Mixing herbicides with surfactants

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I'm starting to see the results of the spraying I did early in the year.

The smaller sprayer with the boomless nozzle is batting a very high kill percentage. It has far exceeded my expectations.

The 1000 gallon trailer with booms I rented it getting mixed results. You can have an area completely wiped out then a patch where they huisatche are greening out and trying to come back.

I'm wondering if I do not get the trailer mixed well? It is a ground driven pump so you have to be moving to spray. My small sprayer is pto driven so you can shut the nozzle off and circulate the tank.

Some one mentioned to me they thought there was a process for mixing the water, herbicide, and surfactant. I admit I was just dumping it all in with no rhyme or reason. I looked all over online but have not found any thing.

Next year I am planning to up my rate from 20 GPA to 30 GPA on the boom sprayer. I was also thinking I may need to hook my transfer pump up and circulate the tank for a couple minutes before spraying.

Any ideas or experiences like this?
 
First read the lable, it will tell what, if any wetting agents are needed. Example 80/20, crop oil, ammonia sulfate.
It will also give mixing instructions but most times it will be have so much water then add the product, some products will clabber if mixed wrong.
Second, yes mix well if it doesn't have a good return into the tank moving the water.
This is a good source of info too.
https://www.uaex.edu/publications/MP-44.aspx
 
The surfactant and herbicide label directions I use both say to add the surfactant during the last stage of the mixing procedure. I never questioned why. My tank is 1/3 smaller than your big one, just 330 gallons. PTO driven pump, with a mixing/circulating line on the control valve.
I add 100 gal water to an empty tank, turn on the PTO and switch the valve to recirculate (and leave it circulating until I'm in the area where I want to spray.)
Add my herbicides, continue to add water until about 80% of the total volume I want to mix, then add my surfactant and anti foam if I use it. Continue to recirculate until I think the total volume has been moved thru the system at least 2x and continue to recirculate until I'm out in the spraying area.
I don't know if that's the correct way, but it's how I've always done it.

My ground is so rough, I'm pretty sure the sloshing back and forth does a lot toward keeping the mixture all mixed up too.
 
Why are you going to spray more gallons per acre with the boom? I thought with the boom you could get by with less? Will you ad more surf on the higher volume of water?

On the original question, if filling from a hose, I fill my boomless tank about about 70%, start the tractor to get the recirculating going, add the chemical first, then the surf and wash out the jugs dumping the water in the tank.
When I fill from a pond with a trash pump, I have to stop the pump at the halfway point to add the chemicals then start the tractor then start the pump back up to fill the rest. The high flow of the pump mixes everything pretty good.
 
If your just spraying 2 four D, remedy, grazon, etc. I'd think it'd be hard to mix it wrong. That stuff goes in solution quick. I spray those 3, and have mixed it every way you can, including pouring them chemicals in after the tank was full. I can't recirculate on my sprayer either.
 
Yes I'm spraying GrazonNext.

With the booms I do not get the coverage on the whole plant like my boomless nozzle does. I'm probably in the 90% kill range with the boomless nozzle and the 50% range with the booms. With the boomless nozzle I'm only putting out 12gpa and I was doing 20gpa with the booms.

The boom sprayer is designed more for weeds and small stuff IMO. It killed all that dead. It had a very high kill rate on small stuff. As the plants get larger or more bushy the coverage got worse. Hard to complain for the couple hundred dollars I rent it for vs the $10K to buy it.
 
Brute 23":3bmfusme said:
callmefence":3bmfusme said:
Once I went boomless . I'll never use booms again.

With the big sprayer being ground driven and rented....think you mighta
Spots???

Not following you. Looks like spell check took over.

No that was all me. :dunce:

My point was you think you might have missed some spots with the rented equipment.
 
callmefence":384vf7o7 said:
Brute 23":384vf7o7 said:
callmefence":384vf7o7 said:
Once I went boomless . I'll never use booms again.

With the big sprayer being ground driven and rented....think you mighta
Spots???

Not following you. Looks like spell check took over.

No that was all me. :dunce:

My point was you think you might have missed some spots with the rented equipment.

Got ya.. :) it has a good foam marker system on it. Pretty confident I wouldn't have missed stuff this big.

I can always tell where I missed because it will be a tear dropped shaped area or some thing funny shaped. There will be like 2 bushes on the dead middle. You look at it and think ya I can see missing that. :)

I did consider losing count of how many jugs I put in because I had some one helping me on part of it.
 
Bigfoot":2ov07h8x said:
I can't recirculate on my sprayer either.
Why not BF?It's pretty easy to do and the control valve has been trouble free on mine.
I use one of these, rigged up as the text says.


 
greybeard":zj3yduqu said:
Bigfoot":zj3yduqu said:
I can't recirculate on my sprayer either.
Why not BF?It's pretty easy to do and the control valve has been trouble free on mine.
I use one of these, rigged up as the text says.


Wasn't sure my 4 gpm electric pump was up to the challenge, so I left it off.
 
I don't think you have to circulate the whole volume. Just agitating it would help.

My smaller sprayer has more pump than nozzle so some fluid is always bypassing back in to the tank even while you are spraying. That's how I will set any sprayer I build up going further. It's constantly agitating and mixing.
 
You're right, it doesn't need to circulate the whole volume, just move it around some, just like filling from a hose does.
 

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