp.27-36
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• 2018

Effective pesticide applications are needed to assure the quality and economic competitiveness of fruit production and lower the risk of spray drift. Experimental studies have shown that better spray coverage and less driftability require an understanding of the transport of spray droplets within turbulent airflows in the orchard and the interaction between droplet dynamics and tree canopies. This study developed a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model to predict pesticide flows in the orchard and spray drift discharged from an air-assisted orchard sprayer. The model represented the transport of spray droplets as well as droplets captured by tree canopies, which were modeled as a conical porous model and branched tree model. Validation of the CFD model was accomplished by comparing the CFD results with field measurements. Spray depositions inside tree canopies and at off-target locations were in good agreement with the measurements. The resulting data presented that 38.6%~42.3% of the sprayed droplets were delivered to the tree canopies while 13.6%~20.1% were drifted out of the orchard, part of them reached farther than 200 m from the orchard. The study demonstrates that CFD model can be used to evaluate spray application performance and spray drift potential.

• Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.44-54
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• 2002

A brief review of current status in the field of agricultural spray and future research challenges are presented. Researches on the pesticides sprays, pollen sprays, postharvest sprays, and biological control agent sprays among the various applications of agricultural spray were selected and reviewed. In the agrochemical sprays, the techniques to increase the deposition such as electrospray and reduce the drift such as introductions of drift retardants and of mechanical means are reviewed. The introduction of mechanical means includes low drift, air-assisted, air inclusion, shield or shroud assisted and pulse flow nozzles. For flat fan nozzles, the data of breakup length and thickness of liquid sheet are essential to understand the atomization processes and develop the transport model to target In the air-assisted spray technology to reduce drift, further works on the effect of application height on drift and air assistance on droplet size should be followed. In addition, methods for quantifying the included air in the air inclusion techniques are required. The atomization characteristics of biopesticides spray are not being elucidated and the formulations of biopesticides should be taken into account the spray characteristics of existing nozzle and sprayer. A few researches on the droplet size of fallout can be found in the literature. A combined technology with electrostatic method into one of method for the reduction of drift may be an effective strategy for increasing deposition and reducing drift. Only an integrated approach involving all stakeholders such as engineers, chemists, and biologists, etc. can result in improved application of agricultural spray.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.1131-1140
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• 2019

Characteristics of fruit tree canopies are important target information for adjusting the pesticide application rate in variable rate spraying in orchards. Therefore, the target detection of the canopy characteristics is very important. In this study, a canopy volume measurement method for peach trees was presented and a variable rate spraying system based on canopy volume measurement was developed using the ultrasonic sensing, one of the most effective target detection method. Ten ultrasonic sensors and two flow control units were mounted on the orchard air-assisted sprayer. The ultrasonic sensors were used to detect the canopy diameters and the flow controls were used to modify the flow rate of the nozzles in real time. Two treatments were established: a constant application rate of $300Lha^{-1}$ was set as the control treatment for the comparison with the variable rate application at a $0.095Lm^{-3}$ canopy. The tracer deposition at different parts of peach trees and the tracer losses to the ground (between rows and within rows) were analyzed in detail under constant rate and variable rate application. The results showed that there were no significant differences between two treatments in the liquid distribution and the capability to reach the inner parts of the crop canopies.