Making lime sulfur for pear trees

How exactly do I make lime sulfur for spraying on pear trees? I have plenty of sulfur powder but that’s it. What exactly do I need to do?

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It’s supposedly a mixture of slaked lime and powdered Sulphur. It’s just supposedly 90% sulphur and 10% slaked lime. Just plain sulphur is the fungicide.

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There are lots of recipes online, probably watch a few YouTubes for starters.

Make sure to be very careful as it is highly caustic.

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And if blue vitriol is added as you boil it, you’ve made Bordeaux… Scott’s right, you can burn your skin.

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What im trying to find out is if the powder sulfur and powder lime need to be boiled or can I just mix the two powders ?

Do you know if I can simply mix the two powders together then add water when needed instead of boiling?

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I had read it had to be prepared by boiling. Some old textbook I read in the 70’s told how to make it. Compared effectiveness of lime-sulfur/Bordeaux/London Purple and Paris Green that had arsenic added. I’m pretty vague on the details, long time ago. :grin:
Edited, you got me interested. Had to go look up some of those. Hard to believe that delicious arsenic… :eyes:, was routinely used on leafy vegetables.

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Yes, especially for the eyes. Don’t skimp on eye protection.

You make it yes. But you need a good procedure from a good reference. I don’t think youtube videos are enough. You also need to understand the safety aspects of making it. Read the safety data sheets (SDS) for the components and the final product. Do you have rubber gloves, safety goggles and a rubber apron? You need those kind of things.

I think in most cases you would be better buying it. If the commercial quantities are too large I would look at one of the alternate sources (non-agricultural) discussed on the forum. Or just go with an alternate fungicide.

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Well …I have plenty of sulfur powder …but Im assuming for pears I need the lime aspect also?

pear trees need sprayed? what if you have disease resistant trees?

You can spray lime sulfur on trees and you can spray sulfur on trees. They can be used for different problems although there is some overlap in what they cover. Usually if you want to spray sulfur you buy a wet able powder usually labelled (WP). It’s made specifically for spraying fruit trees. Lime sulfur is also purchased in a form that is ready for spraying fruit trees.

You can also buy sulfur that is for adjusting soil pH. It’s not a wet able powder and can’t be sprayed on trees.

So may be we should look at what your actual needs are. What disease do you want to control? If we know that we could recommend sulfur or lime sulfur or something else.

Are you currently spraying your trees? Do you have a spray schedule and what do you spray the trees with currently? Knowing these things would help us help you. From your last post it doesn’t seem that you are sure you want lime sulfur instead of sulfur.

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So Ive got all my stone fruits down to a good spray schedule.
I recently got into pears. At the moment I have 2 pears. One is a multi graft with 5 varieties and one is a comice.
The multi had fire blight two years ago and I was able to cut and control it with a suggested spray, can’t remember the specific chemical for that. But for like 2nd cover until harvest the OSU extension suggests like sulfur every 10 days for preventing other fungal infections. I’m in NE Ohio and our summers are very humid and hot.

I think you would be fine with just sulfur. You could add lime sulfur at a later date if you find sulfur isn’t enough.

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I sprayed my pear trees with plain sulfur and oil for pear leaf blister mite and it worked well. I sprayed just after leaf drop (then it rained) and also just before the buds swelled.

For fireblight I sprayed streptomycin twice. During bloom.

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