Development of a Spray Monitoring System for a Vineyard Canopy Sprayer

摘要

A number of vineyard spray application practices are, for the most part, unmonitored and sometimes undocumented. Traceability is becoming more important every year as consumers demand safer products, this has spurred interest from regulatory agencies.Wine and juice companies now insist on knowing the quality of the inputs they use to make their products. With this in mind, researchers at Cornell University developed a flow monitoring and recording system that can be retrofitted to conventional vineyard sprayers. The flow data is recorded in a data logger and each flow reading is position and time stamped with a GPS acquired reading. These readings are converted into a database and GIS application map that shows where, when and how much spray was applied to the individual vineyard rows. This information can then be used by the Vineyard/Winery Manager in staff training, application tracking as well as traceability of pesticide use. This case study examines the justifications for developing such a system, the design process and component construction, as well as the output of the system that was field tested during several trials at Cornell University, NYSAES in Geneva, New York.