Plant Protection Equipment Research Articles

Sampling, quantification and mathematical modeling in agricultural spray drift: A review

An effective spray of agrochemicals is inevitable for crop production for viable agriculture. Spraying inherently suffers from drift, which has always been one of the major concerns in agriculture, affecting the intent of agrochemical spraying and posing serious environmental hazards. Complete elimination of spray drift is impractical under field conditions but can be minimized using precision spraying techniques. Agricultural spray drift has several detrimental effects, such as environmental damage, polluting water bodies, human and animal health risks, chemical exposure, and economic losses, and may also lead to conflicts between neighboring farmers. Hence, the assessment of spray drift is a salient part of the design process of plant protection equipment to achieve maximum deposition in both chemical and biological pesticide applications. The different methods used to study the drift of a sprayer include test bench, wind tunnel and phase Doppler particle analyzer (PDPA) methods. In the field-level assessment, the fluorometric tracer sampling method conforming to ISO-22866:2005 was used. Plume dispersion, particle tracking and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are the major mathematical modeling approaches for spray drift simulation studies. Among various methodologies and techniques, an appropriate method for spray drift assessment should be adopted in accordance with factors such as crop parameters, mode of application, and environmental conditions.

Agricultural Environment and Intelligent Plant Protection Equipment

Intelligent plant protection equipment utilizes advanced sensor technology and data analysis algorithms to achieve real-time monitoring and precise management of crop growth status, pest and disease situations, and environmental parameters [...]

An assessment on adoption of Bordeaux paste and mixture by apple growers in Jumla district, Nepal

Apple production largely depend upon the orchard management. High hill of Nepal has great potentiality for apple production. Quality products are pre-requisite of today’s market. Quality product is only maintained through proper orchard management by adopting modern technology. This study focused on the determinants of adoption of Bordeaux paste and mixture by apple growers. A census survey was conducted to total 1500 apple growing farmers of Chandannath Municipality (1-10), Jumla in 2021 and interviewed individually with pre-tested structured interview schedules. Chandannath Municipality being the command area of Apple Super-Zone, Prime-minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP) having potential producing center was selected for study. The collected information was coded and analyzed by using STATA. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics and Probit Model of regression. Good explanatory power of probit model was revealed through likelihood ratio chi-square (LR chi2) was statistically significance at 1% level and pseudo R2 value was 0.6618. Variables such as gender, economic status of farmers, training received, experienced of farmers and availability of plant protection equipment were found statistically significant and are positively related to adoption. Others factors such as age of farmers and education status of farmers were positively correlated with adoption whereas factors such as active members of family, access to credit, farm size, family type and distance form extension services were found negatively related with the adoption of Bordeaux paste and mixture and statistically not significant. Providing subsidies to marginalized farmers, provision of training and extension service to rural farmers would increase adoption of Bordeaux paste and mixture for healthy apple production.

Features of the Development of Plant Protection Technologies in Agroecosystems in the Conditions of the Russian Market Economy

The results of research characterizing the development of plant protection technologies in agroecosystems in the conditions of the market economy of Russia in the cultivation of varieties of strategic grain and industrial crops of domestic breeding with high genetic potential are presented. The potential is realized with the use of plant protection equipment with elements of information technology and precision farming, mineral fertilizers and pesticides according to scientifically sound standards. At the same time, success is achieved in a group of agricultural enterprises and peasant (farmer) farms with sown areas of grain and industrial crops 2500 hectares, optimal for the rational use of machinery, with a high culture of agriculture, provided with material, technical and financial resources and leading profitable production. In 2016–2020. the analyzed group of highly productive varieties of cereals and industrial crops covered ~20% of the areas of agroecosystems at the current level of development of breeding, seed production and genetics, the use of mineral fertilizers and pesticides, as well as equipment with elements of information technology and precision agriculture. The prospects of expanding the group of crops in connection with the further improvement of the organization of breeding and seed production, the supply of fertilizers and pesticides based on the development of not only progressive drugs, but also created molecules of domestic active substances, in new conditions in connection with the tasks of food security of the country.

