2,4-D

[chh]

Yeah watch the wife's roses and really watch out if you have a garden. 2,4-D is instant death on tomatoes. Spraying without calibrating is not very smart. IMO Too little spray will have little or no affect and too much may actually kill or stunt the grasses you want to grow.

If your sprayer is new, be sure and get the owners manual. It should have a chart for the nozzle(s) on your sprayer. After you fill it with water and adjust the pressure (20 to 50 psi is a common recommendation, high pressure can atomize the chemical more and cause more wind drift problems)use a container or trash bag(works great for boom busters) to catch the output for a measured time to get your GPM. Check that against the chart. Find a speed on your tractor that will give you at least 12 gallons of water per acre, 15 is the common recomendation for 2,4-D in Oklahoma. The recommended rate for early broadleaf weeds if 1.5 pints per acre. At a 15 GPA spray rate you could do 4 acre on a tank, so you would need 6 pints of 2,4-D. I have used the cheap dishwashing liquid, but I prefer the commercial adjuvant. It is $10.50 a gallon locally and I use 1 quart in a 500 gallon tank. Any more than that and I get too much foam in the tank. Most recommendations also to not spray in winds over 10 mph to help keep wind drift down.

AS an example here are the specs for my setup.
I can adjust to 40 psi at 1500 engine rpms to get a smooth pump flow(and have adequate power for the tractor to pull steadily). At that RPM in seventh gear I get 4 mph(100 feet in 17 seconds). That also give me a rate of 15 GPA coverage(with boombuster nozzles), 500 gallons covers 33 acres x 1.5 pints equals 49.5 pints (6.2 gallons) of 2,4-D per tank.

 

[RonMar]

There should be a spray chart that comes with your sprayer that shows the gallons per 100 SQ/Ft, gallons per 1000 SQ/FT and gallons per acre, per nozzle based on pressure and speed. It should also be on the sprayer/nozzle manufacturers website if they have one. This is also dependent on the nozzle height, and the correct height should be listed with the chart. I spray at the lowest pressure I can to avoid the ultra fine mist and too much drifted overspray. For 2,4-D you just want it to kind of rain down on the broad leaves anyway which will naturally catch more of the falling spray anyway. As an example, on my chart, if I spray at 20PSI and travel at 3 MPH, I will deliver 20 gallons per acre per nozzle, which is a good quantity. It dosn't matter how many nozzles, more just means you will cover the acre quicker at a given speed.

I mix 32 OZ(2 pints) of 2,4-D Amine to 20 gallons of water(8 OZ/5 gal). I have a 25 gallon sprayer so I add 40 OZ to that 25 gallons. IF I travel at 3MPH, 20 gallons, and the 2 pints of 2,4-D it carries will be distributed over an acre. Sprayed on a warm sunny day, this minimum ammount seems to work real well for my situation.

The key, at least for me is to maintain that speed as best I can. I tow my sprayer behind my garden tractor which has a hydrostatic drive unit. because of this, it is not directly coupled to the engine, so the tach is not real good for maintaining speed, and the tractor will speed up going down hill. To help maintain a steady speed when spraying, I added a bycycle speedometer(about $9 at wallmart) which counts the passings of a magnet that I attached to one of the rear wheels. With the wheel diameter loaded into the speedo, it converts the rotation count into MPH.

That 8OZ/5Gal mix is also good for spot spraying, which is what I do close around the house, and how I avoid killing my wifes flowers Just wet the weeds with a little bit of spray(it goes a long way) It also greatly reduces the ammount I put down around the house, as the dog and cats use this area regularly.

 

[AchingBack]

I don't know how practical it is to use dye in a large sprayer, but I find it invaluable when I am using my Solo backpack sprayer. I never have to wonder if I missed a patch or two. I use a blue liquid dye made just for this purpose. I too add liquid dish detergent as a cheap surfactant.

 

[patrick_g]

Ron, What a clever idea. I gotta get a bicycle speedo! That will sure take the guess work out of using a hydrostat!

I just love it when so simple and useful of an idea is shared.

