November is ULV Awareness Month so look out for lots of educational content about Ultra Low Volume spraying, its benefits and what to consider when buying a ULV sprayer.
When weed control is discussed, the focus is most often on the herbicide itself. Yet there is another another, often overlooked, factor which influences environmental impact, operator safety and overall effectiveness: how the herbicide product is applied i.e. what kit you use!
With conventional sprayers, chemicals need to be massively diluted in order to get them to spray in the correct concentrations. Another type of sprayer is the controlled droplet application (CDA) sprayer. This sprayer technology produces very uniform droplet sizes (not too small to waft off or too large to bounce off ) which adhere to leaves, preventing wasted product or overspray and getting herbicide where it actually needs to go. CDA sprayers are very effective but also require chemicals to be diluted, perhaps not as much but it still needs to be done. Some CDA sprayer systems will even lock you into buying specially packaged premixed chemicals that are specific to that particular CDA sprayer!
When we talk about ULV spraying, we mean spraying at very low volumes or particularly small (output) quantities. This is a further development of CDA technology. Smaller liquid droplets can be generated with uniform sizes which mean they don’t need to be diluted at all.
What ULV spraying means for glyphosate
Glyphosate remains one of the world’s most extensively studied herbicides and continues to be approved for professional use in Great Britain under strict regulatory controls. However, the typical sprayers that are used mean that large volumes are sprayed across entire areas. ULV combined with CDA systems deliver precision application of carefully controlled droplet sizes. This precision reduces waste, limits off-target application, improves operator efficiency since they are not having to lug huge volumes of water about or keep stopping to refill the tank. In short, you end up with more product on the weed and less product everywhere else!
Start your ULV awareness journey with a look at our series of explainer videos here on Youtube.
Discover our Mankar range of ULV sprayers here.