AN APPARATUS FOR TESTING THE PERFORMANCE OF SPRAYERS UNDER EGYPTIAN CONDITIONS

Abstract

Utilization of herbicides, insecticides, and fungicides is important in the field of agricultural production and agronomic operations. The data published by FAO 1987 indicated that the losses of annual crop production due to pests reach 33.8%. Diseases cause 11.8% insects cause about 12.3% of these. And about 9.7% is due to weeds (El-Gendy, 1994).

Pest control by spraying and dusting is one of the main bases for the economical structure of agriculture. Pesticides which were developed to be applied in the liquid formulation of pesticides from at low pressures and volumes proved to be effective when properly applied for pest. Precise of agricultural chemicals is essential to achieve proper pest control with minimum crop damage and environmental pollution. Pesticide application rates must be varied according to the type of pest present, the pesticide used, the soil organic matter content, the travel speed of the sprayer and other factors.

Proper application of liquid pesticides depends, to a large extent upon the following items:

•The uniformity of application.

•Droplet size.

•Proper coverage of plant surface.

These factors were always of prime importance when designing and developing any of the spraying equipment.

These are different types of spraying devices (atomizers) that can be used in agriculture applications. The most commonly used sprayers are, namely:

*Manually operated sprayer.

*Power operated sprayer.

*Traveling type sprayer.

In general, nozzles can be successfully used to atomizer most common types of liquids. However, nozzles have certain limitations when used to atomize certain materials such as high viscosity liquids, some emulsions and mixtures. These liquids can be atomized by rotary atomizers.

According, great amount of spraying liquids is lost under the effect of weather conditions and undesired technique, and sequence a vital work must be done to repeat spraying operation to cover unsprayed plant portions. So it will be labors task and requires great expenses in both money and energy.