My peach harvest was completely wipe out by brown rot 4-5 years ago, we have been sraying captan dutifully ever since: bud break, petal fall, shuck split, and once after that. We don’t spray anything during the bloom to protect the bees (the bees never visit my peach trees anyway). The brow rot is pretty much under control, I would get a couple peaches with brown rot at harvest.
I just realized this year that my husband has been using only 1/2 of captan as directed on the label: he used 1 1/2 teaspoon per gallon instead of 1 - 1 1/2 table spoon per gallon (don’t ask me how he managed to consistently misread tablespoon as teaspoon for all these years.) So he has been using 1/2 of the lowest recommended dose. But it seemed to be enough.
On the other hand we have been spraying Triazacide for lawn and garden (at the right dose) together with the fungicide, but I have a lot bug damage this year, not sure if it’s PC or OFM.
This year, we have been using daconil instead of captan for the first two spray, could daconil mixed with Triazacide somehow decrease the potency of Triazacide ? This year’s bug problem seems to be worse than before.
Should I use more Triazacide than recommended on the instruction? By how much? I think someone mentioned he used more Triazacide than recommended.
Anyone else has any experience with using less than recommended dose of captan?
Sara, I follow the directions on the bottles. I have triazicide, that I mix with immunox, and a turbo sticker. I spray captan on my apples only as it tends to burn the skin of my plums. I would not recommend becoming my own chemist as it can get you into trouble. Adjust your next spray with the right measurements.
Sara…the person you mentioned spraying Triazicide heavier than recommended was probably me. Mrs.G is right, you should follow the label.
I got little control with Triazicide also, it’s just too weak I think. Thing is, if you look at a commercially available product like Carbaryl (Sevin) and you look at it’s concentration you will see it is somewhere around 100 times more concentrated. Then you do the math and you realize that commercially the applications are many, many times stronger than that which is available OTC when following label directives.
Label directives are driven way, way low by the feds because they have to assume the worst case scenario. Imagine some guy at his house next to a preschool playground spraying a 1-1 ratio of Triazicide with a gasoline powered fogger and drift is totally misting all the children. Then, some time later the guy gives up on spraying and one day while cleaning out the basement he runs all the remaining insecticide right down the drain.
I would never do any of these things and neither would most people. BUT…some would and maybe even find more stupid things to do with it. For this reason they keep label directives and concentration levels in OTC products to an absolute minimum.
As the populace continues to mentally degenerate, the feds are forced to keep lowering concentrations.
Triazicide was reduced several years ago, you cannot buy OTC Sevin 10 anymore (at least here), everything is Sevin 5 now and so on and so on.
You really should follow the label, but the product should provide results otherwise the environmental penalty is taken without any benefit and that too is a problem.
Apple seed,I understand what you are saying. The label wants to be fool proof to the extend that it no longer works.
I am all for following instructions and usually taking a minimalist approach to spray as few times as possible. But in this case, obviously following Triazacide label does not work:-(
Just out of curiousity, how heavy did you get with Triazacide
BTW…there should be no issues with the Chlorothalonil and Triazicide combo. Chlorothalonil I think isn’t supposed to be sprayed after fruit formation, so you might want to switch back to Captan now anyway.
I will mention one more time that Triazicide has a short shelf life and also loses efficacy in high heat conditions. The manufacturer seems to be downplaying the shelf life issue but I have already purchased a container that worked the first season and spraying it directly on pests the next season I am certain it lost the potency to kill.
Alan, I remember seeing you talked about Triazacide loses efficiency before. But the Triazacide I used this year was freshly purchased from Home Depot this season.
Would Triazacide once and done be more potent than the Triazacide for lawn and garden? I used the later.
Well, yes of course it does, but the problem was that I began the practice of very heavy application after I had already had a lot of PC damage so it made quantifying the results of increased concentration difficult. It was at that time I decided a switch to a more powerful product was in order.
