Use of ultrasound anemometers to study the influence of air currents generated by a sprayer with an electronic control airflow system on foliar coverage. Effect of droplet size

Air assistance and droplet’s characteristics influence on the pesticide deposit and its distribution over the intended target during the spray application process. The present research work is focused on the characterization of the leaf coverage and the overall spray distribution within the whole canopy by combining different settings of air assistance with different nozzles, generating different droplet’s sizes. A new designed air-assisted orchard sprayer was tested, presenting a wireless remote-regulation system to control the airflow rate from the fan by adjusting the blade pitch. In this way, five airflow rates were obtained by combining the gearbox position and the blade pitch. For each one of these five air settings, three droplet sizes (F-Fine, M-Medium, and C-Coarse) were combined and evaluated over a set of artificial apple trees.This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 773718 (OPTimised Integrated pest Management for precise detection and control of plant diseases in perennial crops and open-field vegetables, www.optima-h2020.eu). Bernat Salas received funding for his Ph.D. development from Agència de Gestió D'Ajuts Universitaris I de Recerca (AGAUR) (file N° FI_B 01193)Postprint (updated version