The necessity for farmers to comply with pesticide buffer requirements has prompted spray and nozzle manufacturer Syngenta to offer users free drift-reducing Amistar nozzles with the purchase of specific cereal fungicides containing isopyrazam, such as Bontima.

The fitting of drift-reducing nozzles on to sprayer booms will be a very important tool for sprayer operators to reduce or minimise the buffer requirement for specific products.

Pesticides

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All pesticides will have a minimum 1m buffer from the top of the bank of water-carrying bodies such as drains, streams and rivers.

This means that sprays cannot be applied within these specified distances.

This incentive is driven by the new STRIPE initiative, which was put in place on a pilot basis by PRCD staff in the Department of Agriculture.

This enables the obligatory buffer requirement of a specific product to be reduced to 1m minimum through some combination of product rate reduction and the use of drift-reducing nozzles. However, buffer requirements cannot be reduced for some specific products.

It is important to note that a product’s buffer requirement can be changed, so users need to frequently check the information on the SUD website.