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There is a worldwide trend that supports the rational use of chemicals in agriculture. It has become common knowledge that irresponsible application of pesticides can cause food security issues, by endangering human and animal health while also having negative environmental consequences. The aim of this experiment was to assess the qualitative parameters of spraying treatments in vineyards. To achieve this, a vineyard and orchard sprayer machine was used for the application of treatments under a gradient of pressures (3, 5, 7, 9 bar). Water-sensitive collectors were placed at three heights (0.8 m, 1.5 m, 2.5 m). Following spraying was determined using DepositScan: the volume median diameter characterization of droplets (DV 1, DV 5, DV 9), and coverage degrees of sprayings. Results indicated that best coverage degree and larger droplets tend to be deposited 1.5 m from the ground, which corresponds with the highest proximity to the positioning of the nozzles of the machine during application, and lowest coverage is found at the top, where droplets deposited also tend to be smaller. For the anti-drift nozzle model used in the study, the best coverage was obtained at a pressure of 5 bar. For sustainability of agricultural practices and rational use of pesticides, more research is required for optimization of increased precision spraying that could ensure high coverage at lower doses of chemicals and coarse droplets. In this way the quantity of product sprayed is expected to be reduced, due to minimization of off-target losses and increased efficiency. This can ensure that negative environmental impacts are lowered. Improved treatment application at higher positioning of the canopy remains a challenge and shall receive more attention.

Changing the degree to which animals feed is grinded can be done for hammer mills in several ways, namely: the use of sieves with different diameters, different hammers, different engine speeds.Grain milling energy consumption is in luenced by the type of material used, its moisture content, size and type of hammers, sieves holes etc.In the present study we determined the in luence of moisture and sieve mesh size on milling maize grain moisture of 11.1% and 17.6% using conventional hammer mill. Using th ree kinds of sieve apertures with a diameter of 4, 6 and 8 mm was determined from the speci ic grinding energy.

Hammer mills are machines used in agriculture to obtain concentrated fodder mix. The hammer mills grinding materials is produced upon impact of the hammer material and crushing plate located inside the grinding chamber. Depending on the hammers rotor assembly mode, the following types of mills can be used: hammer mills articulated and fixed hammer mills. The finesse of the flour obtained is directly influenced by the type of hammer and sieve used.

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