Design and Fabrication of an Agricultural Spraying Machine Using a Knapsack Sprayer

Plant protection equipment is essential in the agricultural field for increasing crop productivity and minimizing the losses caused. Specialized machinery for mechanically applying chemicals is crucial for maximizing crop yields in farming. Farmers use a wide range of pesticides to counteract the effects of insects, diseases, and fungi on their crops. The backpack sprayers do the spraying with staffing, which requires more human effort, covers a small area, is time-consuming, and has a low storage capacity. The market introduced many products to address these limitations, but they cannot work simultaneously. Solar, electrical, and chemical energy is now being used to spray pesticides, but these methods are expensive and require a trained operator. To address the issues above, a product designed with adaptable spraying equipment is proposed to benefit medium-and small-scale farmers. This study aims to look at the problem of manual backpack sprayers and reduce backpack and foot spraying, eliminate human efforts, and decrease labor costs by advancing the spraying method and a constant flow of droplets. Finally, we have investigated the effects of urging gardeners and farmers to spray their plants with liquids such as pesticides, herbicides, and water. The proposed design can help gardeners in terms of comfort during spraying, reducing energy used to pump tanks, and effectively utilizing spraying time. IUBAT Review—A Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 6 (1): 88-99

ASFL-YOLOX: an adaptive spatial feature fusion and lightweight detection method for insect pests of the Papilionidae family.

Insect pests from the family Papilionidae (IPPs) are a seasonal threat to citrus orchards, causing damage to young leaves, affecting canopy formation and fruiting. Existing pest detection models used by orchard plant protection equipment lack a balance between inference speed and accuracy. To address this issue, we propose an adaptive spatial feature fusion and lightweight detection model for IPPs, called ASFL-YOLOX. Our model includes several optimizations, such as the use of the Tanh-Softplus activation function, integration of the efficient channel attention mechanism, adoption of the adaptive spatial feature fusion module, and implementation of the soft Dlou non-maximum suppression algorithm. We also propose a structured pruning curation technique to eliminate unnecessary connections and network parameters. Experimental results demonstrate that ASFL-YOLOX outperforms previous models in terms of inference speed and accuracy. Our model shows an increase in inference speed by 29 FPS compared to YOLOv7-x, a higher mAP of approximately 10% than YOLOv7-tiny, and a faster inference frame rate on embedded platforms compared to SSD300 and Faster R-CNN. We compressed the model parameters of ASFL-YOLOX by 88.97%, reducing the number of floating point operations per second from 141.90G to 30.87G while achieving an mAP higher than 95%. Our model can accurately and quickly detect fruit tree pest stress in unstructured orchards and is suitable for transplantation to embedded systems. This can provide technical support for pest identification and localization systems for orchard plant protection equipment.

Research and experiment of electrostatic spraying system for agricultural plant protection unmanned vehicle

IntroductionThe traditional spraying system is not suitable for agricultural plant protection in small plots due to its disadvantages of weak droplet refining ability, small spraying area, large pesticide consumption, and high manual spraying cost. At present, spraying pesticide is the main way to resist crop diseases and insect pests. The utilization rate of pesticide is only 38.8% in China, which leads to serious waste and serious environmental pollution. It is necessary to develop advanced plant protection equipment and pesticide application technology to solve the problem. The combination of agricultural plant protection vehicle and electrostatic spray technology may solve the problems of spraying efficiency, droplet adsorption rate and evenness. It is of great significance to improve the efficiency of plant protection and pesticide utilization.MethodsIn this paper, the principle of droplet charging is described, an electrostatic spraying system is designed and tested, and the effects of charging voltage and pump pressure on the droplet charge ratio and droplet size are analyzed.Results and discussionThis study has shown that electrostatic spraying systems are suitable for agricultural plant protection unmanned vehicles.

A Method to Study the Influence of the Pesticide Load on the Detailed Distribution Law of Downwash for Multi-Rotor UAV

