Best spray nozzle?

General Fruit Growing
#1

Is there a gold standard of sprayer nozzle out there?

I think I need to upgrade the nozzle that came with my sprayer. I use the adjustable nozzle and I have a hard time getting and keeping a fine mist coming out. Sometimes it comes out as an incomplete cone, other times it comes out so “thickly” that the spray liquid ends up running off the leaves in big drops. I can’t get it to continuously come out in a very fine mist.

I’d love to hear about you favorite nozzle type.

Thanks!

#2

Make sure filter is clean, it might work better. usually in the handle, you may need Teflon tape to seal it again.

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#3

Along with the filter it doesn’t hurt to take it all apart and inspect. Also some nozzles go from too thick to too thin with very little twisting on the adjuster, so try turning it in smaller increments.

At some point I bought a bunch of different nozzles to try out but there was no advantage over the cheap plastic adjustable one that came with my Solo sprayer.

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#4

Mine has a brass nozzle and I really like it. The simple gallon sprayer is 4 years old and works perfect still.

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#5

@Bart

What kind of sprayer are you using ?

If it is one of those that you hand pump up the pressure they "fizzle " out pretty quickly as the pressure drops.

The lower the pressure the larger the drops until… no drops at all.

If you are using a power sprayer then clogs are the blame more times than not, hence the filters.

Mike

#6

Solo 4-gallon backpack sprayer.

#7

@Bart

I would say that either

  1. you have a leak releasing the pressure or
  2. you are not pumping it up enough to keep the pressure in the tank high enough or
  3. a clog (usually in the spray tip) from a grain of something that fell into the tank or some chemical precipitate that came out of solution or some not fully broken down Wetable or Flowable Powder or
  4. I just don’t know.

Mike

1 Like
#8

Thanks folks.

Does everyone use the adjustable nozzle tip that can produce a thick jet and also a fine mist?

My secondary goal to trouble free spraying is “economy of spraying” aka a nozzle that delivers the least amount of material over a given period of time.

#9

@Bart

You will find that the most economical sprayer or tip is the one that delivers the “right amount of material” rather than one that delivers the “least amount of material” over a given amount of time.:blush:

Mike

3 Likes
#10

Every sprayer I ever had had that tip. As different applications require different spray streams. If I’m spraying fertilizer on the lawn i don’t want a fine mist, or round up either. A fine mist is best for most pesticides, and I coat the heck out of them. It has to be dripping to know you got good coverage.
I just sprayed my trees, and on one I noticed a limb that was buried in my blackberry canes (hidden), and it had leaf curl. I obviously missed it this spring. You don’t want to be stingy with the product.

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#11

One thing I have started to do recently is after every spraying I take off the tip and clean the screen out, and then to rinse I fill the tank and pump-pump-pump hard and see how much water comes out of the sprayer wand (without the tip on it!). You need to learn what a good stream is there, if its not a good one it means you have some internal clogging and you will need to use some soap/soaking/etc to get it clean, or maybe even need to take it apart.

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#12

Just following up on this thread, I bought a replacement plastic Solo nozzle and all my problems were solved.

I’m also using much less spray liquid than I did with the old nozzle. Usually I could just barely finished bring my grapes with 3 gallons but when I switch nozzles I did all my grapes and had plenty of sprayer liquid to spare, and the grapes were probably about 1/3 larger than my previous spraying session.

So the new nozzle allowed me to cover more plant material while using less sprayer material. Win-win!