DEVELOPMENT OF A DROP-PIPE TYPE UNIVERSITY BOOM SPRAYER

A drop-pipe tractor mounted university boom sprayer has been developed and tested for mortality rate of attacking sucking insects which cause the severe damage to cotton crop and reduce the yield. This sprayer has upper and lower two booms to spray the cotton crop both from above and below the leaves. The lower boom has drop-pipes on the lower ends of which are mounted nozzles, which have the ability to be rotated and adjusted in 360o both in horizontal and vertical planes. Drop-pipes have also the facility to be adjusted at any angle from 00-900 with respect to vertical position to avoid crop damage when there is more vegetative growth at later stages of crop growth of growing season. The nozzles can be adjusted at any angle to directly hit the sucking insects lying on the undersurfaces of leaves. The upper auxiliary boom has been designed to spray from top to bottom as in the conventional boom sprayer. The performance of newly developed drop-pipe boom sprayer was found best at 4-km/h field speed 400 kPa pressure fluid pressure, and 0o-anozzle angle with respect to boom axis than those at other speeds, pressures, and nozzle angles