Spraying citrus orchards with antidrift nozzles.

The aim of this work is to estimate the effect of low-drift nozzles on both the biological efficacy of acaricide treatments in citrus orchards and the percentage drift of such applications. An experiment was carried out on a commercial orchard of Clementine mandarins. Two low-drift, air induction nozzles, were compared against one conventional cone nozzle. Different configurations for each nozzle were used in order to obtain an spray application rate of around 3000 l/ha. Two variables were assessed for each nozzle, the biological efficacy against Tetranychus urticae Koch when applying Spirodiclofen-based acaricide and the deposited drift. It could be concluded that low-drift nozzles decreased the percentage of drift without detriment of biological efficacy in the control of Tetranychus urticae in citrus.