Good Fruit Grower

November 2012

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Left: This was the original design used at the Sunrise station in Wenatchee, Washington. It takes fewer than 15 seconds to apply about 150 gallons of spray material to two acres of apples in this demonstration at Clarksville. T he idea of installing a permanent system for spray- ing an orchard is not a new one. It's been tried sev- eral times in several places. MSU entomologist John Wise is studying deposition patterns using water with colored dye and water-sensitive paper. FIXED SPRAY SYSTEM studied in Quebec Last summer, during the International Fruit Tree Association summer tour to Canada's Quebec Province, growers saw an experimental fixed-spray sys- tem at the Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville Research and Development Institute for the Agri-Environment near Montreal. Experiments there have been carried out for three years by pathologist Vincent Philion and entomologist Bernard Panneton and their colleagues. In the system, spray solution is pumped from a fixed location through lines running down the tree rows in the McIntosh-on-M.9 orchard. Every 15 feet or so, there is a riser 13 feet tall topped with a sprinkler capable of delivering 35 liters (about 9 gallons) per hour, but it only runs for 88 seconds at a time. The sprinkler opens at high pressure, then closes so the lines can be flushed at low pressure without washing off the spray material. The researchers compared its performance to air- blast sprayers. They used it with conventional insecti- cides and fungicides in 2010 and 2011, and then with organic materials this year. It was used this year to apply kaolin clay as a deterrent to insects, sulfur as a fungicide, and potassium bicarbonate for control of apple scab. The trees were white with clay during the tour. www.goodfruit.com The sprinkers applied the sprays as large droplets at high pressure (45 pounds per square inch), not as a mist. The spray falling from above did not cover the bottoms of the leaves, Philion said, but he noted apple scab spores fall the same way, so there is less need to cover the undersides. "Scab spores follow the rain. If there is no splashing, you don't need coverage on the bottoms of leaves," he explained. They had no scab in the conventional program, and no insect damage, either. The organic results were not yet in. He said the fixed-spray system is used in organic production on the steep hills of Austria and Italy, where it is used for scab control and also for irrigation and frost prevention. "Organic materials need frequent application," Philion said. " Using airblast (sprayers) just requires too many trips on the hilly terrain." The system was put to use in the Netherlands, where the St. Bruno folks found it. Among the benefits of the system, besides reduced drift and savings in time, labor, and fuel, it reduced mechanical damage to fruit from sprayers passing through the alleys. It cost about $2,500 an acre to install, Philion said. —R. Lehnert GOOD FRUIT GROWER NOVEMBER 2012 21 PHOTO BY RiCHARD LEHNERT PHOTO BY RiCHARD LEHNERT PHOTO COURTESY Of wASHiNGTON STATE UNivERSiTY PHOTO BY RiCHARD LEHNERT

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