engleski

Contribution of a field sprayer testing to safer, more effective spraying in Croatia

The investigation of exploitation potential change was carried out with 180 tractor spraying machines of different equipment level in regular exploitation conditions. In spite of high exploitation potential of the spraying machines, widespread use pesticide application is not carried out properly. The reasons of spraying quality reduction are based on disturbance of spraying machine technical parameters due to many years use and insufficient knowledge of all requirements and regulations the operator should stick to during work. By pump capacity measuring it was determined that most of the investigated pumps (75 %) had exploitation useful effect from 70 to 100 %. The main reason of reduced capacity was insufficient revolution of tractor power take off usually being from 350 to 480 rpm. From 135 investigated gauges four were faulty and others still had required precision. The most common causes of insufficient liquid agitation in a spraying machine reservoir are as follows: insufficient pump flow, shutting off of hydraulic mixing flow during work and selection of nozzle size. Unprofessional nozzle choice and its use is frequent reason of unprecise application and unnecessary errors at work. Results of evenness measuring of liquid distribution indicate that almost 70 % of the investigated spraying machines had precise diagonal distribution.

Agricultural spraying machine; exploitation potential; pump; nozzle; spray distribution

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