5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Crop Spraying

Crop spraying has been a staple of agriculture for over 4,500 years. Even with such a storied history, however, there are quite a few elements of crop spraying that people don’t know.

So what goes under the radar when it comes to crop spraying? What should people know about dusting crops that are so important?

That’s what we’re here to look at today. Read on to find out more about 5 essential facts about crop spraying.

1. Pressure Determines Droplet Size

When you’re spraying your crops, the pressure you choose determines how big the individual droplets are. If you increase pressure, for example, you get smaller droplets and vice versa.

That means when you use lower pressure, the droplets will be bigger and they won’t drift. This is key if you don’t want to get pesticides in specific areas.

2. Droplets Take Time to Land

Just because you’re spraying crops with tiny droplets, it doesn’t mean that they’ll land immediately. In other words, tiny droplets can take time to hit the ground and are often affected by wind or other air-related factors.

Tiny droplets especially are likely going to take time to hit the ground. This can be accounted for with higher pressure.

3. The Smaller the Drop, the Quicker It Dries

Though this might not sound surprising, people tend to forget how fast small spay droplets can evaporate. Depending on the climate of your field, a droplet about 150 microns in size takes just a few seconds to dry out.

Bigger droplets can take up to three minutes, meaning they’ll reach their intended target before water loss occurs. Be aware of how fast your spray will dry if you don’t want any chemical drift to occur.

4. Weather Impacts Sprays

Speaking of drift, spraying your crops in or close to inclement weather can greatly affect the outcome. Strong winds can cause chemicals to drift away from the intended areas.

Warmer climates can also affect how fast your sprays dry up. This is important to note if you want to spray your crops as efficiently as possible.

5. Spray Coverage And Efficacy Are Crucial

We’ve talked about droplet size and how that changes things like the speed at which the spray travels. If you want a specific area of spray coverage, you might want to consider your spray droplet size more.

For example, if you want to hit a specific patch, you’ll have to decrease droplet size to have more drops per square inch. Also, understand that smaller droplets might not reach the lower levels of the plant itself.

If you want a crop sprayer that provides versatile functions and plenty of gallon space for your pesticides, New Holland sprayers are the way to go. They’re incredibly productive and have excellent crop clearance.

Understanding Crop Spraying

While crop spraying remains a staple of modern agriculture, there are plenty of elements to the practice that people just don’t know about. Use this article to help you understand the core elements of crop spraying.

For more informative articles on agriculture and other topics, check out the rest of our site!