Developments in Solar Powered Agricultural Sprayers: A Review

Abstract

In agriculture, considerable amount of energy is used to perform different field activities e.g. ploughing, irrigation, intercultural operations, spraying of agricultural chemicals, harvesting and post-harvest processing etc. Energy security of a country is very important and efforts are being made for utilization of renewable energy sources mainly solar energy, as the fossil fuel based energy is depleting at a very fast rate. Spraying of pesticides is an important task in agriculture for protecting the crops from insects. Approximately, 18-25 % of the crop production is damaged if pest and diseases are not controlled at right time. Uniform spraying of liquid formulations throughout the crop field is very important for effective control of pest and diseases. Using sprayer, liquid pesticide formulations are generally broken down to minute droplets of effective size for uniform distribution over a large surface area. Dose of agricultural chemicals also plays a International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 12 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com