Development of a Test Plan to Verify Pesticide Drift Reduction Technologies

Abstract

Considerable research has taken place in recent years to determine the sources,pathways, and exposure to the environment from airborne pesticide spray, which can often drift offtargetat the time of spray application. However, most of the research has focused on conventionaltechnologies. A number of underutilized commercial technologies exist for managing drift; however,in many cases little information exists on their effectiveness in reducing spray drift levels in U. S.agriculture. Verification of the effectiveness of pesticide spray drift reduction technologies is a focusof the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrators Environmental TechnologyCouncil. EPAs National Risk Management Research Laboratory has partnered with EPAs Office ofPesticide Programs, EPA Regions, and others to complete this project under the Environmental andSustainable Technologies Evaluation (ESTE) Program. The ESTE program is part of EPAsEnvironmental Technology Verification Program (ETV), which was created in 1995 to facilitate thecommercialization of innovative or improved environmental technologies through performanceverification and dissemination of information. In 2005, ETV established the ESTE program to focusthese verifications specifically on agency needs. Consistent with other ESTE efforts, a technicalpanel of knowledgeable and interested stakeholders representing vendors, users, and regulators ofpesticides as well as research scientists, educators, and others related to spray applicationtechnology and drift management are preparing a verification test plan to be used to evaluate theperformance of technologies that reduce pesticide spray drift. This test plan will describe the testingapproach used to generate high-quality, peer-reviewed data for several drift reducing technologies,including test design and quality assurance aspects.