Conferences
Developing Sprayer Calibration Tools for Coffee and Orchard Crop Farmers that Reduce their Production and Legal Risks
Jensen Uyeda, Andrea Kawabata, Matthew Miyahira, Shannon Sand, and Stuart Nakamoto
Summary
Hawaii’s coffee industry was free of major pests and diseases until 2010 and 2020, when Coffee Berry Borer (Hypothenemus hampei) and Coffee Leaf Rust (Hemileia vastatrix) invaded the state’s 2nd most valuable crop. Current management of these pests involves field sanitation, pruning, and pesticide applications. Many farmers have limited to no experience spraying, let alone calculating pesticide rates so are at risk of spraying too much or too little.
Proper spray coverage and sprayer calibration is necessary to determine the amount of water needed to spray on a crop and the amount of pesticide to add to the water as specified on the product label. Applying too much pesticide wastes money and violations of the pesticide label can result in fines, jail time, and confiscated and destroyed crops. On the other hand, spraying too little pesticide wastes time, product, and money. The grower will either need to re-treat or suffer from lower yields and quality from a damaged crop. An even bigger problem is that over time, misapplication can hasten the unwanted process of a pest developing resistance to the pesticide.
Proper sprayer calibration is essential for managing production and legal risks when applying organic and conventional pesticides to a crop. The 1/128 method is an easy method for calibration of row crops but no comparable method exists for orchard crops. We introduce a method with associated publication and spreadsheet developed for sprayer calibration in orchard crops, with a case study and examples for its use with coffee.
Details
| Conference | 2022 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference |
| Presentation Type | Poster |