FIELD CONDITIONS OF BOOM SPRAYERS IN THE STATE OF MATO GROSSO DO SUL, BRAZIL

The aim of this study was to evaluate the field conditions of the boom sprayers with capacity equal or up to 2,000 liters of water, belonging to farmers in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. It was inspected 38 boom trailed and autoproppeled sprayers and 45 parts of nozzle. The field information was collected in partnerneship with Du Pont of Brazil. It was accomplished inspections in the equipments that are important for quality and control of application: tachometer, pressure gauge, Global Positioning System, tank of clean water, tank for washing containers and spray nozzles. The evaluation of the flown of 12 nozzles per set was accomplished with the use of graduated vials. To evaluate the volume of water in 45 samples of nozzles it was also used graduated vials each one under pressure and used at the same time of the volume test. For this purpose, it was used the statistical model generating the adequate equation based on the manufacture recommendation. With these results it was possible to indicate a smaller age for the boom sprayer from the North of Mato Grosso do Sul State than the one from the South region, where the average age was about 7.1 years. About 51.1% of the sprayers had nozzle with inadequate volume.