Multi-rotor plant protection Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have suitable terrain adaptability and efficient ultra-low altitude spraying capacity, which is a significant development direction in efficient plant protection equipment. The interaction mechanisms of the wind field, droplet, and crop are unclear, and have become the bottleneck factor restricting the improvement of the deposition quality. This paper suggests a method to study the influence of the pesticide load on the detailed distribution law of downwash for a six-rotor UAV. Based on a hexahedral structured mesh, a 3D numerical calculation model was established. Analysis showed that the relative errors between the simulated and measured velocities in the z-axis were less than 11% when the downwash air flow was stable. Numerical simulations were carried out for downwash in hover under 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 kg loads. The effect of load on the airflow was evident, and the greater the load was, the higher the wind speed of downwash would be. Then, the influence of wing interference on the distribution of airflow would be more pronounced. Furthermore, under the rotation of the rotor and the extrusion of external atmospheric pressure, the “trumpet” phenomenon appeared in the downwash airflow area. As an extension, the phenomenon of the “shrinkage–expansion” was shown in the longitudinal section under heavy load, while the phenomenon of “shrinkage–expansion–shrinkage” was present under light load. After that, based on the detailed analysis of the downwash wind field, the spray height of this multi-rotor UAV was suggested to be 2.5 m or higher, and the nozzle was recommended to be mounted directly under the rotor and to have the same rotation direction as the rotor. The research in this paper lays a solid foundation for the proposal of the three-zone overlapping matching theory of wind field, droplet settlement, and canopy shaking.

Solar-Powered Plant Protection Equipment: Perspective and Prospects

The major challenges in sustainable and profitable agriculture are developing high-yielding crop varieties and reducing crop losses. Presently, there are significant crop losses due to weed/bird/insect/animal attacks. Among the various renewable energy sources, solar energy is utilized for different agricultural operations, especially in plant protection applications. Solar photovoltaic (PV) devices present a positive approach to sustainable crop production by reducing crop loss in various ways. This might result in the extensive use of PV devices in the near future. PV-based plant protection equipment/devices are primarily utilized in protecting crops from birds, weeds, or insects. Solar-powered plant protection equipment such as light traps, bird scarers, sprayers, weeders, and fencing are gaining interest due to their lower operational costs, simple design, no fuel requirements, and zero carbon emissions. Most of these PV devices require 12 V rechargeable batteries with different currents to meet the load, which varies from 2 to 1500 W. This paper briefly discusses the applications of solar-powered plant protection devices in sustainable agriculture and their future prospects.

Analysis on outsourcing service behavior of rice pest and disease control based on Heckman selection model-A case study of ten counties in Fujian Province.

Under the background of relatively slow agricultural labor transfer and land circulation, agricultural production outsourcing has become the main means of agricultural modernization. In order to provide a beneficial perspective for appropriately expanding the scale of rice control outsourcing services, we investigated the situation of rice control outsourcing in ten counties of Fujian Province, and analyzed the factors influencing rice farmers' decision-making and control degree by using Heckman model. First of all, the main factors affecting farmers' participation in outsourcing are agricultural labor force, whether family members are cooperative members, planting area, proportion of grain income, degree of organization of outsourcing team, region and so on. Secondly, agricultural labor force, cooperative members, planting area, part-time behavior, mechanical efficiency of prevention and control organization, and region are the main factors affecting the scale of control outsourcing. Thirdly, from a regional perspective, the rice farmers in northern and Western Fujian are more dependent on outsourcing services consumption compared with the rice farmers in Southern Fujian. These results have a clear impact on policymakers, indicating that policy and measures should encourage the prevention and control of the nature of cooperation, and improve the advanced nature of outsourcing facilities of plant protection equipment, thereby effectively improving the professional level of rice pest and disease control.

VEGETABLE PRODUCTION IN UKRAINE: CONDITION, PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRY

The relevance of scientific and analytical research is based on the fact that the study of the condition, problems and prospects of domestic vegetable growing can not be considered complete, there are few studied issues of vegetable growing in a market environment, modern forms of agro-industrial integration and efficiency, crisis management, etc. The article considers the condition of the main problem - food supply of the population of Ukraine with food of own production. It is emphasized that the solution of this problem depends on the interaction of many factors that significantly affect the functioning of the national agri-food market. The market of vegetable products is designed to ensure a reliable supply of vegetables to the population by creating the necessary conditions for stable development of economic entities. The main factors influencing the change in the volume of vegetable production taking into account the current situation in the vegetable market in Ukraine are studied. The elements of the strategy of development of the vegetable industry of agriculture of Ukraine are determined. It is established that the problem of this industry is that domestic vegetable growing is highly dependent on imports. Ukraine continues to import a significant percentage of seeds, plant protection products, machinery and equipment, and spare parts from abroad. Therefore, the domestic producer chooses what allows him to remain competitive. This affects both the cost of production of domestic vegetables and prices for consumers of vegetable products. It is emphasized that the high economic and social significance of vegetable production has led to the accelerated development of vegetable growing around the world. The transformation of vegetable growing into one of the main or main branches of agriculture, based on a developed material and technical base, the active use of the achievements of science and technology, is the subject of special concern of the condition.

