Spraying involves taking care, preparing, and keeping the quality of the crop and plants during the whole production cycle to prevent and control diseases, pests, and weeds.
Spraying allows the farmers to produce quality grains and high yields. Nowadays, it would not be possible without applying agricultural chemicals. By means of spraying, in addition to chemicals, you can apply fertilizer so they are absorbed via foliar. Therefore, it provides the proper nutrients for plants when they need them the most.
What is spraying anyway? Spraying involves spraying tiny particles of chemical solution. Liquid spraying consists of generating very fine droplets for higher coverage on the desired target to get the best quality possible. When it comes to management, choose the correct spray nozzle, chemical solution amount, and apply at the right time to avoid losses.
Sprayers are the most popular agricultural machines used in crops. For soybeans, for example, a desiccation application is carried out in the pre-planting area, the so-called manual weeding, which is carried out before the soybean plant has a canopy. In addition, the sprayer travels on the crop field four to six times during the crop cycle to control and prevent fungus and insects. Sometimes, a desiccation application is performed to make the crop plants more uniform for harvest.
On the other hand, the cotton crop requires the sprayer application more often, an average of 20 times from the beginning to the end of the crop cycle, plus the other times the sprayer has to be used on the crop during the rest of the year. To ensure maximum efficiency when spraying, avoid the excessive use of products, and provide the farmers with savings. The Stara sprayer line is equipped with the Nozzle-by-Nozzle Control System, Twin Row Spraying System, and Continuous Recirculating System.
The Nozzle-by-Nozzle Control System automatically shuts off the spray nozzle when the controller identifies an area where the chemical has already been applied. As a result, it prevents application overlap, avoids product waste, and ensures up to 5% savings on chemicals.
The Twin Row Spraying System enables the operator to keep the standard droplet size, applied volume, and system pressure. The sprayers with this technology feature twin rows of spray nozzles. Spray nozzles with low flow rates are assembled on the first row, and spray nozzles with high flow rates are mounted on the second row. As a result, the first row operates by itself and at lower speeds. When sprayer speeds are higher, and the pressure rises to the setup limit, the first row shuts off and alternates with the second row of spray nozzles. If the speeds become higher, it is possible to operate with two rows at the same time. Consequently, the sprayer speeds can vary, and the operating performance is improved without changing the spraying standard and avoiding the wrong metering.
The Continuous Recirculating System is another ally for application quality. The chemical products, especially when mixed, may generate chemical solution incompatibility, or even when the chemical solution is not used, the products inside the tank segregate. The system starts working when the spraying pump is activated. The continuous circulation of the chemical solution starts in the chemical solution tank. Then, it runs through the whole spray boom circuit and returns to the chemical solution tank without stopping. It creates product homogeneity to make sure of the same concentration from the beginning to the end of applications.
One of the most important steps for quality application is choosing the correct spray nozzles. Each spray nozzle has a different pattern, and it causes different droplet sizes. Regarding the hormonal herbicide application, it is required by law that the spray nozzles with air induction create more coarse droplets to prevent product drift, which jeopardizes the crop plants. For fungicides, the ideal is to get more cover of droplets on the leaves. For this reason, it is recommended to use a spray nozzle that provides droplets with finer sizes. As a result, it is up to the responsible professional to recommend the ideal spray nozzle for each type of application.
Before the spraying process, the machine needs to be properly adjusted and calibrated for efficient operation. An incorrect calibration or not calibrating at all may cause numerous issues, such as over-metering applications, poor application, phytotoxicity on plant growth, weed resistance, and especially, poor efficiency.
After all these steps are done, you start a safer, reliable, and practical application. But always look up to the sky and check the wind speed since the weather conditions must be the proper ones for product application to then get higher efficiency and harvest positive results at the end of the harvest.
Thomas Liska – Stara Product Marketing Coordinator
Lucas Henrique Luersen – Stara Product Marketing Analyst
