Page 40 - Grapevine July-August 2015

Around The Vineyard

charges, the system atomizes, or positively charges,
droplets that are attracted to the negatively-charged,
or grounded, surface of a plant.

Also, because the droplets are positively charged,
they repel one another and will not collect into large
droplets that can run off plant material onto the
ground. Spray from an On Target sprayer emerges
from the system’s patented nozzles as a mist that
evenly coats the fronts, backs and undersides of
plant material, forming a bond that protects plants
from disease and insect pests.

Growers talk about how spray from an On Target
sprayer appears to linger over crop canopies.
“It is like a fog,” Lingenfelder said. “And if the
mist goes through the canopy, it makes a U-turn and
goes back in.” “It just hangs there for a minute,”
Klopp said. “You can almost see it working its way
into the vines.” Conversely, Klopp said: “With an
air-blast, ten seconds after you pass, it is on the
ground or in the vine.”

Ironically, it wasn’t the savings in labor and fuel
or the improved chemical performance that initially
prompted Lingenfelder to purchase an electrostatic
sprayer. He was looking to appease neighbors who
were complaining about pesticide drift after a hous-
ing development sprang up around three sides of a
50-acre Chalk Hill vineyard. “Some of those houses
come right up to the property line, and we were
having negative issues with the neighbors about
drift,” Lingenfelder said. “I’m not talking two or
three neighbors. I’m talking more like 30. And they
were really irate.”

To dispel the drift complaints, Lingenfelder began
spraying at night. Then came the noise complaints.
“We were turning the tractor right next to one
neighbor’s back fence, over and over,” he said.
“Those air-blast sprayers make a hell of a racket.
And to drive that fan and that pump and pull that
300 gallons of water, you have to run that tractor at
a high RPM, so the tractor is making more noise.”
Lingenfelder’s farming practices were protected by
Sonoma County right-to-farm laws, but he sought
to get along with his neighbors. After talking to
a neighboring farmer who owned an electrostat-
ic sprayer, he began looking into purchasing the

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