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NW Illinois | What I've been asked to look at this past week I gonna say it's a math equation. Plane has skips or light rates on outside maybe 5-10 feet, greatly depending on terrain. Plane sprays roughly 70' wide pattern, 70 or so covered with 5 -7 feet showing issues per pass. Drones are 25-30 feet covered with 5 to 7 feet missed or low rated. Visually drones look much worse due to number of passes. I read Sloughclub's posts on here religiously on drones and swear instead of the FAA and Dept of Ag licensing to operate a drone they should all be required to work under his group for 6 months, supervised and only licensed with his consent. The man goes to great lengths to describe real life application issues and what they have learned to combat them. Drones here didn't get within 30-40 feet of obstructions (power lines) and sprayed ends while turning. So 30' out unapplied, plus an unapplied center of a v shape from turning, in certain shaped fields leaves a lot of untreated acreage. We know from the 1990's in spraying alfalfa that spraying while turning on ends leaves untreated v shapes that are highly visible from alfalfa pests. I want to be clear any time the plane increases elevation above the crop it's showing effects as well, but there isn't a person I know gonna blame the human in the seat for wanting to not die doing their job. We have a couple helicopters here, probably only 15% of all aerial applied, but what I was told to look at this past week the main issue wasn't spray performance. They company pushing fungicides through it are known for recommending less than recommended product rates by the manufacturers, making them look cost effective. That stuff looks like 100 day corn planted April 15th next to a neighbor's 115 day corn planted same day, it's toast.
I will also say any aerial application method I walked in this past week, none got any disease control or suppression below roughly the ear. Don't care what anyone tells me about vortexes, downdrafts, whatever. Those leaves are totally destroyed from Tar Spot. Untreated upper canopy leaves that we are seeing application issues with have basically the same amount of disease infestations as lower untreated, making it stand out so bad. | |
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Disease pressure difference in Hybrids.
