Spray Water Volumes

alomy75

Member
I've had a few farmers say the same to me in the past. They were doing it because they thought the efficacy was better, not because they favoured any particular active over others.

I think more water volume really helps when you are trying to spray weeds out of grassland as you really do need the coverage for them. More water for residual chemistry also makes sense to me but I can't hand on heart say I've seen some massive benefit from where someone has done it.

I would say that you can tend to tell a steady and patient operator from someone in a rush though.
More water = bigger droplets = better penetration and less drift but also more water = more dilution which potentially could mean less efficacy
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
All the trial work that goes into the data on typical cereal fungicide labels (rates etc) is done at 200 litres. Whenever I’ve asked the sponsor it usually boils down to ‘that’s the way they’ve always done it’! Having seen many trials at different water rates but also having my farmer hat on; I spray everything at 150 litres unless I’m making a tank fit. Forwards backwards nozzles are good but interestingly weren’t originally designed to do that; they were meant to face backwards to remove some of the forward speed from the droplets to aid penetration. Don’t forget guardian airs have a slight angle on them. I use the defy forwards backwards nozzle but they’re quite drifty (basically a flat fan). I use them for pre-ems. Guardian air for everything else.
I was told that as trials are often done with a hand held sprayer at walking pace, they already use very small nozzles and small volumes of water. To cut the l/ha rate to 100 in trials would just be impractical.
I don't know anybody that routinely sprays at much more than 120 l/ha and nobody complains about their results.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
I was told that as trials are often done with a hand held sprayer at walking pace, they already use very small nozzles and small volumes of water. To cut the l/ha rate to 100 in trials would just be impractical.
I don't know anybody that routinely sprays at much more than 120 l/ha and nobody complains about their results.

I’m a little confused - your post seems to contradict slightly unless I have mid understood. Small nozzles and small volumes of water….but more than 100l/ha?

I would say anything more than 100l/ha is a fairly large volume of water. As you say more than 120l/ha is uncommon.
 

alomy75

Member
Small nozzles and already small TOTAL volumes of water per plot. If a plot is 12m x 2m that is .0024ha which at 200 l/ha is only 0.48l. Sorry it was a little misleading
You’re quite right; typical plot is 2 x 10m or 2.5 if it’s going to harvest and 3 or 4 reps. Vast majority of mixes go in a 2 litre bottle. We spray most trials with 02 flat fans
 

alomy75

Member
I was told that as trials are often done with a hand held sprayer at walking pace, they already use very small nozzles and small volumes of water. To cut the l/ha rate to 100 in trials would just be impractical.
I don't know anybody that routinely sprays at much more than 120 l/ha and nobody complains about their results.
All beet herbicide trials are sprayed at 100l/ha; just swap the 02’s for 01’s and keep everything else the same
 

DrWazzock

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
They can’t. Trials are to show what’s possible then it’s up to farmers/agronomists/machinery manufacturers to try and achieve it on farm. If it wasn’t like this there would never be any development
Most trial sites I’ve visited are on “boys land.” They want to come down here and try some on the sand and clay and see what the results are like. A good old drought and flag leaf shrivelling in June would soon sort them out.
 

Drillman

Member
Mixed Farmer
Been at 100L/Ha for over 20 years here, massive increse in output once we swapped to it from 200 and solved our water issue as mains pressure here is abysmal.
 

Slant78

Member
Would reducing water to 100l/ha cause any problems by making mixes of herbicides and fungicides etc too hot damaging the crop?
 
Would reducing water to 100l/ha cause any problems by making mixes of herbicides and fungicides etc too hot damaging the crop?

The main risk of reducing water volumes comes from the final concentration of the spray droplets which could be an operator exposure issue if the sprays were nasty enough. In reality no farmer is getting exposed to the spray as he is in the cabin when spraying. Different perhaps for someone with a knapsack or on a quadbike and hence this is why certain actives are not approved for use in these applications.
 

Farmer Roy

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
NSW, Newstralya
Probably been discussed a million times but reviewing again to reduce overheads.
If I go down to 155 litres per ha instead of 200 I only need to visit each block of land once with my 2000 litre tank which is a big saving in time and clat factor.
Is 155 litres per ha adequate for fungicides etc rather than 200. Flat fans, 04, 2 barg, 10 kph.
I find 155 is very good for glyphosate but wonder if it’s enough for T2 fungicide etc.

100 l / ha would be the highest rate I think ive used, mainly for fungicides or contact insecticides when wanting complete coverage

most herbicides - around 50 - 80 l / ha water
 

Flatlander

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lorette Manitoba
I’ve already flushed the spray line settlement out and cleaned the nozzle bodies etc.
My bulk water tank is the one with what looks like salt crystals / fine scale flakes and needs washing out. Borehole water is hard here which is the source of the issue. Underground Rainwater tank is better but soon runs out.
Similar issues here. Our well water is super hard. Fir a few years I had a hard time killing couch grass even with high rates of roundup. Had water tested and dropped the application rate to 5 us gallons or 2o litres an acre and it worked a lot better. Added a water conditioner or 28-0-0 fertilizer and it was night and day difference. Water quality plays a big roll in most chemicals
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Would reducing water to 100l/ha cause any problems by making mixes of herbicides and fungicides etc too hot damaging the crop?
The water is only a carrier, most of it soon evaporates on the leaf surface anyway.
The reason most literature is based on 200l/ha is that they can't get any lower when doing trials work with hand held sprayers.
We almost always use 100l/ha or 120.
 

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