Captan Spray damage?

I did a first cover spray of my apples, cherries and peaches with bonide fruit tree spray yesterday and within 20 minutes the leaves developed numerous dead spots on the cherries, and the apple leaf ends blackened and curled. I have no idea what went wrong, is there anything I can do to fix it? The nearby plum tree also developed a bunch of brown spots on the leaves, presumably from some spray drift.

First time posting here, seen lots of great advice so hoping someone knows what went wrong. Haven’t sprayed anything else in 2 weeks. It was 65 and cloudy when I sprayed, leaves seemed to dry in about 20 minutes.

image

2 Likes

What rate did you mix the Bonide concentrate? Had you used the sprayer previously, if so what chemicals were used in the sprayer? How did you clean the sprayer after last use/prior to this use. Anything unusual about the water you used to mix the concentrate? It is hard for me to imagine anything that would cause immediate damage other than a herbicide. As far as fixing it my guess is there is nothing you can do but I would spray all of my trees with straight water from a garden hose.

What were your low temperatures over the last four days?

Used 2 Tbs in one gallon. I did do an herbicide spray last week. I rinsed the sprayer with a hose, emptied it, rinsed it again, refilled a third time and pressurized it and let it spray out until empty. I’ll spray them all down with the hose to prevent further damage. The temperatures dipped to the low 30s early this week, but the last 2 days haven’t gone below 40.

Guess I’ll buy a second sprayer in case it was residual herbicide. Don’t want to risk that again.

1 Like

It is odd for the damage to happen so fast but it could be related to how the herbicide mixed with the chemicals. It does seem like that was the problem, though. I would use soap and hot water to clean next time if you want to use the same sprayer. Also be careful of any measuring spoons etc shared between the two.

1 Like

The 2nd sprayer reserved for herbicide is the best setup

(I just got another sprayer to avoid residual insecticide while spraying trees around bloomtime for disease.)

4 Likes

I have separate sprayers for fruit sprays and herbicides. Very easy to confuse them if they look the same, so I painted 1 red to signify that its herbicide and the fruit tree sprayer is not painted, so I dont mix them up.

Id suggest getting a 2nd sprayer just for the fruit trees, and leave the one you have for the herbicides.

3 Likes

I have seen similar damage on peaches from the same product. The trick is to get it to dry very quickly and you should be fine. If it dries slowly you run the risk of burned spots.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I’ve ordered a second sprayer and will be checking my trees daily to see how they do.