Amount Of Pesticide Use Research Articles

Factors affecting deposition in electrostatic pesticide spraying

In agricultural pesticide spraying, the major goals are to increase the pesticide deposition on target crops and to reduce off-target losses. There is often a conflict between the conditions required for achieving both. It has been confirmed that charged sprays employing smaller droplet sizes can enhance the deposition by space charge and image forces and thus reduce the amount of pesticide use by as much as 50%. For air-assisted induction-charging pesticide spraying, a high charge-to-mass ratio is usually desired for good electrostatic control of the droplet's trajectories which can increase the deposition and the “wrap-around” effect. However, spray drift may increase with droplet charge-to-mass ratio and nozzle-to-target distance if they are not properly controlled. In this paper, a numerical simulation technique is employed to model the charged droplet trajectories towards a spherical target for different droplet sizes, charge-to-mass ratios and nozzle-to-target distances. By determining the droplet trajectories and number of droplets deposited on the spherical target, the conditions required to achieve the optimum deposition may be demonstrated.

Reorganizing to facilitate the development and use of integrated pest management

Integrated pest management (IPM) is the systems approach to reducing pest damage to tolerable levels using biological controls, cultural controls, genetically resistant hosts, and, when appropriate, chemical controls, especially those which are selective and do not contribute to environmental contamination and human health problems. Basic elements of an IPM program include research and extension to produce a body of information on farming practices and pest biology, a program for monitoring pests, natural enemies and crop status throughout the season, control action thresholds, IPM tactics for pest control, and crop consultants to apply the program. IPM programs are far from being universally adopted, even when available and validated. Important constraints to IPM use have been categorized as technical, financial, educational, institutional and social issues. Many of these factors are not mutually exclusive. In many instances, the basic biology of pests, beneficial organisms, and their interaction in agricultural ecosystems is not understood. IPM researchers should be aware of the ultimate use of their work. Risk is probably the most important financial obstacle to IPM adoption by growers. Availability of funding is also a limitation of IPM research. User education is a key element in succesful implementation of complex technologies such as IPM. When comprehensive and well-organized programs have been attempted, the level of adoption has often been high and the amount of pesticide use demonstrably reduced. Such programs have helped to accelerate the development of the private pest management industry which provides information services to growers on crop production and pesticide use. Institutional constraints are extremely important, and their structures may actually hinder IPM development and use. The development and use of IPM could be enhanced through institutional reorganization. Better analysis of the impact of regulations and farm policy on pesticide use should be instituted so that such government efforts do not actually increase pesticide use. Private sector incentives for developing and marketing biological controls and biological pesticides should be made. Development of the private pest management industry should be encouraged possibly linking the issue to stronger controls on the purchase and use of pesticides. Better marketing of IPM should be both studied and encouraged.