Why Farmers Spray
Conventional and Organic crops are under constant pest and disease pressure which reduce crop production and overall plant health. The products used to treat these issues are only as effective as the coverage the sprayer used can provide. Lack of good spray coverage leads to lower crop yields, excess cost, environmental waste, and ultimately smaller profits. The need to improve spray coverage has increased substantially as all farming operations implement sustainable growing practices due to environmental issues with traditional farming practices and the need to increase the effectiveness of organic products.
Science Behind Airtec
Airtec Air Sprayers in the simplest form look to improve spray coverage by eliminating the waste created by high pressure boom sprayers and traditional air blast sprayers. Farmers have adapted conventional high pressure and Air Blast sprayers to improve coverage by using unique tip calibrations and setups to achieve an effective amount of spray coverage for their given crop. However, these sprayers in turn end up producing a significant and costly amount of spray waste to achieve effective levels of coverage. This waste includes excess upward spray drift, material runoff, lost time, and overall spray efficiency.
Airtec Air Sprayers eliminate waste in several ways depending on the crop being applied. Airtec uses air pressure as the spray droplet carrier rather than water pressure. Airtec Air Sprayers generate high wind speed through a specialized fan design allowing Airtec’s sprayers to build equal static air pressure at each individual Airtec Air Nozzle. The spray material is then injected in the Air Nozzle with a standard spray tip sized for the intended spray material volume. This process atomizes the spray further creating a powerful air stream of spray droplets that are then targeted directly at the plant canopy for a given crop. This process creates leaf movement and turbulence in the plant canopy allowing for the spray droplets to get inside the plant where pest and disease thrive. When using an Airtec Sprayer, 100 gallons per acre of spray material means 100 gallons per acre on the crop not just out of the spray tank. The volume of spray is determined by how much product the grower wants on the plant with a tip calibrated for low, medium, or high volumes of spray depending on what is needed for the grower to achieve pest and disease control.
What makes Airtec a Sustainable Sprayer?
The elimination of spray waste by the utilization of Airtec’s Air Sprayer allows farmers to use the amount of chemicals and organic products needed to achieve control. Airtec’s spraying system uses static air pressure with the spray injected into the air stream to carry the spray to the target and penetrate the plant canopy rather than water pressure. Because we replace water pressure with air pressure, farmers are no longer forced to use high volumes of water to simply act as the carrier of spray. This leads to a reduction in water usage, fuel savings, equipment savings, chemicals, and labor.
The Airtec Air Sprayer helps your farm become more sustainable environmentally, operationally, and financially through more precision spraying leading to superior coverage and reduced drift. The below ways are how your spray program can become more sustainable farm by implementing an Airtec Sprayer:
- Sustainable Coverage – The accurate and targeted application of spray material with pressurized air significantly reduces spray waste created by drift allowing for the actual targeted rate of material to be on the tree, plant, or bush. The air creates increased turbulence in the plant canopy leading to more droplets inside the plant not just on the outside.
- Sustainable Environmentally – Reduced drift and runoff improve the environment and water systems as only the amount of chemical and product needed to do the job is applied.
- Sustainable Economically – By eliminating waste and improving coverage growers will get better results and higher yields. They will also reduce rates of water and chemicals, be able to spray when needed saving downtime, and reduce labor cost by spraying more efficiently.
- Sustainable Farming – Using a sustainable sprayer provides synergies with other sustainable growing practices farmers currently implement for both organic and conventional spraying.
Return on Investment
Farmers suffer losses in production and profits as a result of several pest and disease issues. Improving spray coverage and efficacy through the elimination of waste is the single biggest cost savings opportunity for farmers today in both organic and conventional farming.
Airtec’s improvement in spray coverage and elimination of spray waste leads to a return on investment for the grower in several ways including reduced material/chemical waste, reduced labor cost, and improved pest and disease control leading to higher yields. Airtec Sprayers does not try to save grower’s money in chemical savings alone by simply spraying at lower volumes of water. In fact, Airtec wants growers to spray the volume of spray needed for the product being applied to achieve its purpose. Additionally, because Airtec targets the plant canopy with precision using pressurized air farmers are able to spray in higher environmental winds so they can spray on schedule preventing pest and disease issues before they start.
To calculate the ROI Associated with using an Airtec Sprayer, growers should first determine their current per acre spray cost including chemicals, labor, and equipment along with how many spray applications they apply each year to determine what their current spending is in their spray program. Additionally, growers need to look at more subjective factors that lead to additional ROI such as better disease and pest control which in turn will lead to better plant health and higher crop yields.
Contact Airtec today to see how we can reduce your spray related cost and improve spray results.
