Qualitative Performance of a Green Energy-Operated Electrostatic Sprayer for Small Land Holdings
摘要
Applying chemicals to leaf surfaces for plant protection through electrostatic spraying is a highly promising method to minimize off-target drift and enhance spray coverage. To promote clean technology by eliminating fossil fuel use and reducing emissions, a green energy-operated self-propelled electrostatic sprayer was developed. In the present study, the quality of spray produced by the developed electrostatic sprayer, in terms of different spray characteristics, was analysed and compared with that of uncharged spraying at different charging modes, locations on groundnut crop leaves, and canopy heights. The laboratory study using spray patternator with charged spraying showed an overall increase in the spray angle and swath by 5.59–24.74%, and 9.52–31.8%, respectively, compared to uncharged spraying at the spraying pressures from 2.5 to 3.5 kg cm–2. In addition, field tests of the developed sprayer were carried at a forward speed of 1.2 km h−1 in order to determine spray performance parameters such as, volume median diameter (VMD), number median diameter (NMD), uniformity coefficient (UC), area covered by droplets, and relative span factor (RSF). As compared to uncharged spraying, charged spray resulted in the decrease of VMD, NMD, UC, and RSF by 3.31% to 7.75%, 4.4% to 13.64%, 5.58% to 15%, and 3.4% to 9.72%, whereas the droplet density and area covered were increased by 15.05–54.71%, and 29.41–140%, respectively. From the results obtained, it was concluded that electrostatic spraying outperformed the uncharged spraying with a better droplet size and distribution.