Is there a rule of thumb about how many gallon to spray a fruit tree?

General Fruit Growing
#21

Any suggestions of the “next step up” from a hand-pump sprayer for a small orchard? I was going to post a new thread, but this thread mentioned use of a 4-gallon electric sprayer? Any thoughts of that being an improvement over a 3-gallon hand-pump sprayer? With the hand pump, I can pump it up enough to loft a course spray into the upper branches of my tallest trees.

I have over 20 trees in varying stages of maturity and growth on 1/3 acre.

My last spray application, however, I mixed 18 gallons of spray, with different agents applied to different trees (I used Captan in my “tank mix” for scab resistant apple varieties, myclobutinal this year to rotate with Captan where I am fighting scab).

It took me 4 hours in the orchard to mix and apply that much spray, and that doesn’t include the prep time to carry the water out there and get into my PPE and then put everything away, take off the PPE outdoors and then jump in the shower.

I have a gas-engine sprayer with, don’t know, a 50-gallon plastic tank that I think I can tow behind a garden tractor I can get into the orchard. It needs a new accumulator to smooth out the pressure pulses and my local farm tractor and equipment dealer wasn’t much help so I guess I will search online. I inherited this from my Dad who operated a 200-tree cherry orchard and towed it between the rows with a utility tractor, but the orchard I planted is as I said much smaller.

Is there anything intermediate in size and capability, or is my best bet to get Dad’s orchard sprayer going? I had already changed the leather-cup piston on it and followed the instructions for long-term storage by running the pump and feeding in anti-freeze mixture. I think I need to fix or replace the accumulator because the gauge and the spray hose are pulsing with large pressure pulses that I think this unit needs to smooth out – should I check with a well-pump supply place for help with the accumulator. But because of the large size of the tank to mix smaller batches of spray, the hose itself is long enough that I think it hold at least a half gallon?

I can get a garden hose out to the orchard and I think I have enough well pressure to loft spray into the upper branches. Is one of those fertilizer sprayers for the garden hose something to consider? Some of the garden-center insecticide products come as concentrate in such a sprayer. I thought the garden-hose sprayer type arrangement is a little wasteful of spray, and for the four hours of sweat with the hand pump, I get the spray exactly where I want it.

Oh, and on the topic of how much to spray, the agents sold in commercial quantities are all in pounds per acre, but the agents sold at garden centers are all labelled by dilution ratio, which is easy to follow using measuring cups and gallon water jugs, and by “apply to the point of runoff” or whatever is instructed on the label. With the pump sprayer, I do worry if I had “missed a spot” or an entire limb of fruit. For herbicide use (with a different tank!), I use Spray Tracer Red to see if the weed I am treating got sprayed, but I am not inclined to use this vegetable dye in the orchard.

#22

I never used the hand pump one myself, only the electric one. According to my husband, the difference between hand pump and battery operated one is like night and day.

Right now, I have this 4 gallon one from Home Depot. https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-ONE-18-Volt-Lithium-Ion-Cordless-4-Gal-Backpack-Chemical-Sprayer-2-0Ah-Battery-and-Charger-Included-P2840/303585241
Before this, I had a 15 gallon one from tractor supply:
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/workhorse-sprayers-15-gallon-economy-spot-sprayer?solr=1&cm_vc=-10005&st=15%20gallon%20sprayer

The 15 gallon one is too big, hard to move around. so when it quit working I got the 4 gallon one.

You suppose to carry the 4 gallon one on your back, if you are strong enough to do that, spraying should be really easy.
but it’s too heavy for me, so I have to use a garden cart to drag it around.

I Remember it took a long time for my husband to spray the few tree we had at time using hand pump, time was greatly reduced after I got him the 15 gallon electric one.

I would recommend to anyone to get an electric one.

#23

I use a Fimco 30-gal outfit I bought at Fleet-Farm some years ago. It’s kind of like this:

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https://www.fimcoindustries.com/sprayers/pro-series-sprayers/pid91/fimco-25-pro-series-spot-sprayer-2-2-gpm/

I strapped the tank to a dolly with ratchet webbing along with a gel-cell 12v battery. I can barely move the whole contraption through my backyard with a mix of 20 gallons. This is about enough for 20 dwarf trees. It takes me nearly an hour to apply the mix and another hour of goofing around getting ready and cleaning up.

In my mind Fimco is for gentlemen farmers. Industrial-scale operations will have other ideas and other sources in addition to Fimco. You can get parts, and you should have an extra pressure switch and pump-valve innards on hand. What Fimco does not disclose on their Web site is that agitator kits cost extra, but you may find all this stuff in stock at your local gentlemen farmers’ discount outlet.

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#24

Solo 451 fogger or equivalent is way more efficient than any sprayer.

#25

This is the sprayer we built for your 300 tree orchard. We use a small gas engine and a roller pump that we got from Farm and Fleet. We have different size trees from full size to dwarf. It takes us about 3 hours to spray all of them.

IMG_20150502_165310773_HDR
IMG_20150502_165310773_HDR2952×5248 4 MB

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#26

I’d use your tow behind sprayer, since you already have it. I don’t know if the accumulator is “built in” the pump. If it is, then you may not be able to find it.

However, even if it is built in, you can add an accumulator externally. I wasn’t satisfied with the accumulator which came with my airblast sprayer because it was plumbed “after” the pressure regulator, which forced the regulator to bounce and caused the pressure imbalance to slowly eat the stainless steel piston of the regulator.

So I made one out of a piece of 4" stainless steel pipe and plumbed it before the pressure regulator. I also made one for the suction side. They are easy to make. All I did was weld some stainless plate on one end of the pipe and weld a piece of stainless plate with a stainless pipe fitting on the other end to plumb it into the piping system.

Screw a brass barbed fitting into the accumulator, clamp some good hose on the fitting, and away you go. Just make sure you hang the accumulator upside down, and preferably higher on the tank, so you can drain the water out of it, as it will very slowly water log under pressure. It’s not a bad idea to use a Tee for the stainless fitting you weld into the bottom of the accumulator, so you can put a stainless or brass plug for drainage.

If you can weld, or have a friend who has a welder, all you are out (cost wise) is the short piece of pipe, a small amount of stainless plate, stainless welding rod, some hose and fittings. I used something like a piece 16 inches long for each accumulator. If your pump is only a one piston pump, you wouldn’t need a 4 inch diameter pipe. You could probably use a piece of 2 inch pipe.

I also have one of those Fimco pull behind sprayers. They are OK, but the pressure isn’t that great. The biggest problem with them is that they will not tolerate oils. I got tired of replacing the seals on the little electric pump because oils would eat the seals. So I eventually bought an electric pump with nitrile seals for it.