Also, one of Triazicides benefits as an OTC spray is that it is seemingly economical. I think you get about 32 gals. of spray at the low rate per bottles at around $9-$10 per.
Increasing the spray concentration very quickly makes it not so economical.
The point Alan has made about shelf life is a good one. I have sprayed many bottles of it, but I had no way of knowing it’s age and of course I would have left over from one season to the next.
Another good point he has made on another thread is about it’s reduced effectiveness in higher temperatures.
I really do think they should post manufacture dates on all insecticides and fungicides. I guess the feds would be afraid of dumping if they were to do that…I dunno.
Sara, compare the concentrations of active ingredient which is Gamma-Cyhalothrin. Everything else is just a carrier usually some type of light oil and whatever else they can fill the bottle with.
Be mindful though that the lawn stuff may use inert ingredients that you don’t want. In the case of Triazicide, I’ve looked at it before and it was the same stuff. What I looked at was a hose end sprayer formula for the lawn and it’s active ingredient was higher since it would be distributed through the sprayer at a lower rate.
I do not trust Triazicide because of a lack of a freshness date and would try it out on a pest where I could verify it is still working. However, my distrust is no proof that freshly purchased material is ever ineffective because of being too old. It does seem strange that some folks here find it quite effective while others state that it flat out didn’t work for them.
If you need to use more than label rates because they’ve lowered doses to the point of being ineffective I would break the law on this one because there are no viable alternatives easily available in reasonable quantities for a small home orchard. I’m just saying what I’d do- not making any recommendation for someone else.
I don’t buy my materials from Home Depot because I’m a commercial sprayer and probably spray close to 5,000 bearing trees every cycle. I purchase my poisons from CPS.
Triazicide is a knockoff of Bayer’s previous line of Cyfluthrin pesticides for consumers. In recent years Bayer has replaced these with higher-end pyrethroid or neonicotinoid products. When growers consult me about pesticides, I urge them to be cognizant of Pesticide Modes of Action and to rotate through a selection of them, choosing products that target pests of interests. The goal is to minimize pest damage without the pests building resistance to an individual mode of action.
And to add a bit of humor – if your pests are of significant size then I’m not advocating you rotate through different rifle designs each month.
It doesn’t surprise me Captan is working at 1/2 rate for you. It redistributes well during rainfall (without completely washing off). Like Daconil (chlorothalonil) it has multiple modes of action. If you are using these things consistently early in the season, you may be reducing the brown rot innoculum enough that it is not able to cause problems closer to harvest (when the fruit is more susc. to brown rot).
I would agree w/ Alan on the Triazicide. Unlike most commercial pyrethroids, Triazicide is packaged in a water base, instead of an oil base. I suspect this may be causing shelf life issues. I suspect some of the Triazicide is degraded right off the shelf because it was stored in a warehouse from last year’s stock.
Among the pesticides I apply, I use a pyrethroid 3 times per year. For this role I’ve chosen Baythroid XL. The total cost of a bottle might appear pricey until you consider the dosage. I use 0.2 fl.oz. per application on 1/4 acre at a cost of $0.61 / application. As mentioned by others, timing is important. My applications of pyrethroids are slated for Feb., June, and Oct., but I wait until a day that signs of the pests appear before application.
I have never seen a study done on the affect of volume of acreage to the speed of development of resistance to pesticides. The gurus tend to speak of this as an issue of equal importance whether you are spraying 100 acres of fruit trees, all the same species, or a small mixed fruit orchard.
My hunch is that if resistance takes 10 years to develop in a monoculture of 100 acres of apple trees, it will take at least a century in a small mixed species orchard.
It is pretty amazing the cost difference in some of these products Richard. I was penciling out some of this stuff the other day. For the pyrethroid I use it runs $8 per acre. Believe it or not, the sticker I’m using costs slightly more per acre than the insecticide.
Compare that to a reduced risk product like Delegate I use closer to harvest. It runs $55 per acre. I try to use reduced risk products as much as possible, but boy they’re expensive.
