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Q&A ViewAttendees 3

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Student Competition 10-Minute Paper

Grad P-IE: Education and Extension

Adoption of intelligent sprayer technology for use in specialty crop production systems

Monday, November 1, 2021
10:30 AM - 10:42 AM MT
Location: Colorado Convention Center, Meeting Room 207
In-Person Student Competition

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Lianna M. Wodzicki

    Graduate Research Assistant
    The Ohio State University
    Wooster, Ohio

    • Co-Author(s)

  • OM

    Olivia Meyer

    Graduate Student
    Iowa State University
    Ames, Iowa

  • JG

    Jose Gonzalez-Acuna

    Research Associate
    Iowa State University
    Ames, Iowa

  • LM

    Laurence Madden

    Distinguished Professor in Plant Protection, Epidemiology, Statistics, and Biomathematics
    The Ohio State University
    Wooster, Ohio

  • Hz

    Heping zhu

    Application Technology Research
    USDA-ARS
    Wooster, Ohio

  • CW

    Celeste Welty

    The Ohio State University
    Columbus, Ohio

  • MG

    Mark Gleason

    Professor
    Iowa State University
    Ames, Iowa

  • ML

    Melanie Lewis Ivey

    Assistant Professor, Fruit Pathology and Fresh Produce Safety
    The Ohio State University
    Wooster, Ohio

  • EL

    Elizabeth Long

    Purdue University
    Lafayette, Indiana

Apple and grape growers in the Midwestern United States typically apply pesticides using airblast sprayers 12-16 times each year to manage insects and disease. However, the airblast sprayer has very low application efficiency with great chemical losses to non-target areas. Intelligent sprayer technology (IST) automatically optimizes spray outputs based on crop canopy architecture to reduce pesticide volume and waste. Therefore, IST offers the potential to achieve more profitable and environmentally sustainable sprays in these intensively managed systems.
During a two-year and one-year study on grape and apple, we found that grape yield in IST plots was greater than in nontreated plots, and also equivalent to yields in airblast-sprayed plots (P<0.0001).  Incidence of codling moth (Cydia pomonella) and plum curculio (Conotrachelus nenuphar) feeding and egg-laying damage was rated on apples at harvest, while Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica) foliar feeding damage was rated on grapevines from pre-bloom through veraison.  Incidence of insect damage was no different between airblast and IST-sprayed apple (0.2% ±0.9%; 0.5% ±2%) or grape (35% ±11%; 36% ±12%) plots.  However, IST used over 45% and 80% less pesticide volume on apple and grape crops, respectively.  Finally, we provided Ohio apple growers with IST retrofitted airblast sprayers and growers found IST to be as effective as airblast sprayers in insect and disease management.  As more growers adopt IST into their specialty crop systems, the potential exists to transform this new  technology into crop production for safer agricultural labor forces and non-target organisms, while also improving profit margin for growers.