Senwes Scenario August/September 2018 | Seite 6

AGRICULTURAL Spring time Theme: sation ni ha Mec is spray-time Spraying pesticides on your fields is one of those jobs where the margin for error is pretty narrow in terms of cost, accomplishing the mission and protecting neighbouring fields.  By Martin van Zyl Senwes Group Executive: Innovation and Integrated Solutions P lant protection products play a crucial role in securing worldwide food and feed production. On the other hand, pesticide use and misuse represent a major concern about the impact of agriculture on food products specifically and the environment in general. To address this concern, the reduction and management of pesticide use is crucial. Technological advances in equip- ment play a fundamental role in allowing improved capability of pesticide deposition through precision spraying. These advan­ ces make it possible to vary the amount of pesticide distribution across the field according to the site-specific characteris- tics of the crop, as opposed to a uniform application of field treatments. Yamaha Motor Corporation (USA) intro- duced an interesting innovation namely the RMAZ precision spray helicopter in the Nampa Valley vineyards. 4 SENWES SCENARIO | SPRING 2018 Yamaha RMAX helicopter Watch a video about the Yamaha RMAX helicopter http://senwes.co/precisionag Today there are 2 500 Yamaha RMAX helicopters in operation worldwide, spraying more than 2,4 million agri- cultural acres annually. RMAX has been used for agricultural spraying of many crops including vines, rice, wheat, soybeans and vegetables.