Towards integration of inspection procedures, calibration and drift reducing devices for an efficient use of pesticides and reduction of application impact

The fruit production of Trentino is an important industry of the local economy with a gross marketable production of about 215 million Euros with almost 75% comes by apples. The characteristics of the cultivation environments allow to get quality products. This is made possible by the constant technical updating operated by technical support of Consulting & Services Centre – CTT. This is one of reasons why IPM has come in the practice since the early 90’s and on this view the inspection of sprayers is mandatory and regularly made with five years interval. Many housing districts are scattered among orchards and population of rural surroundings has become more and more sensitive to issues about environmental sustainability and spray drift. Therefore vertical bench tests started to follow the standard procedures of inspection and calibration to carry the operators to a more efficient way of application reducing drift losses. Moreover in the last years has become needful to start a series of test in order to find technical solutions for drift mitigation. In our view the next step to allow an adequate and efficient use of drift reducing devices, and bring them in the practice, is to link inspection and calibration with drift reduction experiences. Informations, suggestions and adjustments are achievable by the technical staff of the inspection facilities (e.g. choice of a proper filter mesh size according with the nozzle type, etc.) during inspection activity. On this view training during inspection has a key role to make the operator conscious of the most appropriate technical choices for efficient use of pesticide application equipments.