Abstract:
Phytosanitary treatments are used for pest and disease control in vineyards; specialized machines and equipments are
used for performing the treatments. Most of the equipments use the principle of hydraulic or/and pneumatic spraying of
chemical solutions. In the process of spaying a certain part of the solution (especially at the first treatments) is lost and
flows to the ground, thus leading to the chemical pollution of soil. In order to diminish this effect a special equipment
was designed and constructed; its aim is to collect the droplets that do not reach the leaves. The equipment comprises
two vertical panels, which are retractable and can be positioned on either side of the vineyard rows; the panels collect
the chemical solution that was not retained by the plantation foliage. The recovered solution is then sent back into the
tank of the spraying machine. Tests were performed in order to evaluate the efficiency of the equipment, aiming to
establish the dependency between the solution retrieval rate and the position of the panels. For these tests the machine
was equipped with flow meters for measuring the total amount of liquid drawn from the tank and the amount of liquid
recovered by the means of the vertical panels.
