Air Stream Facilitated Application of Cotton Foliage Treatments

ABSTRACT THE upper canopy of cotton foliage prevents sprayed droplets from reaching the lower leaves, and especially from reaching the undersids of lower leaves. An Air-sleeve sprayer, which uses a vertical air stream, was recently developed to achieve a uniform coverage of all the leaves and was very successful in controlling most insects in the field (Cohen et al., 1984). In the present study, an air-sleeve sprayer was compared to a hydraulic nozzle sprayer for droplets coverage, Bemisia Tabaci Gennadius control, and defoliation of cotton. The droplets coverage and defoliation results were better with the air-sleeve sprayer than with a hydraulic nozzle alone. However, no differences were detected between the two sprayers for Bemisia control.