Pneumatic spray delivery reservoir

Challenge: Pressure drop in fixed sprayers for high density trellised orchards

Farmers are pursuing increased crop density in orchards using trellised trees. Existing irrigation and agrochemical applicators are not optimized for such orchards. Challenges with mobile pesticide sprayers include operators’ proximity to concentrated chemicals, excess resource use, and narrow operating conditions. Fixed plumbed sprayers known as solid set canopy delivery systems (SSCDS) provide benefits over mobile sprayers for higher density crops, but existing hydraulic spray delivery (HSD) SSCDS are limited in size due to pressure drop, require full length return lines to ensure complete draining, and do not provide even coverage.

The Technology: Reservoirs enabling efficient pneumatic spray delivery (PSD)

Pneumatic spray delivery (PSD) SSCDS reservoirs have been developed which overcome the limitations of HSD. Reservoirs are distributed along lines to control distribution while achieving even coverage. They allow for spray liquid to be completely purged between spray cycles without full length return lines and ensure even coverage.

Applications:

• Irrigation and agrochemical applicators for trellised fruit orchards.

• Fruit crops that require higher spray deposition in multiple canopy zones and on either side of leaf surfaces during the middle and late growth stages.

Advantages:

• Effective and uniform metering of the spray liquid along spray line in a tree row.

• Uniform and higher spray output from row inlet compared to HSD system.

• Better suited for large-scale SSCDS installation.

Intellectual Property:

Provisional U.S. patent application has been filed.