The work aimed to study spray nozzles performance in pesticide sprayer deposition for controlling pastures spittlebugs nymphs in Brachiaria brizantha cv. MG-4 pasture. Twelve treatments were studied in factorial scheme 6x2, constituted by the contrast of six spray nozzles and 196 and 392 kPa work pressures: TF-VP2 (336 L ha-1 and 467 L ha-1); AI11002-VS (184 L ha-1 and 200 L ha-1); XR11002-VS (200 L ha-1 and 280 L ha-1); TT11002-VP (200 L ha-1 and 280 L ha¹); TJ60-11002VS (208 L ha-1 and 280 L ha-1) and TX-VK4 (72 L ha-1 and 97 L ha-1). For monitoring sprayer deposition it was used Bright Blue FD&C-1 (0.3% p/v) and Tartrasine Yellow FD&C-5 (0.6% p/v) as tracers. Artificial targets, constituted by thin glass plates were positioned on plants tillers base, near to soil surface and deposition per unit area of sprayed solutions were quantified by spectrophotometry. TF-VP2; XR11002-VS and AI11002-VS spray nozzles, in 196 and 392 kPa work pressures provided the largest sprayer deposition in the foam regions of pastures spittlebugs nymph, in spite of showing inferior uniformities of sprayer deposition in relation to TX-VK4, XR110.02-VS and TJ110.02-VS.The increase of work pressure from 196 to 392 kPa promoted the increase of sprayer deposition over Brachiaria brizantha and over the region where pastures spittlebugs foams were located for all types of spray nozzles studied.
spray nozzles; application tax; deposition; forage
