I use a Raven system on my field crop sprayer and love it. Just punch in the gallons per acre you desire and it automatically measures flow and speed then tells you if you need to slow down or speed up. As Peter said even though the Raven controls nozzle pressure it’s up to you to use a nozzle in the ballpark of the desired GPA plus figure in tree row volume. Ground speed is measured by GPS and is very accurate. Two years ago the Teejet GPS, flow meter, pressure control valve and Raven main computer cost about $850 plus $150 for the 8 foot cable I needed for our sprayer/tractor combo. The computer is the cheapest one Raven makes and will control up to three booms.
I see no reason it wouldn’t work on an airblast sprayer. Bill Fleming Montana State University Western Ag Research Center Corvallis, MT 59828 From: apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net [mailto:apple-crop-boun...@virtualorchard.net] On Behalf Of Peter Werts Sent: Thursday, June 05, 2014 5:22 AM To: Apple-crop discussion list Subject: Re: [apple-crop] Sprayer Calibration Between Training Styles Nick, You are correct. To maintain your target gallon per acre application of water you need to consider adjustments to your travel-ground speed, gallon per minute (GPM) flow rate from the nozzle tips and the tree-row width. Changing your pressure will impact your droplet size and not do too much to flow rates, i.e., it takes a four-fold increase in pressure to double nozzle GPM. I have been working with other growers in Minnesota and Wisconsin on calibration. I commonly find calibration to be significantly off where we have variable tree size and row spacing. In 2012 we calibrated 30 different scenarios on 12 sprayers and found over application by 52% and under application by 20% to be very common. The Raven systems are very nice, especially if you have an AgTec. However you still need to make sure your travel speed is calibrated. If your using a high-pressure sprayer, the individual nozzle output should be within 5% of the manufactures specified GPM at a specified pressure. There will be an IPM field day in northeast Iowa on June 20 where we will be addressing calibration. I can send you more information, on this if you like. I can also come out to your orchard and help you with this. Thanks, Peter ============================= Peter Werts Project Coordinator Specialty Crop IPM IPM Institute of North America, Inc. 4510 Regent St.<x-apple-data-detectors://0/0> Madison WI 53705<x-apple-data-detectors://0/0> Office: 608 232-1410<tel:608%20232-1410> Cell: 612 518-0319<tel:612%20518-0319> Fax: 608 232-1440<tel:608%20232-1440> pwe...@ipminstitute.org<mailto:pwe...@ipminstitute.org> www.ipminstitute.org<http://www.ipminstitute.org/> On Jun 5, 2014, at 12:47 AM, Nick Lucking <n...@cannonvalleyorchard.com<mailto:n...@cannonvalleyorchard.com>> wrote: Hi everyone, Just curious as to how you guys with larger orchards spray blocks in your orchards when some might be high density and others free standing. Do you do a couple of calibrations with different gear/pressure settings or just do all of one style block at a time? Cheers, Nick Lucking Cannon Valley Orchard Cannon Falls, MN _______________________________________________ apple-crop mailing list apple-crop@virtualorchard.net<mailto:apple-crop@virtualorchard.net> http://virtualorchard.net/mailman/listinfo/apple-crop
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