Spayer application question

I have about 3.5 acres of food plots. i am going down on saturday to spray all the plots. I am going to pick up an atv sprayer before hand at TSC and wanted to know if how many gallons it will take to do this.

I don't have a water source at the farm so I will need to fill up my tank beforehand and take along some extra water.

Never done this before so any advice/tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!

fishingtiger said:

I have about 3.5 acres of food plots. i am going down on saturday to spray all the plots. I am going to pick up an atv sprayer before hand at TSC and wanted to know if how many gallons it will take to do this.

I don't have a water source at the farm so I will need to fill up my tank beforehand and take along some extra water. Add some liquid dish detergent to help make the chemical stick to the plants.

Never done this before so any advice/tips would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Click to expand...

Not knowing your equipment I cant say how much water you will use. I am sure different models spray at different rates.

I have a Moultrie 25 gallon with a boomless sprayer. I usually try to get a really heavy/complete coverage. I typically use about 50 gallons of water on an acre with mine. You can cover it with less water, I think and still kill lots of growth.

I usually do a 2% mix with glyphosphate which is 1/2 gallon to 25 gallons of water.

Hope this helps.

Well, the ATV sprayer will give you instructions on how to do it. The jug of spray will also tell you the "range" of water that you can apply/acre to get an effective kill.

Glyphosate may give you a range of applying their chemical/acre, like "apply between 10 and 20 gallons of water/acre, along with 1 quart/acre of glyphosate. Read your label.

You need to test your system out, before you get there. Test it out by putting 10 gallons in your tank (of water) and then measure an area in your yard, or road or field. Determine how many square feet you have. There is 43,560 square feet in an acre.

Then, if your ATV does not have a speedometer, then you need to select a gear and rpm that you think you can hold.

If you measure out an area of 5000 square feet and you spray it 4 times and the 10 gallons is gone, you are spraying roughly 20 gallons/acre.

5000 sf x 4 times = 20,000 sf or roughly 1/2 of an acre

My 25 gallon Fimco sprayer, running at 7 mph, will spray 17 gallons/acre, with a pressure of 30 psi. The trick is now to get a "ballpark" on yours. If I was to spray your 3.5 acres, with my sprayer, I would bring 70 gallons with me, to be on the safe size, assuming you have accurately measured your plots.

Tip size, travel speed, psi being sprayed all will play a part in how many gallons/acre your unit will spray.

Good luck ..... not that difficult, but put the time in figuring it out with just water, first and write everything down! LOL

Thanks for the quick responses. This is good to know. Looks like i need to come up with a water source down at the farm.

I don't think you're gonna be able to spray 3.5 acres with a 25 gallon sprayer (without refilling); generally even at a minimum you'll use 10-15 gallons per acre; so you're gonna have to haul extra water with you if there's no place to re-supply.

Here's a recent article from QDMA on calibrating a sprayer:

http://www.qdma.com/articles/how-to-calibrate-a-food-plot-sprayer

As mentioned above, when you get the thing (you know you have to put a good bit of it together yourself, with some "picture" instructions, so buy it & do that before you go) the instruction manual will have a section telling you how to calibrate it.

Also, be aware that a gallon of H20 weighs about 8.3 lbs, so if you fill that thing to 25 (208 # + the rig) you better have a pretty stout ATV (the 1 in your avatar should be more than sufficient, but it's a load for most 4 wheelers), maybe some front end weighting, strap it down (all that weight can break the plastic on the tank) & it's a lot safer to move them empty then fill them on-site.