useyourbow
A good 3 year old buck
I have a North Star ATV boom less sprayer. How do I know if I am driving to fast or to slow when applying herbicide?
How do you Know?
- Thread starter useyourbow
- Start date
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
Yep, the toughest thing with an ATV sprayer is driving at a constant speed. That is what makes a tractor mounted boom sprayer more accurate. Keep in mind , most herbicide for food plots should be delivered on a per-acre basis. Fill your tank with water and go spray a field trying to drive at as constant of a speed as possible. When the sprayer is empty see how much ground you covered in acres. Lets say given your pressure setting and driving speed you cover 1/2 acre with a tank. Then if the chemical you are spraying call for 2 quarts per acre, fill you tank with water and add 1 quart of chemical and go spray a tank. This should deliver the right amount of chemical. A boomless sprayer still won't have the accuracy even when mounted on a tractor simply because it does not have as even coverage laterally from the sprayer. A boom sprayer mounted on a tractor can deliver a pretty precise amount of chemical.
Best of luck,
Jack
Best of luck,
Jack
bueller
Moderator
If your plots are an acre or less like mine don't stress it. Just spray 1 1/2 qts per acre of 41% gly and call it a day. I use more water than necessary to ensure that I don't run out before the whole field gets sprayed. Once I've covered everything once I go back across the plot perpendicular to my initial spraying until the tank is empty. I've always gotten a great kill doing this. For obvious reasons I don't recommend this method for spraying larger fields.
bueller
Moderator
You must have forgot to include the link...
I go extra on the amount of water, not the gly, so it's really not a "hot" mix. On small plots the time wasted spraying a couple extra gallons of mix is minimal. 1 1/2 qts = 48 oz per acre. For a 1/3 acre plot spray 16 oz of gly, 1/2 acre spray 24 oz. I'd say I probably use about 12 gallons of water per 1/2 acre but if I calibrated and only covered each spot with spray once I would probably only use 6-8 gallons. But I know if I tried I'd run out of mix with a run or two left unsprayed
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Bill
Administrator
useyourbow
A good 3 year old buck
Based on the recommendations here I have been driving to slow. LOL
I have the same sprayer and what I did was measure 10 gallons of water into the sprayer, sit on the atv(so the weight/nozzle height of ATV will be correct), run the sprayer and a stop watch together to find out what the GPH of your sprayer is(not necessarily same as GPH of pump). My Northstar takes 5 minutes to run out 10 gals. Then measure the width of the spray pattern on you driveway(where I tested mine) and then input the figures into this equation http://www.boominator.com/conversion.php . Use 3 ,4 or 5 MPH to see which fall close enough to the amount of gallons you want to put down per acre. The more gallons the slower you can drive and vice versa.
For instance 2 gpm x 5940 =11880
4 mph x 144"= 576 so at 4 mph and 2gpm at 12' spray width you put down 20.6 gals per acre
For instance 2 gpm x 5940 =11880
4 mph x 144"= 576 so at 4 mph and 2gpm at 12' spray width you put down 20.6 gals per acre
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
There is nothing wrong with this method for some chemicals like Gly. The key is getting the right amount of product distributed over the area. This method simply says, "I know my field is X acres and my sprayer holds much more fluid than it delivers over X acres. I'll fill it and apply the correct amount of herbicide to cover X acres. I'll then make a pass around the field and then zig zag around as evenly as I can until the entire sprayer is empty." You just delivered the correct amount of product over X acres. The only problem is that it may not be real evenly distributed. Close is probably good enough for Gly.
However, this might not be the case for other chemicals. Say you are using 2,4 D Amine to deal with a problematic weed in the spring before drilling soybeans. 2,4 D Amine can have a significant impact on soybeans. There are maximum amounts of 2,4,D that can be applied that relate to the minimum delay time before planting beans. There are even planting depth requirements to ensure the beans are not impacted. Here is an example of where you really may want precision in spraying.
I'm not suggesting we should be spraying gly willy-nilly but it has a wider application range with no minimum time after planting.
I would guess that most guys operating at the ATV level would be doing small plots and would not be using as many chemicals that require as much precision as folks operating at a larger scale. However, understanding sprayer calibration, be it boomless atv or boom tractor, is a worthwhile exercise for everyone.
Thanks,
Jack
yoderjac
5 year old buck +
It is for me. Actually, I think gly is one of the safest herbicides out there. I think the greatest danger from gly is using too little, not too much. Gly-resistance is becoming a problem in many places. It is not an issue at my place yet, and I want to keep it that way.
Thanks,
Jack
