The present experiment was carried out at the Dept. of Agricultural Machines and Equipment, College of Agriculture, University of Basrah. The aim of the study is to highlight the effect of the nozzle type, working pressure and their interaction onto droplet quality using knapsack sprayer to improve their performance. Droplet characteristics were sampled on white paper cards at different distances from the nozzle. On the samples spray deposits, spray coverage, droplet size, and volume median diameter was measured using BSF tracer with water after their deposit on the sample. The main studied parameters were: Six nozzle types hollow cone, Flat fan ceramic, flat fan ISO, CFA, AirMix and flat fan air induction nozzle. Two working pressures were 15 and 25 psi. All measurements carried out at the same nozzle height of 50cm by using CRD with three replications. The main results of this study showed the best spray deposition and spray coverage with the highest values 0.06nµl.cm -2 and 63% respectively when hollow cone nozzle was compared to other nozzles under the same operating conditions. Whereas, the Flat fan air induction nozzle appeared the most significant droplet size and VMD 377.69 µm and 378 µm respectively when it was compared to the hollow cone and flat fan nozzles.

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: The field experiment was performed during the autumn growing season 2019 in Al Khyoot village of the Qurna town which is located at 75 km northern Basrah city centre. For improving the maize growth and yield, the effect of foliar spraying with iron and zinc and the most important technological characteristics of the knapsack sprayer such as nozzle types was studied. Three nozzle types were investigated as standard Flat fan nozzle, Hollow cone nozzle, and Tip nozzle (as reference nozzle in this study). Three foliar concentrations (0, Zn30 + Fe100 and Fe100+ Zn30) as well as a 16- litre capacity of the knapsack sprayer were used for fertilizer spraying experiments. All field experiments were carried out using the complete randomized block design (RCBD) with three replications. The results of the statistical analysis showed that there was a significant effect of the nozzle type and foliar spraying on the plant growth and yield characteristics as plant height, stem diameter, number of leaves, leaf area, number of grains, and yields (152.39 cm, 1.88 cm, 13.98, 4559 cm2, 376.51 and 5.51 Mg ha-1 respectively). Also, these characteristics showed an increase percentage as following (2.79%, 2.25%, 0.60%, 3.11%, 3.70%, and 1.73% respectively) when the hollow cone nozzle was used compared to the reference nozzle. In addition, an interaction between the studied factors also appeared a significant difference in the grain number and yield characteristics.

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