Comparison among different pesticide application methods in greenhouses in Italy: first results

With the aim of improving crop protection application techniques currently used in Italian greenhouses, with special reference to horticulture, an ad hoc research group (five operating units) has been organized with the financial support of the Italian Ministry for the University and Research (MIUR). The aim is to achieve a higher quality of products and ensure the safety of food, operators and the environment. In order to assess the quality of distribution that may be obtained with the most common crop protection distribution techniques (type of sprayer, volume applied, etc) used in some horticultural areas of Italy, a set of tests were carried out on tomatoes (in Piemonte, Sicilia and Veneto Regions) and on strawberries (in Puglia and Basilicata Regions). In tomato crops product deposits on the target resulted rather variable, ranging from 3.0 μl/cm 2 to 0.8 μ/cm 2 (largest deposits were obtained following the use of low distribution volumes) and distribution uniformity was almost always unsatisfactory. In strawberries, normalized product deposits on the target resulted on average lower than those obtained on tomatoes and distribution uniformity was seriously unsatisfactory, with CV values up to 100%