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5 year old buck +
This is more of a rant just to vent, but it may be helpful to some of you. Be careful what chemicals you mix.
Long story, lots of details, but I may as well start from the beginning.
I was a little nervous that my 25 Fimco could have froze over the winter and maybe caused some damage so I put some water in it a few weeks ago and tested it...everything worked. No mice or red squirrel chew damage to anything either...great! The weather was finally starting to cooperate so it was time to prep plots.
At the time, I planned on spraying within a day or so I filled the tank up and added AMS to guard against well water possibly not being compatible with the chemicals. There's been plenty of discussion on adding AMS to your spray water.
Well, health and weather got in the way and I didn't spray as soon as I planned to. Fast forward to Sunday. The weather was iffy all day. We were on the edge of rain but it seemed that it was going to stay to the east, and my plot really needed sprayed, so I took a gamble and decided to spray.
My next decision was what chemical I wanted to use. Originally, I thought I'd just nuke it with gly to prep for sunflowers and cowpeas. But the plot still has a fairly nice bit of clover and I just couldn't bring myself to kill it, so I thought I'd do 2,4DB and cleth. I'd kill the unwanted crap and then overseed with something after I saw the results of the kill.
Time to mix chemicals...
I turned on the bypass so the chemicals would continue to mix as I added them.
Next I mixed crop oil with the AMS water, then the cleth, then 2,4DB (cleth and 2,4DB are compatible but I've never mixed them before). I also added 1 pound of dissolved Borax to help amend my soil to fight Creeping Charlie. Finally, I added spray dye.
Well there was something in that mixture, or my sequence, that didn't work. It created snotters in the tank. I really don't know which chemical didn't mix but I had a mess. The sprayer was clogged and needed drained so I could access the screen...BTW, yet another bitch about Fimco. They put the filter screen in the worst place!
So now I'm scrambling to find enough buckets to drain the tank. I eventually get it drained, cleaned and reassembled.
Now I need to decide what to do with the mix. I didn't want to just dump it so we filtered it twice through panty hose. The 2nd filtering was pouring clean with no sludge. Okay, I'll risk putting it back in the tank.
But by now the wind had picked up considerably. Should I still spray? Or should I risk leaving the mystery mix in the tank overnight and maybe form more snotters? I decided to spray.
Everything went well. The sprayer worked well with no issues.
Exactly 5 minutes after I got done spraying, we got 1/4" of rain. I should have stayed in bed that day.
Lesson...don't mix shit if you don't have to.
Long story, lots of details, but I may as well start from the beginning.
I was a little nervous that my 25 Fimco could have froze over the winter and maybe caused some damage so I put some water in it a few weeks ago and tested it...everything worked. No mice or red squirrel chew damage to anything either...great! The weather was finally starting to cooperate so it was time to prep plots.
At the time, I planned on spraying within a day or so I filled the tank up and added AMS to guard against well water possibly not being compatible with the chemicals. There's been plenty of discussion on adding AMS to your spray water.
Well, health and weather got in the way and I didn't spray as soon as I planned to. Fast forward to Sunday. The weather was iffy all day. We were on the edge of rain but it seemed that it was going to stay to the east, and my plot really needed sprayed, so I took a gamble and decided to spray.
My next decision was what chemical I wanted to use. Originally, I thought I'd just nuke it with gly to prep for sunflowers and cowpeas. But the plot still has a fairly nice bit of clover and I just couldn't bring myself to kill it, so I thought I'd do 2,4DB and cleth. I'd kill the unwanted crap and then overseed with something after I saw the results of the kill.
Time to mix chemicals...
I turned on the bypass so the chemicals would continue to mix as I added them.
Next I mixed crop oil with the AMS water, then the cleth, then 2,4DB (cleth and 2,4DB are compatible but I've never mixed them before). I also added 1 pound of dissolved Borax to help amend my soil to fight Creeping Charlie. Finally, I added spray dye.
Well there was something in that mixture, or my sequence, that didn't work. It created snotters in the tank. I really don't know which chemical didn't mix but I had a mess. The sprayer was clogged and needed drained so I could access the screen...BTW, yet another bitch about Fimco. They put the filter screen in the worst place!
So now I'm scrambling to find enough buckets to drain the tank. I eventually get it drained, cleaned and reassembled.
Now I need to decide what to do with the mix. I didn't want to just dump it so we filtered it twice through panty hose. The 2nd filtering was pouring clean with no sludge. Okay, I'll risk putting it back in the tank.
But by now the wind had picked up considerably. Should I still spray? Or should I risk leaving the mystery mix in the tank overnight and maybe form more snotters? I decided to spray.
Everything went well. The sprayer worked well with no issues.
Exactly 5 minutes after I got done spraying, we got 1/4" of rain. I should have stayed in bed that day.
Lesson...don't mix shit if you don't have to.