Now, regarding guessing at spray delivery rates...

In general a bad idea. I don't like to spray more chemical than needed and when guessing by glancing at how wet the sprayed area is I have no real way of knowing how much I am putting down.

Also, in general, dish soap does not do as good as a surfactant sold for the purpose of being added to a spray to wet the leaves of plants by reducing the surface tension. I'm not saying it never works but there is a reason the pros buy surfactant instead of Wally World dish soap.

Pat

 

[AchingBack]

Ron, What a clever idea. I gotta get a bicycle speedo! That will sure take the guess work out of using a hydrostat!

I just love it when so simple and useful of an idea is shared.

Now, regarding guessing at spray delivery rates...

In general a bad idea. I don't like to spray more chemical than needed and when guessing by glancing at how wet the sprayed area is I have no real way of knowing how much I am putting down.

Also, in general, dish soap does not do as good as a surfactant sold for the purpose of being added to a spray to wet the leaves of plants by reducing the surface tension. I'm not saying it never works but there is a reason the pros buy surfactant instead of Wally World dish soap.

Pat

The best surfactant I have ever used is Amway's, LOC, a liquid organic concentrate, with a coconut base. One drop on the head of a pin will cause a teaspoon of water to immediately absorb into a piece of cardboard, which is wood, which is vegetation, which weeds are. I don't know how much it cost now, but it was very reasonable back in the 1970's

 

[patrick_g]

The best surfactant I have ever used is Amway's, LOC, a liquid organic concentrate, with a coconut base. One drop on the head of a pin will cause a teaspoon of water to immediately absorb into a piece of cardboard, which is wood, which is vegetation, which weeds are. I don't know how much it cost now, but it was very reasonable back in the 1970's

Uh, interesting progression from a pin head to a plant...

The reason for the surfactant is to lower the surface tension so you can wet the foliage. The plants have a waxy or oily surface in many instances (not at all like highly absorbent cardboard) which causes the droplets in the spray to bead up and not have much surface contact. With the surfactant the droplets spread out over a much greater area and transfer the chemical in the spray into the plant much more effectively.

I remember that pyramid scheme, Amway. There must have been hundreds of thousands if not millions of people with a garage full of Amway products all looking for other people to work under them selling product.

Pat

 

[Bird]

I've always used Weed-B-Gon for broadleaf weeds, but I've heard and read so much about 2,4-D that I bought my first bottle of it recently, mixed 2 oz. per gallon in a little one gallon pump up spray rig and spot sprayed around my yard. It did a real good job of killing weeds; sure wish it hadn't killed the grass at the same time. Maybe (I hope) the grass will recover, but right now it looks as if I'd have been just about as well off to use Round-Up.

 

[chh]

It sounds like you got it a little too heavy there Bird. A poster not long ago mentioned using 2,4-D at a 6 pint per acre rate to kill bermuda grass to put in new sod for baseball fields ect... Soil supposedly deactivates it rather quickly, so unlike Roundup your yard should hopefully recover fairly soon.

 

[patrick_g]

It sounds like you got it a little too heavy there Bird. A poster not long ago mentioned using 2,4-D at a 6 pint per acre rate to kill bermuda grass to put in new sod for baseball fields ect... Soil supposedly deactivates it rather quickly, so unlike Roundup your yard should hopefully recover fairly soon.

You might want to spray less next time. The concentration required to kill broad leaf vegitation is lower than for most grass so you should be able to kill out a lot of weeds without killing a lot of grass.

Pat

 

[Robert_in_NY]

My wife just noted that phenomena the other night

Kinda like the saying "What's the difference between plants and weeds? Weeds grow." I swear you can soak weeds all day with herbicide and they take forever to die... get one microscopic droplet on something you didn't mean to hit and it's dead in an hour.

I am not sure how delicate the flowers that were affected are but it is illegal to spray 2-4D around vineyards here (within a half mile minimum if I recall) as 2-4D can volatize and the vapors can severly damage the vineyard. This could be a similar problem you guys are finding with some flowers.