Journal of Ecology and Rural Environment ›› 2020, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (12): 1612-1618.doi: 10.19741/j.issn.1673-4831.2020.0159

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Effect of Orchard Sprayers on Dermal Exposure of Operators

WANG Shi-lin1,2, FAN Dao-quan1, LI Xue1,2, ZHOU Hao1, ZHANG Mei-na1, YAN Ting-ting1, Lü Xiao-lan1   

  1. 1. Institute of Agricultural Facilities and Equipment, Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Nanjing 210014, China;
    2. Key Laboratory of Agricultural Engineering in the Middle and Lower Reaches of Yangtze River, Nanjing 210014, China
  • Received:2020-03-10 Online:2020-12-25 Published:2020-12-23

Abstract: China is the largest orchard planting country in the world, and it's fruit industry plays an important role in increasing farmers' income and in rural construction. However, large amount of pesticides has to be used many times during orchard planting to ensure fruit yield and quality. At the same time, pesticides invading into the body of the operators through respiratory and skin will cause serious health risk. In order to understand the dermal exposure of operators during pesticide application in orchard, strengthen occupational health protection and reduce the exposure risk of operators, three kinds of most widely-used orchard sprayers trailer sprayer, mounted sprayer and spray gun were used to evaluate the dermal exposure of operators in peach orchard. Fluorescer BSF with a fraction of 0.1% in mass was added into spraying liqud as tracer for quantification, and LS55 fluorometer was used to measure the fluorescence value of different parts of operators' body. The results show that the most exposed part of operators of trailer sprayer and mounted sprayer were head and back, and there were no significant difference between left and right sides of operators' body. The most exposed parts of operators of spray gun were head, chest and back, and the exposure amount on left side (near nozzle) of operators was significantly higher than that on the other side. Among the three orchard sprayers, the trailer sprayer had the lowest dermal exposure on operators, and its total dermal exposure in 100 m operating distance and 100 L spraying volume were 0.315 and 0.292 mL, respectively. For mounted sprayer, the maximum total dermal exposure amount reached to 5.311 mL in 100 L spraying volume, and for spray gun the maximum total dermal exposure amount reached to 74.042 mL in 100 m operating distance. The study illustrates that the operators had lower protection awareness and higher dermal exposure risk during pesticide application. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the protection awareness of the operators, meanwhile the orchard should be planned rationally and the mechanization level of orchard sprayer should be improved.

Key words: orchard sprayer, pesticide, dermal exposure, spraying

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