Effect of insecticide formulation and adjuvant combination on agricultural spray drift

Loss of crop protection products when agricultural spray applications drift has economic and ecological consequences. Modification of the spray solution through tank additives and product formulation is an important drift reduction strategy that could mitigate these effects, but has been studied les...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2019-06, Vol.7, p.e7136-e7136, Article e7136
Main Authors: Preftakes, Collin J, Schleier, 3rd, Jerome J, Kruger, Greg R, Weaver, David K, Peterson, Robert K D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjuvants
Agricultural chemicals
Agricultural industry
Agricultural Science
Agricultural spray drift
Agricultural spraying
Backup software
Containers
Design
Drift
Drift reduction technology
Environmental conditions
Environmental Contamination and Remediation
Insecticides
Pesticide formulations
Pesticides
Physical properties
Plant protection
Plywood
Powders (Particulate matter)
Statistical analysis
Technology
Wind measurement
Wind tunnels
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Summary:Loss of crop protection products when agricultural spray applications drift has economic and ecological consequences. Modification of the spray solution through tank additives and product formulation is an important drift reduction strategy that could mitigate these effects, but has been studied less than most other strategies. Therefore, an experimental field study was conducted to evaluate spray drift resulting from agricultural ground applications of an insecticide formulated as a suspension concentrate (SC) and as a wettable powder (WP), with and without two adjuvants. Droplet sizes were also measured in a wind tunnel to determine if indirect methods could be substituted for field experimentation to quantify spray drift from these technologies. Results suggest that spray drift was reduced by 37% when comparing the SC to the WP formulation. As much as 63% drift reduction was achieved by incorporating certain spray adjuvants, but this depended on the formulation/adjuvant combination. The wind tunnel data for droplet spectra showed strong agreement with field deposition trends, suggesting that droplet statistics could be used to estimate drift reduction of spray solutions. These findings can be used to develop a classification scheme for formulated products and tank additives based on their potential for reducing spray drift.
ISSN:2167-8359
2167-8359
DOI:10.7717/peerj.7136