Design and test of powerful air-assisted sprayer for high stalk crops

Youyi Miao; Xiao Chen; Yan Gong; Dejiang Liu; Jian Chen; Guo Wang; Xiao Zhang

doi:10.3389/fpls.2023.1266791

Design and test of powerful air-assisted sprayer for high stalk crops

Front Plant Sci. 2023 Nov 3:14:1266791. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2023.1266791. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Youyi Miao^#¹, Xiao Chen^#¹, Yan Gong^{1

2}, Dejiang Liu^{1

2}, Jian Chen¹, Guo Wang¹, Xiao Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ Nanjing Institute of Agricultural Mechanization, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Nanjing, China.
² Western Agricultural Research Center, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Changji, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The canopies of high stalk crops, such as maize, intersect the rows at the later stages of growth, making conventional sprayers unable to enter the field for spraying. Air-assisted sprayers are often used to improve the deposition of droplets inside the canopy. In this study, the sprayer structure, the air-assisted system, and the spraying system were designed. The air-assisted conveyor system characteristics were numerically analyzed, and the wind-field distribution was tested. The wind-field distribution results showed that the near-ground wind speed exceeded 5 m s^-1 in the sampling interval from 10 to 35 metres. The wind field covered a concentrated spatial area with a downward pressure trend, resulting in better drift resistance and penetration. Field tests for droplet distribution were conducted at three maize heights to verify the powerful air-assisted sprayer's technical performance and working quality. The test results showed that the droplet deposition and coverage decreased gradually along the range direction, and the top layer had the highest deposition and coverage across the canopy. The upper canopy of 0 to 12 metres range demonstrated a greater extent of coverage and deposition. The peak deposition area expanded from 9 to 33 metres in the lower canopy, with an average value of 3.77 μg cm^-2. The droplet coverage within the 30 to 60 metres range only amounted to 15% to 18% of the total coverage.

Keywords: gas-liquid combined spraying; high stalk crops; powerful air-assisted sprayer; sprayer; wind-field distribution.

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was financially supported by the National Key R&D Plan of China (grant number: 2022YFD2001400).