Development of a system for supplying automatic and precision agricultural pesticides for sprayers in sugar cane cultivation

Abstract

Agricultural defenses are widely used in Brazil, especially in intensive monoculture planting, in order to reduce the susceptibility of crops to pest attack and, in this way, increase productivity per planted hectare. Among the stages of the process of the use of pesticides there is a great diversity in the use of technological processes. On the one hand, there has been a considerable modernization in the technology of planting analysis and also in the technologies of application of the product by the sprayer (with development georeferenced automotive sprayers, for example). On the other hand, the process of supplying the sprayers in the field happens rudimentary, and in most cases the operator (rural worker with low educational instruction) does not use PPE (generating serious occupational health problems), does not dose / correct dilution of the pesticide, promote diversions of product to resell them in the parallel market, and delay in the supply of the sprayer (leaving a high value-added equipment stopped by deficiency in the logistics supply process). In this context, the present project proposes the development of a system for supplying automatic and precision agricultural pesticides for sprayers in the cultivation of sugarcane. The system will be based on the adaptation of commercial chemical dosing systems, capable of operating with agricultural pesticides, concomitantly inserting water and the dosage of the pesticides during the filling of the sprayer. First, concentrated pesticides will be stocked at the farm shed (plant), by an operator with more education and under supervision of supervisors to certify the correct use of PPE. The field operation will then be automatic, with the sprayer operator adjusting the correct dilution of each pesticide (previously reported by the plantation agronomist). In this way, the system will perform the correct dosing, accurately, without the operator handling agricultural pesticides in the field. Also, there will be a GPS system coupled to the equipment controller, which will store all process data in a georeferenced form for future analysis by the general manager of the farm. In summary, the system will consist of metering pumps, pressure, flow, GPS, programmable logic controller, Man-Machine Interface (HMI) and other electrical accessories, the equipment being mounted on a "load board" to be moved attached to a truck or tractor. (AU)