Research and Development of the Cannon Type Orchard Mistblower

Abstract

An orchard mist blower was designed and manufactured. The machine consisted of two centrifugal type blowers which were mounted in line on a trailer and driven by PTO of a 50 hp tractor. Two expansion chutes were put on both outlets in order to divide the air stream. The spray droplet was injected through the hollow cone type nozzles by a hydraulic pump under 25 bars of fluid pressure. With the capacity of 170 and 90 cubic meters per minute of the blowers, the spray droplet was delivered quite uniformly by strong wind to cover the entire target area. Testing with mango trees about 5 meters in height, it was found that the density of droplet was about 58 drops per one square centimeter. The average time to cover one tree was about 7.2 seconds and consumed 2.0 liters of liquid. However, in order to obtain more uniformity of droplets density especially the big tree with high density of foliage, it is recommended to spray both sides of the tree. In this case the time and liquid consumed were doubled.