Evaporation and wetted area of single droplets on waxy and hairy leaf surfaces

Understanding the evaporation of pesticide droplets and wetting of Leaf surfaces can increase foliar application efficiency and reduce pesticide use. Evaporation time and wetted area of single pesticide droplets on hairy and waxy geranium leaf surfaces were measured under the controlled conditions for five droplet sizes and three relative humidities. The sprays used to form droplets included water, a nonionic colloidal polymer drift retardant, an alkyl polyoxyethylene surfactant, and an insecticide. Adding the surfactant into spray mixtures greatly increased droplet wetted area on the surfaces while droplet evaporation time was greatly reduced. Adding the drift retardant into spray mixture slightly increased the droplet evaporation time and the wetted area. Also, droplets had Longer evaporation times on waxy leaves than on hairy leaves for all droplet diameters and all relative humidity conditions. Increasing relative humidity could increase the droplet evaporation time greatly but did not change the the wetted area. The droplet evaporation time and wetted area increased exponentially as the droplet size increased. Therefore, droplet size, surface characteristics of the target, relative humidity, and chemical composition of the spray mixtures (water alone, pesticide, additives) should be included as important factors that affect the efficacy and efficiency of pesticide applications.