СОВРЕМЕННОЕ СОСТОЯНИЕ СРЕДСТВ МЕХАНИЗАЦИИ ХИМИЧЕСКОЙ ЗАЩИТЫ РАСТЕНИЙ В РОССИИ

Mechanized processes of plant protection from pests, diseases and weeds are one of the main components of intensive technologies used for the cultivation of agricultural crops. The analysis shows that agricultural organizations are currently equipped with mechanization means of chemical plant protection by 8.7% of the scientifi cally grounded standard, recommended for our country. Therefore, the market for equipment for chemical plant protection in Russia is currently very attractive for product promotion and production development. At present, Russian enterprises manufacture sprayers, but the designing and manufacturing of new equipment for plant protection in most cases are carried out without taking into account the modern achievements of domestic and foreign science, international standards, technological and environmental requirements. Using the example of the European Union countries, the authors point out the need to improve Russian legislation in the fi eld of plant protection and control of the technical ondition of sprayers, as well as to develop regulatory documents and approve regulations that provide for constructive, technological and environmental requirements for plant protection equipment. As further development of the production of mechanization means of plant protection is observed, the priority should be the introduction and improvement of information systems and automation of technological processes and individual systems using modern domestic and foreign scientifi c solutions aimed at improving the quality of plant protection and reducing the impact of negative factors on the environment.

An experimental investigation of working with ordinary and electromagnetic nozzles

The great variety of plant protection equipment, the shape, length and slope of the cultivated area, the type of sprayers used and the professional skills of the operator require an individual approach to each sprayer and cultivated area. The aim of this study was to compare the area of the double-treated sections when working with ordinary and electromagnetic nozzles at different slopes of the treated area. For the analysis, actual field coverage data were used when working with the Amazone self-propelled sprayer - Pantera 4502, with a boom width of 24 m, half of which is equipped with electromagnetic nozzles and the other half - with ordinary nozzles. It was found that when working with ordinary nozzles, the area of overlap increases with increasing degree of overlap and the angle of inclination of the section boundary. The area of overlap when using ordinary nozzles is almost 3 times larger than when using electromagnetic at 100% overlap of the treated areas. Regression models, surfaces and lines were obtained, with the help of which the area of overlap in each section of the treated field can be determined.

Optimization Design of Online Mixing Apparatus and Mixing Performance Experiment for Crop Protection Equipment

At present, the premixing method is used in the operation of plant protection machines. Premixing and dispensing often lead to uneven proportioning and mixing, thereby reducing the utilization rate of pesticides. There is a great potential safety hazard. In order to improve the effective utilization rate of pesticides in spray operations, an online hybrid system is designed. Based on the theory of computational fluid dynamics, the static mixer model with built-in spoiler was established, and the numerical analysis was carried out by using FLUENT software. The simulation results were analyzed by evaluating the coefficient of variation of mixing uniformity and consistency. Under pressure, the coefficient of variation of pesticide solution mixing was 3.2%. Then carmine solution was used to replace pesticide, and UV spectrophotometry was used to test. The results show that the maximum relative error of mixing stability at the nozzle of the mixing system is 4.301% and the maximum coefficient of variation of pesticide solution is 3.989% under pressurized condition. The experimental coefficient of variation is basically consistent with the simulation results. Practice has proved that the designed online hybrid system has good mixing effect and can be used for the later stage variable spray test of plant protection equipment.

Protected floriculture for diversification and livelihood security

Floriculture has become a part of modern lifestyle and is being utilized in floral decorations, floral craft, interior-scaping and commercial premises. Floriculture (includes cut flowers, loose flowers, bedding plants, potted plants, hedges, value added products etc.) has made appreciable growth in the last three decades as commercial venture. Now the use of floricultural produce is no longer confined to religious purposes alone. Lifestyle floriculture has now emerged as business and activities involving production of ornamental plants, cut flowers, turf, foliage and delivers a range of services. There is transformation in business to landscape design, contracting and maintenance services, whole sale and retail sales, development of parks and leisure places, gardens, greenhouses including various greenhouse inputs besides providing technical advices. Development of floriculture has provided not only opportunities for floriculture farming but also for improving livelihood compared to other crops. The development in this sector also provides very good business opportunities in other allied sectors like specialized transport services and production of supply of allied products, nursery bags, pots, potting media, tools, plant protection and other equipments etc. This has happened due to the vision of policy planners who were involved with various stakeholders in floriculture sector and provided the required direction that has resulted in appropriate growth in floriculture.

