Dusting

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bigbluegrass

bigbluegrass

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No, I am not talking about cleaning up around the house.

I have a small orchard. The trees are getting too tall for me to reach the top of and dust with seven or other powders. I tried mixing the dust with water in the sprayer and that made a huge mess, plugged up the sprayer and in general didn't work. How do you sprinkle dust on trees when they get 10'+ tall? I have a backpack sprayer that I can spray liquid with, but I don't have a good way to get powder on the upper leaves. I searched online for a "duster" and that just brings up cleaning supplies. I tried "powder applicator" and found some options but nothing with very good reviews. There was this deal, which could work but is quite a bit more than I want to spend: https://www.spraytech.uk.com/econoduster-299-p.asp

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
if all your needing is 10' then a basket on a front end loader would be the simplest . next would be a funnel mounted on the lower end of a leaf blower tube so you could dump the dust in and the air would pull it in and blow it out . would also need a good respirator and suit
 
Thanks M-5! The modified leaf blower is probably what I will do. That is just the idea I was looking for. I do have a front end loader and might try something attached to the bucket. The orchard is on a very slight hill. I am not sure if I can run the bucket up past the top branches without it getting light on one side or the other.

I did some searches for "orchard duster" and mostly what I found was either too small or too big.

I hear you on the respirator and suit.
 
You could use liquid sevin with your backpack sprayer. It'll get up there way higher than 10 ft. Just need to stay downwind of it. I like using permethrin rather than sevin on fruit trees. Only thing I dust with sevin anymore is tomatoes and potatoes with a handheld duster.
 
I have a dusting of snow on the fruit trees this morning. Does that count? I have three old full size trees in my yard. Probably well over 30 feet tall. No way to dust or spray the top limbs. Would just doing the lower branches work. Don't pick the fruit from the upper limbs anyway. The deer get to eat it off the ground when it falls.
 
Dave said:
I have a dusting of snow on the fruit trees this morning. Does that count? I have three old full size trees in my yard. Probably well over 30 feet tall. No way to dust or spray the top limbs. Would just doing the lower branches work. Don't pick the fruit from the upper limbs anyway. The deer get to eat it off the ground when it falls.
Click to expand...

Haha :lol:

The problem I was having is the upper limbs I can't reach had some issues and it was affecting the entire tree. One of the problems was the leaves would get little brown spots on them, which grew in size and finally the entire leaf would fall off. That spread to the lower leaves that I could spray and the spray didn't seem effective. I read "microfine sulfur" would help if it is apple scab, which I think it might be. It could also be cedar apple rust, which sulfur should help with also. The stuff I got was a powder, which I wasn't able to get on the tree too well in a water mix. I think it did work to some extent, but I want to get the dust up there.

I did plant a few "standard" trees, which should get 20-30 ft tall. I am starting to think I should have kept with the dwarf and semi-dwarf trees. They don't produce as much, but they sure are easier to work with. I don't know what I will do when the standard trees get taller. Last time I pruned I used the biggest ladder I had (12 ft step ladder, I think), and I couldn't get the top branches that were in the center. Now I have a pole pruner, so that helps with that problem.
 

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