Reducing the amount of agricultural sprays used by farmers — including fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides — could cut down the amount of runoff that ends up in the environment while at the same time reducing farmers’ costs and perhaps even enhancing their productivity. A classic win-win-win.
A team of researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a spinoff company they launched has developed a system to do just that. Their technology adds a thin coating around droplets as they are being sprayed onto a field, greatly reducing their tendency to bounce off leaves and end up wasted on the ground. Instead, the coated droplets stick to the leaves as intended.
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