Economic constraints faced by the mango growers

The major economic constraints faced by the mango growers were inadequate marketing channel, exploitation by commission agents, high fluctuation in the market price during season, high wages of labours, high cost of establishment of mango orchards, high cost of plant protection chemicals and equipments, lack of adequate economic policies, distant market for mango and high cost of transportation, high cost of packing material, chance of theft, lack of contract farming for mango, lack of co-operative marketing network and lack of export promotional strategies.

Resource management for apple scab and sanjose scale control of apple in Kashmir Valley of J&K State

The study on resource management for apple scab and sanjose scale of apple in Kashmir Valley of J&K State was conducted purposively in Sopore and Patten tehsils of Baramulla district covering 4 villages with a sample size of 200 apple growers selected through random sampling method. The study revealed that all the apple growers (100%) from rainfed and irrigated areas were applying the resource management practices such as checking the expiry of chemical before purchase, undertake precautions while using chemicals and sprayers, purchaseeconomical and convenient packing’s of plant protection chemicals, check the working condition of the sprayers on regular basis, undertaking care and maintenance of sprayers regularly and were able to repair the minor defects of sprayers by self followed by (66%) apple growers who had decided to planed plant protection schedule in advance. The data further showed that hired labour for disease and pest management of apple were available easily and locally, and as per requirement (100%). As regards prevailing wage rates (88%) farmers from rainfed and (91%) from irrigated area reported that these were reasonable. Plant protection chemicals needed for control of disease and pest of apple were found adopted by cent per cent farmers. The plant protection chemicals were also available in suitable packings (97%) and before the expiry date (96%). The critical evaluation of the plant protection chemicals and equipments before their use with regard to their quality being taken care by all the apple growers would help in eradication of the disease from the region.

SCIENTIFIC SUPPORT OF VEGETABLE, MELON, AND POTATO GROWING IN RUSSIA

The summary report of research investigations of the institutes of the Russian Academy of Agricultural Science, the Russian Academy of Science, and the Institutions of Higher Education in 2013 on the project «Development of new varieties and high-precision sustainable zonal technologies of vegetable and cucurbits crops growing with the use of new varieties and hybrids, high'quality seeds, advanced approaches of agro-techniques, plant protection, and mechanical equipments» is represented.

THE PROSPECT OF EUROPEAN HARMONISATION - PLANT PROTECTION EQUIPMENT UNDER TEST

The voluntary testing of plant protection equipment by the Federal Biological Research Centre for Agriculture and Forestry covers not only the technical examination but also extended field tests. An agreement amongst national testing stations in the European Network for Testing of Agricultural Machinery (ENTAM) is an important basis for joint tests in the future. Until recently, obligate testing of plant protection equipment was only established in Germany. Standardisation at European and international level has been strongly intensified over the last few years. Therefore a multitude of EU-/ISO-standards are now available. The paper describes the ways of testing plant protection equipment in Germany in connection with the latest efforts to harmonise the relevant regulations at EU level.

Performance of Electronic Controls for Field Sprayers

Control systems fitted to agricultural crop sprayers should guarantee accurate control of delivered dose rates in order to achieve optimum use of pesticides. Their operating characteristics should maintain the required application rate even when the working speed is changed or individual sections are switched on or off. Precision farming approaches are likely to require dose rates to be varied to match the pesticide requirements of different parts of a field and this will require control systems that have a rapid response to changing requirements. A special laboratory test stand is described which is used to test the operational characteristics of such control systems. Ten commercial control systems were tested to see how they performed in relation to the German legal requirements for plant-protection equipment. The detailed requirements for the control systems demand a quick and accurate response on dynamic changes and a good dosing accuracy in the steady state. All the tested control systems fulfil the legal requirements.