Development of a smart sprayer for effective application in Vineyards

The reasons for wanting to decrease pesticide use in agricultural spraying applications can be listed as decreasing pesticide costs (thereby decreasing production costs) and decreasing environmental pol- lution (thereby decreasing the harmful effects on the environment and natural life). The objective of this study was to detect the vineyard plant, calculate its foliage volume and generate a system that adjusts the spraying amount based on the calculated volume. For this purpose, laser sensor, solenoid valves, pres- sure regulators and electronic cards were used to make the required modifications on the commer- cially produced air-assisted orchard sprayer. The tri- als were carried out using advanced smart spraying system with different artificial vineyard plants rep- resenting 3 different development stages of the vine- yard plant. The machine developed in the study was compared with a conventional type sprayer in terms of the amount of fluid sprayed and their perfor- mance. It was observed as a result of the trials made that up to 50% less fluid was sprayed with the smart rate spraying system especially for the artificial vine- yard plant representing the flowering period. In ad- dition, better tracer deposit amounts, greater coverage rates, and less drift amount were attained with the smart rate spraying system in comparison with the conventional machine. © by PSP.