I would be grateful for some advice about how much spray volume I will need.
I’ve planted about an acre in seedling and B118 apples, about 35-40 trees, interplanted with maybe 30 peaches. The trees are between 4-10 years old; I would estimate the largest are 5-6" diameter and 16-20’ tall. As of last weekend some of the mid-sized trees looked like this (there’s a spiral wrap that popped off the near trunk for scale; they’ve gotten too big for the mouse guard wraps to fit effectively the last few years…):
I’m mostly aiming to grow fruit for cider so I haven’t sprayed at all yet, but the trees are starting to bear and based on what I’m reading I am looking to start spraying dormant oil, surround, and maybe more potent stuff. I live about an hour away and get to the orchard once or twice a month, often in a hurry, so not having to mix twice is a plus.
Reading older topics on this forum, I see posts indicating something like a gallon per tree, which makes me think I want on the order of 50 gallons capacity - does this make sense? I saw a reference to surround at 25-50lb in 100gal/acre, but perhaps this is for larger or denser trees?
We’ve got a couple old Kubotas so a 3pt/PTO rig is an option, or something I could tow behind a lawnmower-type tractor would be OK.
I’d be grateful to hear members’ experience relating to gallons per tree of spray needed, and any particular equipment recommendations for working at this scale - thanks!
I run a 55 gallon tank off of a PTO. Better to have too much than not enough. I had a 30 gallon PTO tank I would fill up twice. Glad I was able to just exchange tank.
When you add 50 more trees you will appreciate the extra capacity.
Cool - that makes it seem that 50gal is overkill for my one acre. PTO rigs don’t go much smaller though, and I don’t love tinkering with rarely-used small engines.
I believe 100 gallons is about right to spray the trees with a hand wand and 15 foot trees, especially if you will be adding more in the future. Lots of PTO sprayers come with a boom and it may be possible to alter the boom so it stays vertical and a high pressure to spray the entire orchard rather than 1 tree at a time with a wand. I saw a vertical boom and a roller pump used on peaches a few years ago and it worked pretty well
I have one of the 15 gallon sprayers that they sell at all of the box stores. I have a small orchard/small trees.
I can spray 23 trees with 8 gallons of spray and they are dripping. Some of them are VERY small though.
I’d guess that these guys are right on with their estimates.
But what I was really going to add as a question… What do I do when I mix too much spray?
The first time I used the sprayer I mixed up the entire 15 gallons. I had half the tank left!!!
To answer my own question. I guess that you just have to spray once and see what happens and then remember how much you need.
I want to thank the folks on this list for the good advice relating to spray equipment.
I ended up buying a 100 gallon Kings 3-point/PTO sprayer from Sprayer Depot (which claimed to be the manufacturer; not sure exactly how that works…)
It turns out that 100 gallons is just about what I need to spray all my trees - approximately 1-1.5 acres, mostly on standard rootstock but not super huge yet. Here’s the unit:
The nicest thing about it is the beefy welded aluminum box frame; it seems at least strong enough. The tank is fine; nothing particularly special about it that I can tell but the drain works and the internal agitator is plenty powerful. Some of the fittings on the plumbing look a bit chintzy (thin-seeming plastic) but if they go bad they won’t be hard to replace. I sprung for the more corrosion-resistant roller pump; not sure what it’s actually made of; doesn’t exactly look like stainless but for the price adder it should be. The hose hanger brackets needs improvement; I will probably make something out of wood to ease hose management. It came with 50’ of heavy yellow high-pressure hose, but that stuff is pretty unwieldy; I bought 100’ of 3/8" ID 300psi pneumatic hose which is much easier to get around the orchard in; if I ever get to spraying nastier chemicals maybe I will need to wory about compatibility with the polyurethane hose, but for now it’s probably OK.
With the 150’ of hose I can set the tractor in the middle of the orchard and reach to all the corners. Earlier this spring I sprayed dormant oil and Kocide; this morning I found a bunch of webworm nests on the trees, and Glen Koehler at the UMaine extension service has been sounding the alarm about fireblight on his email newsletter, so I mixed a hundred gallons with a pound of BT and a gallon of Serenade, and hit it before the wind came up too much. I saw some dead caterpillars at the end of the day, so the BT at least seems to be doing its job.
Then I mixed up 25gal with just the Serenade and hit my grandfather’s blueberry bushes down by the shore; my mom has done them by hand in the past which must have been a lot of work four gallons at a time, but she swears it makes a big difference in terms of the mummy berry fungus:
I need to mow the grass back in the rows and help the younger trees at the bottom with a dose of mulch; that will have to wait for next weekend. There’s a pretty good stand of winter rye coming up in one of the rows:
Nice sprayer!
I was considering a Kings 4-wheel sprayer before I bought mine from the neighbor. They appear to be a good value for the money. As far as the spray hose management, consider adding a hose reel, they make spraying with a long length of hose much, much easier. Especial in early spring when the hose is stiff from the cold. Keep an eye on craigslist you might find a used one cheap.
