Program provides insight to spray drift risk

摘要

A new computer program can significantly assist farmers and graziers with risk assessment for chemical application and spray-drift management. Agricultural and Environmental Management Systems' (AEMS) DriftManager is a GIS based program specific forevaluation of buffer zone requirements for cattle contamination to prevent violation of export and domestic maximum residues limits (MRLs). This has been a major concern for cotton growers and neighbouring graziers in the past. While chemical labels generally provide buffer zones for aquatic safety purposes, the buffer zones for international trade have not been defined, and the mechanisms of contamination generally not well understood. This has left growers with warnings to beware of wide-spread usageof all products including synthetic pyrethroids (SP), organophosphates (OP), many new compounds and all compounds used as ultra-low volume (ULV) applications. However, many of these compounds have vastly different characteristics to that of endosulfan,the grazing industries greatest concern.