The Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) has organised a series of grower workshops led by Sprayers 101 co-founders Tom Wolf and Jason Deveau.
In a statement, FAR technology manager Chris Smith said the pair provide a non-profit, independent resource describing best practice in safe, efficient and effective agricultural spraying.
The duo hold workshops which provide technical information to enable farmers and contractors to make the most of every spray application.
Crop spraying was an important job on an arable farm as it was vital that agricultural chemicals were applied accurately to minimise inputs and costs, and avoid environmental impacts such as spray drift, Mr Smith said.
Spraying was one of the biggest investments growers made during a season, he said.
"Small changes in how a sprayer is set up and operated can have a big impact on crop performance, input efficiency and environmental outcomes.
"These workshops are about giving growers practical knowledge they can apply straight away on their own farms."
Mr Wolf said the Sprayers 101 workshops cover topics such as how to choose the right nozzle, how to minimise spray drift and how to get the timing right for fungicides.
"Our crops are valuable and we need to protect that yield and crop quality."
The workshops would be fun and interactive and seek to solve growers’ spraying issues including water volume, droplet size and spray pressure.
Mr Wolf said he had a warning about drone spraying, as he was yet to see any evidence the technology made any advances over and above what a land-based boom sprayer did.
"It does not necessarily advance drift management, which we fought hard to obtain through good stewardship and also to build trust with our client groups and the general public."
Mr Deveau said Canada had started to relax regulations around the spraying of pesticides from drones.
"Your swath, that is the width or the distance that you can reliably spray uniformly with as little variability as possible, is absolutely critical to drones working accurately.
"If you don’t know how much area you’ve covered in a pass, if you don’t know how much area is going to give you the efficacious result you’re looking for, then that kind of variability is not what we’re looking for in broadacre crops."
Stops on the Sprayers 101 national workshop tour include Ashburton and Timaru on August 5, Oamaru on August 6 and Gore on August 7.
Register at www.far.org.nz.
