Project Number: 3607-21620-008-17
Project Type: Specific Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Sep 26, 2008
End Date: Jul 15, 2009

Objective:
Achieve efficient and effective pesticide spray applications for nursery, horticulture, orchard and field crops.

Approach:
Develop innovative technologies to reduce pesticide use and worker hazards, insure food safety and crop quality, and promote competitiveness and production efficiency. Minimize spray drift, determine the effects of physical properties of spray mixtures, drift control agents, and meteorological conditions on spray performances. Determine dynamic characteristics of droplet deposition and penetration into floral, greenhouse and field crops. Develop inline injection systems for agricultural sprayers to eliminate left-over tank mixtures with minimum lag time and uniform spray mixture. Investigate new spray methods including fluid dynamic simulation to improve spray performance and reduce pesticide use and drift potential in nursery and horticultural crops.