Japanese Journal of Farm Work Research

Herbicides, bush cutters and other tools are used for weed management in orchards and border areas on arable land. However, weed management involves heavy labor and thus it is necessary to develop a labor-saving sprayer for the efficient use of herbicides. So, a pulling herbicide sprayer was developed based on the wheel pump sprayer.
This sprayer has no engine, but operates the pump by rotation of a wheel. A nozzle has been built in a form spray nozzle for low volume (25L per 10a) and for coarser spray. The application rate of herbicides is linked with the application speed, so if operator walks at a speed of 2Kmper hour, the sprayer will work at a volume of 25L per 10a exactly. A built-in pressure relief valve prevents the sprayer from developing excessive pressure. Herbicides do not drift towards the operator since the operator moves ahead of the sprayer in the direction of the application.
This sprayer has a highly prospective value as a new model, low-volume herbicide sprayer.

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It has been said that plant grafting technology was invented 3,000 years ago in China for fruit trees, however it was firstly applied for actual vegetable cultivation in Japan. China started investigations on vegetables grafting in 1960s. In 1980s vegetable grafting was disseminated to vegetable cultivation in order to control the soil sickness induced by continuous cropping, because vegetable production had extended with development of sunlight greenhouses. Meanwhile significant increase in cropping area of water melon in China promoted grafting technology to water melon production also for control the soil sickness. Grafting cultivation has been used in every vegetable production in China after 2000, as an important cultivation method. The Chinese Agricultural Ministry promulgated a non- pollution cultivation standard of vegetables in 2002. To realize the non-pollution cultivation, grafting technology for vegetables is also one of the promising supporting technologies. However, current production capacity cannot meet the demand of grafting seedlings from farmers, some Chinese universities has started development of automatic or semi-automatic grafting machines.

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