The great losses of the current pesticide application technique has stimulated a search for technological alternatives to increase its efficiency, and the electrostatic spraying has shown itself a very promising technology. The objective of this work was to evaluate an electrostatic spray head for use with knapsack mistblower sprayer and to verify the influence of the induction tension and liquid flow rate, in the droplet charge intensity, as well as the effect of the charge on the tracer deposition. The study of the deposition was accomplished with spherical artificial targets. The maximum charge obtained with the electrostatic head was of 4.0 mC/kg, for spray flow rate of 0.3 L/min and tension of 8.0 kV. The increase in the spray flow rate reduced the droplet charge. The droplets without charge presented a tracer deposition efficiency of 18%, but the droplets with charge intensity of 4.0 mC/kg increased significantly the deposition for 62% of the total amount of the applied tracer.
agricultural chemicals; residues; electrostatic spraying; application methods
