Super A . I want to add a sprayer w/boom

• sprayer

Maybe some one could expand on this and correct me if I am wrong.

Rollie

I think the advantages of mowing & spraying together go beyond time savings. For bug spraying, you irritate the little buggers by mowing and zappo with the spray. For weeds, you get a cut that will take it in directly.

Not only that, but if you mow at the same time, you have built in markers!

Good luck - I think this is a worthwhile project. I'm hoping to build a wick-type sprayer this summer. I won't have to worry about drift onto my trees as much then.

Secondly, 2-4-D is a foliar spray and will work much better on a whole leaf than one damaged by mowing. You clippings will prevent a good portion of chemical from actually reaching plant. It's been 40 years since I studied this but as I recall there is only one stage of growth that 2-4-D will actually kill dandelions. I really have never tried to kill dandelions in a lawn, they are kind of like snow in the Carolinas, they only hang around a short while.

I came from and farmed in a jurisdiction where commercial farmers asked for and thought they achived licensing for all chemical applicators. After accepting our proposal the government went ahead and licensed a complete line of diluted chemicals for garden centers to handle, which didn't require licensing. Really all they did was give the garden supply business a license to charge 2000% markup on active ingrediant.

The only time 2-4-D will actually kill the dandelions is in the fall, shortly before a killing frost. I spray then. I also spray mid-summer for the new ones. While it won't kill them, it will set them back enough that I'm without them for the rest of the summer.

Lastly, if you know any farmers that want to lynch me, or turn me over to the EPA, feel free. My email was available in my first response, as it is in this one. I'm easy to track down. I live in the heart of farm country, and in the country myself. By the way, I'm using Tempo Ultra for pest control. Great stuff.

As far as mowing and spraying at the same time - I'm not putting my clippings onto the grass I just cut, it's always into the uncut grass, so, no, the clippings don't smother it.

Also, you get very little leaf cut off the dandelion when you mow, or at least when I do, so most of the spray is still going where it needs to go. What I do get, is the flower cut off, and maybe it's a dumb theory, but I feel a little 2-4-D right down the throat of the beast has to help. I don't know, but it sure works well for me.

I really don't know of any farmers that will be out looking for you. I just tend to get a bit upset when I see someone make a statment that might get construed by envoirmentalists as excessive. I used to tell my neighbor with roundup treated field turning brown, get it plowed under. He would say roundup is the most envoirmental friendly chemical herbacide we've ever used. I said yes you and I know that but do all those folks driving by know that. The public love to hate chemicals, we have to be careful not to give them anymore amunition than what they already dream up.

I used to grow some root vegetables, and some of the most dangerous chemicals I ever dealt with were granular handled by dry applicators. A guy about a mile away always made rude comments to me in public every time he saw my sprayer in the field, yet I think I could have loaned the boxes off my dry applicator to him for seats at his family barbecue. He stopped me once to complain, my spray mix was irritating him. I said, " that is funny I'm only spraying 5 lbs of epsom salts in 100 gallons of water." Epsom salts will make tomatoes, green and yellow beans ripen faster. I truly wish I could have sprayed enough epsom salts on him to turn his verbal diarrhea to the other type.

I perhaps get a bit more worked up on these issues than I should. However my home was in Nova Scotia and there we had the largest crop loss in North American history, That is roadside value of the crop. The pest was the spruce budworm. Envoirmentalists said no to chemicals and a lame duck government gave in. The loss, 40 years employment for 25,000 people. We must be very careful not to give people wrong impressions.

As a young man I remember our fathers generation, who by the way were some of the first farmers to use commercial chemicals on mass. They tended to be of the opinion if a little worked a lot was better. DDT was one in question, it worked so well on barn flies, that second time out dad drowned them with it.

Then there were the guys that chased atrazine resistant weeds with atrazine. Had one guy tell me of using 13 lbs of 80% to the acre. They killed what would still be the most economical weed control in corn. For 25 years I operated a 7 year rotation of 3 years corn and 4 years alfalfa. The only chemical I ever used was atrazine, and I was getting 100% kill of weeds in corn. My atrazine use was not excessive or I couldn't have grown the alfalfa. In fact I was growing more TDN per acre from alfalfa than corn. For those who don't know TDN is total digestable nutrients. Now I realize that wouldn't work with some of the crop rotations today.

I also realize that no till farmers must allow the roundup treated land to turn brown. In the early days of roundup we were tilling and more common sence could have been used. People will accept new technology if it's not thrust on them too quickly. Farmers sometimes have not been the best public relations personell.

This isn't a pasture, or anything, it's my lawn, a few acres, so it gets mowed often. The dandelions never get tall, but often quite wide. I was never sure if my theory actually did any good, but like I said, it's always given me a good kill without using more than the recommended rate. Besides, I still like the idea of using the uncut grass edge as my markers =)

By the way, if my neighbors would work on controlling their dandelions, maybe eventially I could quit spraying mine! LOL

Have a great day!

Most jurisdictions today require you to have a lisence to own and operate a sprayer as well as for buying the chemicals. That one alone could cost you three times as much as sprayer. Old sprayers are the kind of thing most farmers give away today to avoid liability. Not sure how well that clears them if they give it to someone without a lisence.

I am 62 years old and probably sprayed my first chemicals around 1960. In the past 44 years I have sprayed a wide variety of the ag chemicals on the market. I have used chemicals that even minimum exposure of my flesh to the chemical, could be lethal. I was spraying one day and watched my neighbors cat walk across the treated field, the cat didn't make it. A classmate of mine in high school died the victim of cancer. While no one ever pointed a finger, he told me on his death bed, he always had a gut feeling there was a relationship to use of a certain chemical. I have forgotten the exact name of the chemical, but remember at the time it was not a restricted chemical.

At 62 I now wonder if some of the ailments I now suffer from are related to my use of chemicals, or was it tractor fumes, or was it silo gasses, or was it methane and other gasses from livestock, or is it the depletion of oxygen caused from burning fosil fuels, or was it smoking? Who knows, probably a combination of all. I do have a pesticide license which allows me to apply just about any ag chemical going. A number of farmers know this. Can they hire me? The answer is yes if they wish to pay me the going rate for a Corperate Lawyer. If farming would I still use chemicals? Yes it would be a business decission.

From my perspective when it comes to my home and surrounding grounds or as a hobby the answer is NO. Corperate America don't care what these products may be doing to us, all they can read are dollar signs. I hope you can understand where I'm coming from. I certainly hope no one has to suffer ailments I see amoung some of my former farmer colleagues, just because they didn't like clover or dandelions.