Aspects of Applied Biology XXX, 2018 International Advances in Pesticide Application Reducing spray drift by adapting the spraying equipment to the canopy shape in olive orchards with isolated trees By ANTONIO MIRANDA-FUENTES 1 , ANDRÉS CUENCA 1 , ALBERTO GODOY- NIETO 1 , EMILIO J. GONZÁLEZ-SANCHEZ 1 , EMILIO GIL 2 , JORDI LLORENS 3 , JESÚS A. GIL-RIBES 1 1 Department of Rural Engineering, University of Córdoba, Ctra. Nacional IV, km 396, Campus de Rabanales, Córdoba 14014, Spain 2 Department of Agri Food Engineering and Biotechnology, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, EsteveTerradas 8, Campus del Baix Llobregat D4, 08860 Castelledfels, Barcelona, Spain 3 Department of Agricultural and Forest Engineering, Research Group in AgroICT and Precision Agriculture, University of Lleida – Agrotecnio Center, Rovira Roure, 191, 25198 Lleida, Spain Corresponding author Email: antonio.miranda@uco.es Summary The lack of specificity of the spraying equipment commonly used in olive orchards is a remarkable problem, for not allowing farmers to apply adjusted pesticide doses to their trees, making necessary to spray very high liquid volumes that increase the environmental pollution risk. In this context, three prototypes were specially developed to increase the application efficiency in olive orchards with isolated trees, which represent 98% of the olive harvested area in Spain. A study was conducted to assess the drift produced by one of these prototypes in comparison with a commercial airblast sprayer like the ones commonly used in the current practices. A total of 10 trees belonging to two different fields inside an olive commercial farm in Córdoba, Southern Spain, were selected. The selected fields presented the traditional and intensive cultivation systems. A commercial airblast sprayer and a prototype airblast sprayer with six small-sized axial fans, placed in both sides of the equipment, were tested. In order to set the application volume, the tree crown volume was manually measured, using a specific spray volume of 0.12 L m -3 . This configuration resulted in applied volumes of 1150 and 580 L ha -1 in the traditional and intensive system, respectively. The air flow rate was set in 12.5 and 11.0 m 3 s -1 in the aforementioned systems, and it was equal for both sprayers. Food dye E-102 (Tartrazine) was used to assess deposition on filter paper pieces, in the canopy, and Petri dishes on the ground, to evaluate drift. A total of 16 sampling positions were set in the canopy, and 16 and 12 were set on the ground in the traditional and intensive systems. Water sensitive paper (WSP) was used to assess the percentage coverage and the impacts per square centimeter. The results show that the prototype significantly reduced the spray drift in both systems: 52.7% and 57.0% in the traditional and intensive orchard, respectively. Nevertheless, the ground deposit distribution among the different sampling positions was similar in both cases. The deposition values collected in the canopy, along with the percentage coverage and the impact number did not vary significantly, though they were slightly higher in the