DEPOSITION AND COVERAGE OF SOYBEAN LEAF SURFACES BY SPRAYS APPLIED USING DIFFERENT ASSISTED BOOM SPRAYER SYSTEMS

摘要

Maintaining homogeneity in the distribution of fungicidal sprays applied throughout the plant, minimizing the variation between the upper and lower third of the plant, is one of the main challenges for application technologies with regard to soybean crops. To increase the deposition and leaf coverage of sprayed compounds, especially in the middle and lower thirds of the plant, we developed and tested alternative assisted boom sprayer systems. In this study, three assisted boom sprayer systems (Vortex ? , Dropleg ? , and chain curtain) were evaluated, in addition to the conventional system, in terms of the deposition and coverage of the leaf surface they achieved in the upper, middle, and lower thirds of plants using the fluorescent tracer Helios SC 500?. The assisted boom sprayer systems allowed the sprayed mixture to be better distributed throughout the plant. With the conventional spray system (without assitance), the deposition in the upper third was approximately 26 times higher than that in the lower third, whereas with the use of the assisted boom sprayer systems, the difference in deposition between these thirds was 11 times higher. Among the evaluated systems, the Dropleg ? system presented the lowest depositional variation, which was only 5.5 times higher in the upper than in the lower third, because of the increased deposition achieved in the lower third of the plant. Leaf coverage varied from 41% to 81% in the upper third, from 24% to 43% in the middle third, and from 4% to 13% in the lower third of the plant. Using the conventional spray system, the leaf surface coverage was approximately 13 times higher in the upper third than in the lower third of the plant, whereas with the use of the assisted boom sprayer systems, especially the Dropleg ? system, this variation was reduced by 73%, and the coverage of the upper and lower thirds only differed by 3.5 times. Indeed, the Dropleg ? system reached a leaf coverage of close to 13% in the lower third of the plant. The use of assisted boom sprayer systems improved the distribution of the mixture applied throughout the plant, reducing the differences among the thirds of the plant both in the levels of deposition and coverage of the leaf surfaces. The Dropleg? system increased the deposition and leaf coverage in the lower third of the plant the most, facilitating better distribution of the mixture.