Abstract
A table-shaped persimmon tree was designed to enhance efficiency in pest management work, such as chemical control, for elderly people. This paper describes a spraying work experiment with a senior simulator to evaluate elderly people's spraying efficiency with a table-shaped persimmon tree. We compared the efficiency with that for a conventional persimmon tree. In our experiment, we used water sensitive papers (becomes blue from yellow, when water is touched) to measure adhesion state. After spraying with (or without) a senior simulator, we scored the discoloration rate of water sensitive papers set on each of five leaves on four sides of the tree (upper, outside edge, inside, lower). Results from comparison of artificially designed pest managing work for table-shaped and conventional persimmon trees showed that, for the table-shaped tree: 1) irrespective of senior simulator use, the average discoloration rate was higher; 2) influence of senior simulation on the average discoloration rate was smaller; and 3) variation among the four sides of the tree was smaller. These results suggest that a table-shaped persimmon tree is suitable for elderly people when they perform management work such as chemical spraying.
