Making The Application: Pesticide Applications

Manufacturers of pesticide application equipment recognize that there haven’t been any tremendous product innovations in recent years, but they have noted some definite trends in the equipment contractors are favoring.

LESS IS BETTER. The term lawn care contractor has often been synonymous with massive tanker trucks rumbling through residential neighborhoods as visually subtle as ice cream trucks are quiet. A growing anti-pesticide sentiment on behalf of some of the general public has made many contractors reluctant to use such trucks when they can avoid it, and manufacturers of pesticide application equipment have taken note.

“A lot of contractors want to downsize their tanks and they’re putting the tanks inside of an enclosed truck body to avoid looking like a lawn care company with a 1,200-gallon tanker,” observed Jesse Williams, turf sales manager, Westheffer, Lawrence, Kan.

“I think the expense of these larger units is also part of this trend, along with the challenge of hiring people who have or are able to get the appropriate driver’s license for such a big truck,” added Rhett Clark, president, Gregson-Clark, Le Roy, N.Y.

Williams said sales of enclosed body units, which can incorporate tanks as large as 600 gallons, have been on the rise. “And most contractors still go with a 200-gallon and a 400-gallon split tank system with two gasoline engines and two reels so they have the ability to make two different applications on the same property,” he explained.

Tom Sayward, president, Tuflex Mfg., Pompano Beach, Fla., noted that he’s even seen one Florida company switch over to a van system that uses the customer’s house for source water, pumping that into a source tank and making applications at 4 gallons per 1,000 square feet. “It’s still able to provide large truck service with three injectors in the van for multiple applications, too,” he noted.

Williams added that the 200-gallon tanks with a gasoline engine and an electric pump remain the company’s most popular model because of how well they fit in the back of a pickup truck.

Gary Palmer, president, GNC Pump, Houston, Texas, said that while he too has observed the trend toward smaller tanks, he continues to sell more 300- and 500- gallon units. “More contractors are also going with the fiberglass enclosures that have a draining bed to control spills or leaks and pump the solution right back into the tank,” he noted.

Another approach to minimizing the amount of attention a spray technician draws can be switching over to an electric pump as opposed to a gasoline-driven model. “The electric pumps are definitely quieter, but they don’t offer the same spraying capacity,” commented Williams. “With a gasoline unit, the technician can set the regulator at four to five gallons per minute, but electric pumps are limited to about two gallons per minute. That means you’re out of the tree and shrub business with electric pumps because you just can’t spray as high into the trees as with a gasoline pump.”

Electric pumps can also affect the products a technician is capable of applying. “Electric pumps can’t provide the same type of agitation in the tank that gasoline pumps have, so that means going with more liquid products instead of emulsifiable concentrates or wettable powders,” Williams added. “Basically, going with an electric pump requires rethinking your entire approach to making applications.”

Along the same lines of “less being better,” contractors are constantly seeking a way to apply less product without sacrificing quality of control. One option is the use of spray guns that are connected to two different tanks in the truck and allow the technician to control which solution is applied to various parts of the yard.

“This way, a technician can make a blanket application of fertilizer to the yard and have the ability to spot spray an herbicide on demand, but only in the areas where the herbicide is necessary,” noted Clark.

The two primary methods of doing this are by using a coaxial spray hose that actually combines two hoses in one and leads to a spray gun with two triggers or by using proportioning devices to custom set a mix on a yard-by-yard basis, according to Clark.

“The lawn care market is really starting to mature, and that means a lot of people have had professional lawn care services for a number of years,” he continued. “That generally means there are fewer weed control problems in a lot of these yards and the blanket applications of the herbicide aren’t always necessary.”

The other benefit of such systems is just beginning to become apparent, and that’s the role this equipment can play in recording pesticide application data. “In New York, record keeping is becoming much more critical for contractors, and this type of system lets them know exactly how much of each product they’ve applied to a specific property.”

Sayward pointed out the proportioners offer an alternative to injection systems yet still allow contractors to tailor applications.

“As the water moves through the system, the proportion pumps the product at a proportional rate to the flow,”he explained. “This way, if the technician changes the flow rate, the amount of product that is pumped changes automatically as well.”

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Sayward recognized that such innovations do come at an added cost – add $1,000 to a system’s cost for a proportioner – but he said contractors are opening their eyes to the benefits.

“There are real benefits to be enjoyed in terms of material savings and the fact that the technician isn’t tank mixing all of the time,” he said.

DOING A TREE-MENDOUS JOB. One particular area of pesticide application that has seen some changes in recent years is tree care.

The increased popularity of more targeted delivery systems, driven in part by pesticide manufacturers’ ability to produce products that are more effective than before even when applied at lower rates, has taken some of the liability issues out of tree care.

“This technology presupposes the contractor is working with a product that has a very low level of active ingredient,” explained Chip Doolittle, president, Arbor Systems, Omaha, Neb. “It’s a delivery method that wouldn’t have worked 10 or 20 years ago when we had products applied in substantially higher dosages.”

Although there are varying methods of such controlled tree applications – some methods require drilling small holes in the base of the tree while others incorporate a wedge-shaped tool to deliver the product – the philosophy behind them is the same.

“The difference between these applications and traditional spray applications is that we mainline an injection into the vascular system of the tree in order to use 100 percent of the material within the tree and minimize the amount of material applied,” noted Nate Dodds, general manager and vice president for sales and marketing, J.J. Mauget, Arcadia, Calif. “There are certain situations where topical spray applications aren’t as effective, such as with wood-borne diseases or insects.”

A number of applications of two to four mills, or a fraction of an ounce, are generally made at 6-inch intervals around the base of the tree, and the product is taken up into the tree usually within minutes, according to Dodds. “This is not necessarily a replacement to spraying, and sometimes it can be a little more expensive because of the quality of the pesticide used,” he explained, “but contractors should only have to make one application per year, which can save them money in the long run.”

“Plus, liability can be a big issue with tree spraying,” added Doolittle. “This type of controlled application reduces those problems and allows technicians to make applications during the middle of the day regardless of whether or not people are around.”

Doolittle also noted that he sees such application systems a results of a growing trend driven by the products pesticide manufacturers are producing. “I think we’re going to continue to see products that are targeted for more specific pests and diseases, and we’ll also see more equipment that is friendlier to the environment,” he predicted. “I don’t think we’ll ever see the day when sprayers aren’t used anymore, but I think the days of big sprayers putting product 20 feet up into trees may be coming to an end.”