Electrostatic Pesticide Spraying

Abstract

Conventional hydrodynamic nozzle produces rather large size of droplets (200~400um) in order to get reasonable inertia force from a nozzle. Since the insects live on the back of leaves and stems the crop itself must be completely covered by the excess amount of pesticide. The residual pesticide drips down to ground causing the contamination of soil and finally goes into underground water. Electrostatic pesticide spraying might be one of the most promising method to solve the problem described above. The electrostatic force could act as a driving force for disintegration of liquid and produces uniform fine droplets. The finer charged droplets are driven by electrostatic force to plant, that is several 10 times greater than gravitational force. These charged droplets are transported toward the plant by following the electrostatic field lines even to the backside of leaves. Some field tests indicated that half rate of treatment with electrostatic method could produce equivalent effect in insect and disease control of plant. Thus, over spraying to plant could be avoided with electrostatic spraying.