A drift prediction model for the Tunisia context: A validation approach. Bahrouni, H., Ben Nouna, B., Sinfort, C., Hamza, E., Chaabane, H. and Ben Abdallah, M.A. (Tunisia / France)
To improve agricultural production, pest control is necessary. To achieve this objective, pesticide application is one of the most practiced methods. But, for a better coverage of the target, this technique requires small droplets to control pests efficiently. However, during crop spraying, importan...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Institution of the Agricultural Research and Higher Education
2016-06-01
|
| Series: | Tunisian Journal of Plant Protection |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.tjpp.tn/SiteWeb/PreviousIssues/TJPP11-1/13Bahrouni.pdf
|
| Summary: | To improve agricultural production, pest control is necessary. To achieve this objective, pesticide
application is one of the most practiced methods. But, for a better coverage of the target, this technique
requires small droplets to control pests efficiently. However, during crop spraying, important quantities
of this droplet category are transferred to the environment, with negative impacts on air, soil, water and
health. So, the different compartments ofthe environment will be polluted, especially in an intensive
irrigated system.The need of prediction of spray drift has led to the development of a global approach
that evaluates drift potential and plant retention in Tunisian context. The central component in this
approach is a drift prediction model “DriftL”. It was developed using an advection-diffusion
representation for diameter classes representing the spray and it includes evaporation simulation.Tests
were set up in laboratory conditions with different nozzle settings in a wind tunnel to develop the
model and under a mobile boom to evaluate plant retention. Both wind tunnel and mobile boom tests
were used in a combined approach to evaluate the amount of droplets lost in the air (volatilization).
Predictions of these approaches were finally compared to field test results with two spraying setups
(spraying Volume Median Diameter of 127 and 322 µm). DriftL was compared to threeothers Drift
models: DRIFTSIM, AgDrift and the model of the European group Forum for Coordination of
Pesticide Fate Models and their Use (FOCUS). The Federal Biological Research Center for Agriculture
and Forestry in Germany (BBA) drift tables are referenced in the literature and are widely used by the
scientific community, so they were used as reference values for comparing the four model results.
These comparisons showed that the combined laboratory and modeling approach give coherent results
that could be used with few improvements to achieve a global balance of pesticide losses and provide
farmers with a tool to decrease them. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1737-5436 2490-4368 |