Best Management Practices for Herbicide Application Technology.

Producers are continually striving to find the best ways to achieve Effective, Economical, and Environmentally Friendly spray applications. Together these are known as the three Es of spray application. In practical terms, the three Es mean that a pesticide has to do a good job controlling the targeted pest and permit fast, inexpensive, low-drift spray operations. It is quite possible to be able achieve one or two of these goals in most spraying operations, but meeting all three together requires compromise. Success relies less on a herbicide’s knockout punch, and more on combining its application with agronomic considerations that help you meet your goals. For example, sometimes a timely application is more important than perfect control. This may mean that coarser sprays, while possibly less effective, will provide the producer with an overall advantage by allowing sprays to be applied at the right time. Any application approach has to be reconciled with continuing trends to use heavier, faster machines and the need to cover more area in less time. These have implications for nozzle selection, because changes in boom height, or travel speed, affect nozzle performance. A better understanding of these three factors is necessary so that the appropriate nozzle, sprayer, or water volume selections can be made. Inevitably, compliance with spray quality or wind speed restrictions on product labels will require applicators to apply coarser sprays no matter what type of sprayer they use. Selecting the correct nozzles, and using them properly, will be the key ingredients to success.