Aerial applications of pesticides are promised to a mid-term ban according to the EC Directive sustainable use of pesticide. A 3 years R&D program "Optiban" lead to the definition of a ground-based application technique to be compared with traditional terrestrial equipment as used in orchard spraying. Due to the peculiar structure of the banana crop canopy (5 m height, tractor tracks every 12 m, slopes), existing standards used for crop deposit as well as drift measurements are to be adapted. Environmental impacts of banana crop spraying was evaluated through the quantity of mixture deposits including a dye tracer analyzed by spectrofluorometric method, qualitative results were given with oil sensitive papers. Drift was measured at 5 up to 90 m downwind from the field hedge. Three terrestrial spraying equipments were compared while taking into account crop deposits and drift values. As spraying protocols were different between those two equipments, raw values calculation issued from the field dose appeared relatively inappropriate to assess the spraying efficiency as well as global environmental impact. As shown in Table 1 - grey column, drift values issued from theoretical field dose applied are quite similar. A mass balance of pesticide distribution (crop deposit - drift - air) was then estimated on the same set of parameters for the 2 equipments. Table 1: Mass balance of 3 spraying equipments on banana crops Theoretical Field dose basisFlow Rate basis Equipment% on Drift Area% on Drift Area% on Target Crop% Losses Hardi (5 rep.)5.48 % (4.2 - 6.8)14 % (11 - 18 %)2 %* 84 % (80 - 87 %) Optiban 1 (10 rep.)6.93 % (3.8 - 9.8)18 % (14 - 20 %) 41 % (32 - 59 %)41 % (21 - 53 %) Optiban 2 (3 rep.)5.42 % (0.8 - 12.2)9% (1 - 20 %) 26 % (9 - 67 %)65 % (23 - 88 %) * due to weather conditions, 5 rep. were cumulated on the same collectors. As shown in Table 1, values are subjected to a high variability due to random wind and local topographic conditions. As a result, it was possible to compare and rank three different application systems with the same calculation methodology. Drift is appears to be only a minor part of pesticide losses, aerial dispersion might be favored when considering Mineral Oil (Banole®). Environmental evaluation of spraying equipments is based on the statistical distribution of the pesticide mixture upon several areas (crop target, drift area, others) and then to soil, water and the air compartments. This paper shows the limit of traditional protocols based on standards mainly used for field (low) crops and the necessity to adapt experimental settings as well as data post processing.