Painting trunks white

[Ben.MN/WI]

Has anyone used a small hand pump sprayer to paint the 50/50 white latex paint/water solution on tree trunks? Painting the trunks has pretty much eliminated all SW injury that was really hurting my trees, but it takes forever to take the cages off my trees and paint them with a paint brush. My dad thinks a simple sprayer used for herbicide will work for the diluted white paint, but I think it might be too thick to work. We'll certainly give it a try though and if it works it will save us a few hours of work later this fall, which isn't bad for a $20 sprayer.

Has anyone else found a faster way to paint the trunks?

 

[Bill]

I tried with Purple paint for posting property. I couldn't get it to flow.

If you have a small generator maybe this https://www.harborfreight.com/5-gph-electric-paint-spray-gun-62267.html

Just toss it when your done.

 

[wooduck]

We paint all our young trees and started out with a hand sprayer had to thin the paint a lot and then it did a poor job switched over to an air less sprayer with a generator and fly thru the trees now two people and a pickup and you can easily cover 100 trees in an hour

 

[4wanderingeyes]

I havent painted any of my trees, I guess I should. Do you paint all the way around them? And how high up? What kind of paint do you use? Then can someone tell me exactly why? I think it is because in the spring the sun will heat up a frozen tree on the south side and cause sap to flow, then refreeze and cause the tree to crack, is that correct?

 

[SmallChunk]

That is correct, wandering. It can even happen in the middle of the winter.

I know nothing about paint. Why latex? Why won't white spray paint work? I hated spending the time ripping off the windowscreen, pull back rocks, etc... It worked, and I'm happy about that, but I'm also lazy!

 

[TenPoint]

I used white, interior latex paint. Cheapest I could find. $10/gal at Menards. Mixed it w/ water. 50% water, 50% paint. It went on easy. Paint all the way around the trunk up to 5' high.

 

[j-bird]

Huh.....learned something new. I have seen folks do this, but never knew why.

I would think the latex paint would be less likely to harm your tree from chemicals and would be more "flexible" as well - just my observation of using latex and enamel spray paint over the years. Latex in a can is probably also much cheaper based on volume than a spray can.....and you can thin it with water to make it go even further. Enamel or oil based paints you can't thin with water.

 

[Ben.MN/WI]

On my property in northern Wisconsin I had a tough time keeping my apple trees healthy until I realized they were sickly because of bark cracks on the SW side of the tree. They wouldn't die outright most of the time, but portions of the tree would die and then send up shoots all over the place. Painting that half of the tree trunk white with 50/50 white latex paint/water completely solved that problem. It just gets pretty time consuming and messy to take down each cage to perform that annual task, but it is worth it.

 

[sandbur]

That is correct, wandering. It can even happen in the middle of the winter.

I know nothing about paint. Why latex? Why won't white spray paint work? I hated spending the time ripping off the windowscreen, pull back rocks, etc... It worked, and I'm happy about that, but I'm also lazy!

This may not be the best, but I do not remove the window screen to paint. I just slap some paint on the window screen and call it good. I also have the screen at least 2x and often 4x thick on the south side of the tree. That should provide shade. And leave some weeds on the SW side.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Huh.....learned something new. I have seen folks do this, but never knew why.

I paint my trunks white with a 50/50 mix for an entirely different reason. It provides a physical and chemical barrier to apple borers. Not 100%...but it works decently. Additionally, if I do get a tree with borers the white paint makes discovering the frass they leave behind much easier...and then on on them! So yes, I learned something new as well.

 

[H20fwler]

I haven't painted any of my fruit trees either...I guess I should. Plenty of good reasons listed here to do it.
It will also be a nice day project in the off season here!

 

[4wanderingeyes]

It sounds like a good project for my next trip up.


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