Poor sprayer hygiene should be avoided at all costs
A scrupulously clean sprayer is essential for crop safety and to avoid the downtime and costs involved when done poorly.
It is particularly important with herbicides, where even small traces of chemical left in the machine can damage later sprayed crops. Some crop protection active ingredients can be sensitive to sprayer contamination, so it is vital your sprayer is clean – tank, pipework and nozzles.
Even after spraying out the full contents of your spray tank and rinsing through with water, clean through again.
The winter service is the perfect time to check everything is in good working order. Hefty tank-mixes, typical in the spring, are when problems are most likely to occur.
Potential impact of poor sprayer hygiene:
- Incompatibility
- Crop damage
- Blocked nozzles / filters / lines which need cleaning
- Corrosion and wearing of sprayer parts
- Sprayer out of action – could miss spraying window
- Further expense to rectify the problems caused
- Yield reduction
Poor sprayer hygiene can cause crop damage
Cutting corners may save you time in the short term, but it can easily end in disaster, as shown by this sugar beet crop. Failure to thoroughly clean the sprayer of herbicide from a previous job led to crop damage.
Luckily for the spray operator, it was possible to recover the crop with an application of biostimulant Bridgeway.
Always follow best practice sprayer cleaning and servicing advice.
Best practice advice for washing out your sprayer
This video funded by Corteva and hosted by Tom Robinson, covers daily best practice advice for washing out your sprayer in the field. Even if you don’t use Inatreq fungicide, it’s worth a watch to make sure your sprayer cleaning is as good as it needs to be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JK_fIWXlgE&t=17s