Sprayer hygiene Spuds and Roundup!!

[puma power]

My first year growing spuds. I finished all cereal herbicides before I started on blight programme but I’m now getting to the time where I’ll be spraying a fair bit of roundup! What’s everyone doing? Currently if I do a proper wash out I will put about 400l of water through everything induction bowl etc then flush. I then do same put add spray and tank cleaner and leave tank wash jets on for about 10mins then flush though lines then clean filters out. I then put some all clear through in case anything has shifted after using tank cleaner. Then two flushes of clean water. Is that enough?

 

[Ivorbiggun]

You don’t need anything but water for cleaning out after roundup. It’s one of the easiest things to get rid off.
Full tank full of water should do it, never had any problem.

 

[deleted user 837354]

My first year growing spuds. I finished all cereal herbicides before I started on blight programme but I’m now getting to the time where I’ll be spraying a fair bit of roundup! What’s everyone doing? Currently if I do a proper wash out I will put about 400l of water through everything induction bowl etc then flush. I then do same put add spray and tank cleaner and leave tank wash jets on for about 10mins then flush though lines then clean filters out. I then put some all clear through in case anything has shifted after using tank cleaner. Then two flushes of clean water. Is that enough?

Can you empty the sprayer out on some fallow or a patch of grass you don't mind 'experimenting with'? Your post makes my neck hair stand on end...

As mentioned above, water alone can rinse glyphosate out, but tank cleaner will help lift off anything else that might be in there as a residue.

 

[Brisel]

Are the spuds for seed? If so, don't use the same sprayer!

You don’t need anything but water for cleaning out after roundup. It’s one of the easiest things to get rid off.
Full tank full of water should do it, never had any problem.

Not in my experience. Dilution will help a lot but won't get it all out. Some Tank Cleaner would be advisable to shift it.

 

[puma power]

No not seed. I just know spuds are very sensitive!!

 

[Bogweevil]

My first year growing spuds. I finished all cereal herbicides before I started on blight programme but I’m now getting to the time where I’ll be spraying a fair bit of roundup! What’s everyone doing? Currently if I do a proper wash out I will put about 400l of water through everything induction bowl etc then flush. I then do same put add spray and tank cleaner and leave tank wash jets on for about 10mins then flush though lines then clean filters out. I then put some all clear through in case anything has shifted after using tank cleaner. Then two flushes of clean water. Is that enough?

In theory glyphosate is a sprout suppressant for stored spuds...don't try this at home.

 

[puma power]

Your post makes my neck hair stand on end...

Why?

 

[chipchap]

You are better to wash out several times with less volume, than to wash out with the same total volume in one or two rinses.
for example a 2000 litre sprayer is better washed out with four 500 litre washes than one wash of 2000 litres.
Also the smaller the volume left in the sprayer when it is “empty” the better.

 

[Breckland Boy]

A standard wash out procedure will be fine.

 

[Colin]

If not seed just usual rinses, we do 4, just water. When we grew seed we would spray the ware first then carrots then seed dilution is the solution to pollution.

 

[Jim75]

3 or 4 x 10% of tank size minimum. Easiest thing to wash out and time consuming but most important part. Used to be spraying roundup and seed potatoes regularly. Some folk don’t use there own sprayer for seed crops or get a contractor in for roundup. Nothing to be afraid of just be thorough

 

[Hindsight]

Not just washing the sprayer take care with spray drift onto a seed crop. See link below.

Glyphosate warning for seed potato growers

One of the riskiest activities in the farming world is spraying glyphosate anywhere near a growing crop of seed potatoes. The consequences of spray drift

www.pressandjournal.co.uk

Having been involved in more than one case of daughter crop failing due to glyphosate contaminated seed - that was in the 1990s and 2000's before the education campaign dealt with the drift.