Sprayers 101 is a non-profit resource describing best practices in safe, efficient and effective agricultural spraying. The site is based in Canada with content freely contributed by international authors.
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Browse our archive of expert-written articles, videos, presentations, apps, calculators, tables and ePubs, and more.
Recent Articles
Cleaning Your Sprayer
Key takeaways − Clean immediately after spraying: spray tank empty in field, add 10x sump remnant, circulate and repeat. Use proper supplies: clean…
Angled Spray Nozzles in Wheat
Key takeaways − Increase carrier volume to about 20 gpa (≈200 L/ha) to significantly improve coverage; higher volumes give diminishing returns and risk…
Safe and Effective Pesticide Application using Drones
Key takeaways − Ensure regulatory compliance, appropriate pilot certification, and adherence to pesticide label requirements for safe legal operation. Thorough mission planning, staging,…
Field Sprayers
Field sprayers are the crop protection workhouses in broad acre and row crop production. From basic operation to new technology, from nozzle selection to tank mixing, if you want to learn to be more effective and efficient with horizontal booms, it’s here.
Green-on-Green in Ontario: A Custom Operator’s Experience with See & Spray Premium
Key takeaways − Regulatory and label uncertainty complicates optical applications; labels often lack guidance for concentrated spot spraying and residue limits. Tendering, mixing,…
Recirculating Boom Options
Key takeaways − Multiple factory and retrofit recirculation systems are now available from OEMs and aftermarket suppliers for a wide range of sprayers.…
Broadcast Boom Nozzle Spacing
Key takeaways − Ensure roughly 100% pattern overlap so volume and droplet size distribution remain uniform across the boom, preventing striping and low…
Orchard and Specialty Sprayers
Specialized crops require specialized sprayers, and if you’re interested in orchards, berries, vegetables, greenhouse and nursery production, this section will have what you need. Dive in to learn about calibration, optimized settings, automation and best practices for a wide array of crop protection equipment.
Evaluating the return on investment of optical sprayers for horticulture
Key takeaways − Much higher upfront cost and annual subscription fees compared with conventional boom sprayers, often by an order of magnitude. ROI…
Airblast Nozzles – The Nozzling Process
Key takeaways − Define sprayer, travel speed, pressure, canopy and environmental constraints before choosing nozzles; adjust air settings first and verify travel speed.…
Assessing Airblast Coverage
Key takeaways − Use water sensitive papers to visualize droplets, quantify coverage, and get timely feedback with smartphone apps or portable scanners. Prepare…
Drone Sprayers
The next chapter in aerial application can be found here. Fixed wing, quadcopters, helicopters and hybrids: Follow the evolution of remotely piloted crop protection as we explore the newest research and best practices for spraying by drone.
Safe and Effective Pesticide Application using Drones
Remote Piloted Aerial Application Systems (RPAAS) or Unmanned Aircraft Spray Systems (UASS) are generally referred to as drones. They are an increasingly common…
Drone Tendering – Considerations before Buying or Building
Key takeaways − Choose trailer first; build for today and tomorrow, prioritize stability, balance and access over appearance. Match tender complexity to budget…
The Carvalho Boom and the Stages of Quadcopter Flight
Key takeaways − Quadcopter aerodynamics change at higher speeds, entering effective translational lift around 13 to 15 m/s and altering downwash and spray…
Airblast 101
Become a safer, more effective and more efficient sprayer operator.
Airblast101 began in 2010 as a classroom-based workshop for Ontario’s airblast sprayer operators. It was intended as a primer and decision-support tool for operators to become safer, more effective and more efficient.
After several iterations, the first textbook edition was made freely available in 2015 as an eBook, or at-cost in hard copy. It won the 2016 Canadian Agri-Marketing Association’s “Certificate of Merit” in the Special Publications Category. While never really intended for a global audience, well over a thousand copies of the first edition were circulated worldwide.
Contact Sprayers 101
Sprayers 101 is Dr. Jason Deveau and Dr. Tom Wolf. With more than 40 years of experience in agricultural spraying, Tom and Jason have researched and presented globally on many aspects of safe, effective and efficient applications.
