NATIONWIDE demonstrations comparing air boom spraying with conventional systems have spiked grower interest in the latest technology.
The Miller Spray Air nozzle system became available on the manufacturer’s popular Nitro, front-mounted self-propelled sprayers this spring - and has been quickly adopted by various farmers.
In recent months, hundreds of growers and agronomists Australia-wide have viewed the system in action, demonstrated at field days by Miller dealers in conjunction with national distributor, McIntosh Distribution.
The Miller system allows for more targeted chemical application through air-assist and air-atomisation technology, forming one powerful spray nozzle system.Farmers have fingertip control of the droplet size and speed of the air delivery for any spraying application.
Jon Bent, of McIntosh Distribution, said the field day demonstrations allowed farmers the opportunity to test how the Miller Spray Air system worked in their conditions.
“Most growers are immediately familiar with the benefits of added air penetration in post-emergent and late canopy applications, but, by using water sensitive paper in a variety of field conditions, they could see all-year-round benefits with the system,’’ Mr Bent said.Conventional nozzles were used as the comparison in the demonstrations.
The challenge put forward to the Miller Spray Air system varied, but Mr Bent said many people voiced concern about spray drift. He said regardless of the crops grown, all growers were extremely aware of drift and drift control, which, when coupled with a desire to achieve effective coverage, had led to the continued increase in water carrier volumes.
“Big droplets don’t drift, but there is a lot less of them to physically hit the target, especially when targeting small grass weeds. This is why guys are using so much bigger water rates.”
He said small weeds in shaded stubble rows was another challenge thrown up by farmers in one high yielding area.“When comparing the actual droplet deposition in the worst-affected, downwind, shaded side of the heavy cereal stubble, the Spray Air more than doubled the number of droplets applied against a conventional air mix nozzle for the same water volume and far less drift.”
Late fungicide and insecticide applications also showed a marked application benefit in tall and full canopied crops.Mr Bent said in these cases, the Miller Spray Air system was achieving more coverage in the top of the canopy, the front and rear standing vertical faces, as well as hitting the base of the canopy, for less than half of the water rate than a conventional system.
