Day: June 18, 2014

High-tech greenhouse pesticide system planned in Chile

Chile’s Foundation for Agricultural Innovation (FIA) will undertake a new project to implement a safer and more efficient method of applying pesticides in greenhouses.
The initiative will benefit more than 100 tomato producers in the central Maule region, and will be supported by local governmental body INIA Raihuén and construction firm SAE.
The main issue at the moment is that temperature and humidity are too high in the greenhouses for workers to be able to wear personal safety equipment that would normally protect them from pesticides, so they end up breathing in the dangerous chemicals.
The current system is also inefficient and ineffective, often distributing far more pesticide to the crops than necessary, impacting negatively on end consumers’ health.
The solution will use a hydraulic sprayer on the exterior of the greenhouse that has a piping system running inside featuring special nozzles that only spray the plants.
To read the full article, please click here.
Source: http://www.freshfruitportal.com
Tomato Greenhouses image by Elias Gayles 2012. Some rights reserved (CC BY 2.0)