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• What does a drip treatment entail?
• Can all crop protection products be applied via drip treatment?
• When do you choose to drip crop protection?

A drip treatment is done using the drip system. By inserting the plugs at the desired spots in the substrate matyou can determine fairly precisely where the irrigation water with the added crop protection product enters the substrate. In contrast to a space or spray treatment, after a drip treatment, the crop protection product is absorbed by the plant via the roots.

No, there are only a few products that - according to the manufacturer's legal requirements - may be used for drip treatment. Do you want to know if the product you want to use is suitable for this? Check the legal requirements on the label to see if drip treatment is allowed.  

As a result of the increasingly limited package of crop protection products, more and more growers are opting to switch to an integrated crop protection strategy, which involves the use of natural enemies. Do you want to be sure that the vast majority of natural enemies survive the use of chemicals? Then it is smart to choose the drip treatment, because this has the least effect on the biological pesticides, for the following reason.

With an LVM or spray treatment, the crop comes into contact with the product from above by means of droplets. These droplets not only affect the plant and the disease or pest, but also the natural enemies. As a result, they may suffocate or drown in the droplets. This problem does not arise when you include the dripping of crop protection product in your treatment, because the product is distributed through the plant via the roots. It is, of course, important to check whether a crop protection product can be combined with natural enemies; a broad-spectrum contact product will still be lethal in a drip treatment.

Besides the fact that drip treatment can be easily combined with an integrated crop protection strategy, it has a number of other advantages. It is a very easy way of administering crop protection products, it saves a lot of labor compared with spraying, and there is no need to invest in equipment.

However, a drip treatment also has a number of disadvantages. This is because the crop protection product is diluted in the root environment after each watering. This reduces the effectiveness of the product, with the consequence that the pest may become resistant to it.  

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What are the standards for residues of crop protection products?
A large amount of residue on fruit and vegetable can lead to health risks for consumers. Therefore, legal residue standards for food products have been established to ensure food safety.

Which additives for chemical crop protection are there?
Additives increase the effectiveness of chemical crop protection. Properties that they can influence include the distribution, absorption and adhesion of active substances.

What are the side-effects of chemical pesticides?
Many growers opt for integrated pest management, which combines biological and chemical crop protection. But not every chemical pesticide can be combined with every natural enemy, because these products can have side-effects on biology.