Novel pesticide packaging needed in China

With the rise of crop protection industry in China over recent years, more and more large-size crop protection machinery are utilized to raise operation and control efficiency, which set up new requirement on pesticide packaging.

Taking an example in Shandong Province, most of the pesticides sold in the market are packed in small bags for use of one or two bags per Mu of land, which is initially intended for easy use of one family covering several Mu of land. A  large spraying machine can accommodate 150kg water, requiring normally 15 bags of herbicide also to be accompanied with red spider killing agent and fungicide as well, for which operators have to split up bags one by one, being very time consuming.
 
Crop protection aero plane has a bigger “appetite”. An industry expert said that “the use of aero plane requires strict selection of pesticide. Aero plane’s spray nozzle has a much smaller diameter than that of ordinary spraying machine, which also set a more stringent requirement on both water and pesticide; water must be clean because a little impurity may block the spray nozzle and more importantly the solubility of pesticide must be good enough; also the powder pesticide must have smaller particles than normal ones as it may block nozzle if not fully dissolved”.

It is noted that in Chinese pesticide market part of fungicide and insecticide are packed in large bags but no large packaging of herbicide is evident. Most of the pesticide packed in large bag are conventional pesticide which has just a decent effect, while imported product or new product from prime vendors are mostly packed in small bags. The conventional pesticide packaging and formulations in Chinese market is being challenged by the application of large-size crop protection machinery.