ABSTRACT
It is expected that the small farmer will, in future, produce up to 30% of the seed cotton in South Africa. To achieve this, small producers will need to control insects cost-effectively with an apparatus that is affordable and acceptable to the farmer. An insecticide application apparatus for the small cotton farmer, based on a knapsack sprayer and mounted on wheels, has been developed. The pump action is driven by the wheels which, for ease of calibration, have a circumference of 2 m. The apparatus generates a pressure of 2.5 bar at a speed of 1 m/sec. If 6 TXVS-2 nozzles are used and 1 row is sprayed singly, a walking distance of 10 km is needed to spray 1 ha of cotton with a 100cm wide row spacing. Under these conditions, the apparatus delivers 103 l/ha. Two rows of cotton which is less than 400 mm high, can be sprayed simultaneously with 3 nozzles / row. This translates in to 51.5 l/ha and a walking distance of 5 km/ha. If one ha cotton is sprayed with a knapsack in the conventional manner, i.e. each row is sprayed from both sides, the walking distance is 20 km. This sprayer can either be pushed or drawn by one person, but under field conditions it is less taxing if one person pulls the sprayer and a second person steers it. It can also be pulled by a draught animal. In field trials insect control obtained by using this sprayer was comparable to that obtained with a knapsack sprayer.

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