Note: Please criticize anything that I did as I am a newbie at spraying and eager to learn.
Just did my first ever cover spray as part of a preventative disease / pest regiment. Up until now I have only been spraying as an offensive measure - when significant harm has already been done. Big thanks goes out to @Ahmad for taking the time to guide me through the process.
I sprayed all my stone fruit and apples & pears with Malathion and Daconil (Chlorothalonil) with NuFilm as a sticker. Didn’t feel it was too late for stone-fruit because of the cold weather we had the past week or so, I just didn’t see much other insect activity or plum curculio bites.
Not sure if my nose is broken, but Malathion didn’t smell as bad as I was expecting. The concentrate smelled like brass cleaner mixed over ripe melon, but once applied it was pretty minimal. Maybe it gets worse when it dries?
I have some follow up questions for the seasoned back-yard orchard sprayers out there now that I’ve done my first “routine spray”:
How much spray are you using per tree? I found myself using about 1/3rd of a gal for first cover spray of an 8x8 tree
What kind of spray nozzle are you using? I used a fan one but found the droplets too coarse, felt like a lot of it was missing the leaves and fruitlets.
What are you using for PPE? I have an P95 paint & pesticide respirator I’m using, but apparently the cartridges expire after a few months… which seems a bit ridiculous. I also used sunglasses as “eye protection” and some Nitrile gloves.
How are you measuring out the concentrates? I’m thinking of getting a bunch of disposable 10ml or 5ml pipettes (example) and rubber banding one to the side of each bottle so there’s no cross-contamination with anything.
Any other things you wish you had known / done when you first started spraying regularly?
The amount of spray I use varies a lot. For my large cherry trees which are about 12 feet tall and close to 12 feet wide I probably use about a 1/3 to 1/2 a gallon. My mature apple trees are 8-12 feet tall but much narrower and require much less volume. In any case how well the tree is trained, how open it is and how well pruned has a big effect on how much spray you use.
My sprayer is very simple- a 2 gallon pump up sprayer. The sprayer head is adjustable.
PPE varies depending on what the label requires (which is the minimum) and what I feel is appropriate based the label, the SDS, and other information I have about the chemical in question.
I am pretty cautious and wear more PPE than I think most people on the forums do. But I have worked in the chemical industry and worn PPE up to and including level A Hazmat suits. Again I am pretty cautious. For what I spray Daconil, Captan, Immunox and Triazicide I wear the following:
hat
long sleeve shirt
long pants
nitrile rubber gloves
safety glasses or safety goggles
P100 half mask respirator or P100/organic vapor half mask respirator
I also put small garbage bags over my boots and tape them in place
I am not sure about your cartridges expiration date. Are you using a P95/organic vapor cartridge? The organic vapor part has limited capacity and will need replaced periodically. I store my organic vapor cartridges in ziploc bags between uses since over time they can pick up organic material from the air.
I measure out all the materials using a measuring cup set that is dedicated to only being used for fruit tree spraying. Captan is a powder so I can’t use pipets.
As far as other things that help when starting spraying a few things come to mind.
Alan’s low spray schedule is a good place to start and Scott’s spray schedule is good too even if your not an organic spray guy since it has a lot of good info on scouting.
Captan is a good fungicide but you need to adjust your spray water to be acidic.
Try to spray early in the morning if you can generally the wind is calmer first thing in the morning.
You may get various opinions on some of these questions, because some of them have a wide range of answers. I use an airblast to spray at the farm, but also use a wand to spray trees in my backyard.
Mroot offered some good advice, imo. Gallonage per tree can vary widely, depending on how thick the foliage is and how tall the tree is. Also when using a wand to spray, I’ve noticed it takes more spray when it’s windy, vs calm weather.
As long as you get full coverage, it doesn’t really matter how much gallonage you use. The water is just a carrier of the pesticide. Of course a lot of the labels for insecticides/fungicides for homeowners specify mixing rates of the pesticide in terms of amount/gal. Generally they are assuming full coverage and spraying up to the point of run-off. A would guess the amount you are using is close if the tree has been pruned hard. An 8X8 tree is a pretty small tree. I probably use a little more for that size tree, but my wand sprayer sprays pretty coarse sprays.
For my pull behind wand sprayer, I use the adjustable cone sprayer tip. It works well for me because if wind is calm, I can widen the cone and get good penetration and coverage. If it’s windy, I can narrow the spray pattern and spray a more coarse droplet and still get decent coverage without much drift.
Sounds like your PPE is fine for most things. I’m assuming you are wearing the obvious things like long sleeve shirt, shoes plus socks, etc. etc. Most of what I spray doesn’t require a respirator, so I don’t use it much. I agree with mroot that you’ll want to keep your respirator cartridges in a sealed bag. You can tell if you need to replace cartridges. They will become harder to draw air through, or will be able to start to smell the pesticide through the respirator. I change my cartridges when either one of those things happens.
In terms of measuring, I have some designated canning jars I use to measure liquids. They have ounces marked on the outside of the jars. If I need to weigh a small amount of pesticide, I have a little mail scale for that. Just zero out the scale with the jar on it, then you can weigh the pesticide. A canning jar which has a chip out of the top rim works excellent for this, since it can’t be used to can anymore. If you don’t have a jar with a chip, you can take a small file and file a notch on the top rim so it can’t ever be used for canning.
Only thing I’d add is that you should wash your clothes right after spraying, preferably separate from anything else, and ideally not with your home washer. Drying on the line breaks down any residues much better than any dryer, too. This is stuff straight from new Worker Protection Standards videos, btw.
@dimitri_7a You have already got very good responses; here is what I can add:
I use the N-95 mask, Tyvek coverall (includes head/shoe covers), nitrile gloves and safety glasses with side shields.
I usually spray one hour before sunset, together with early morning these are the two times with the least wind.
Read Daconil’s label carefully, you should not spray it on formed stone fruits (I think the label calls for the last spray to be 1-2 weeks after petal fall). Also, not sure if it is labeled for apples. If you want a fungicide to spray on fruits in June/July, I suggest Bonide’s Fruit Tree and Plant Guard (link below), it is a premix of a pyrethroid with two fungicides, good for BR. Alternatively, you can use Bonide’s Infuse, which is just a fungicide, but good for BR too.