Grain Guide 2016

101

GRAANGIDS

2016

GRAIN GUIDE

After pesticide containers have been emptied, they should be rinsed at least three times with

one-third volume clean water, and the rinse water must be added to the spray tank. Contain-

ers should then be dried in the sun and preferably cut full of holes or cut up completely before

being supplied to plastics recyclers. See

for the list of recyclers.

Avoid malicious abuse of pesticides, for example poisoning animals that may cause damage.

This is not only illegal and inhumane, but also creates a secondary poison risk for other ani-

mals. Poisoning has already seriously affected some species like vultures and the agricultural

community is blamed for this.

Contact Dr Gerhard Verdoorn at 082 446 8946 or

Dr Gerhard H Verdoorn (Griffon Poison Information Centre and Association of Veterinary and

Crop Associations of South Africa [AVCASA])

Use pesticides responsibly

Continued from p. 98

Steps to calibrate for spraying

If you want to calibrate for spraying quickly, follow the steps below (for overall spraying):

1. Decide in which gear and at what engine revolutions you intend spraying with your tractor. Fill

the tank with water and then determine the time it will take for the tractor to travel 100 m in

the field.

2. Make sure that the sprayer is fitted with the right spray heads. With the tractor stationary, switch

on the pump and adjust the spray pressure to the desired level and at the same engine revolu-

tions as in Step 1.

3. With the spray pressure set at the desired level, measure the amount of water delivered by each

spray head in the time period as determined in Step 1.

4. Measure the total spray width of the sprayer.

5. With the aid of the above information, calculate the spray volume per hectare:

Spray volume = 10 000 x total volume of water (litres) (as determined in Step 3)

distance (100 m) x sprayer width (metres)

6. If the desired spray volume is not obtained, repeat Steps 1 to 5 with different gear

combinations until the desired volume per hectare is applied.

7. Now calculate the correct volume of herbicide to be added to the spray tank:

Volume of herbicide to be content of tank x herbicide dosage/ha

added to tank

spray volume/ha (as determined in Step 5)

Jan de Villiers, Ficksburg