Which spray tip is best for you?
Our local dealers stock 80 degree TeeJet spray tips. Sizes range from 8001 to 8015. The tips have the company name and size stamped on them.
The standard tip we use is a flat fan, designed to be used on a spray boom because they provide a feathered edge. They also work great banding down one side of a row and then back on the other side; providing just the correct overlap on the plant trunks. Brass tips sell for about $2.25 each.
?Even? tips are also available. They spray just as much water on the edge as in the middle. Even tips are designed to be used alone for banding, when only one trip will be made per row. We have little use for ?Even? tips in this agricultural community, though I do occasionally run into them; regrettably on booms, which is the absolute worst place to find them. They can only provide a double rate or a void.
Reminder: For optimum spray coverage, tips should be 18 to 20 inches apart on a boom and carried 18 to 20 inches above the spray target. The target may be bare soil or 12 inch grass.
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Did you ever try to make a 1 percent solution of something? It is not as difficult as I tried to make it. You just have to get your thinking cap on straight.
If you have a 100 gallon tank and want to make a 1 percent solution; what is 1 percent of 100? One is 1 percent of 100. So add 1 gallon of cherry Kool-Aid to 99 gallons of water. A 5 percent solution is made by adding 5 gallons to 95 gallons.
But what if you need a 1 percent solution of Roundup in 1 gallon of water. What is 1 percent of a gallon? Convert the gallon to fluid ounces (fl oz). A gallon equals 128 fl oz. So what is 1 percent of 128? 128 multiplied by 0.01 equals 1.28 fl oz. Add 1.3 fl oz to a gallon of water. A 5 percent solution would be 128 x .05 = 6.4 fl oz.
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There are several options you should be aware of when you receive complaints on plants you have shipped. Things are not always what you are told. Over my 20 years here, I have had producers tell me many stories.
One story that I have heard more than once from different producers involved an entire load of plants that died. But when the producer pulled a surprise visit a few days later: he may find them on the lot in great condition; or planted on the job site in great shape or he may find them on the landscapers? job site dying with no irrigation or freeze protection.
Before traveling, you can request that they ask their nursery inspector or Extension to inspect the plants, the site and send samples to their diagnostic lab. They will probably trust their lab more than they will trust ours. But lab personnel are unbiased. They report what they find or suspect.
You may choose to have them mail you a plant. I might suggest letting them mail it directly to our lab (saving time and money). It is very difficult to prove that the plants dried out or were over watered enough to kill the roots or even froze. Labs are better at finding insects and disease. We rarely ship pests.
I would not write a credit or refund without documentation. You do not have to make it sound like you doubt them. Explain that this is company policy. That you shipped plants from the same blocks to others and have received no complaints. That you need to know what happened so you can prevent it from ever happening again. Accidents do happen.
I am concerned when they claim most of the plants died and demand a refund. I am not concerned when a customer you have had for 20 years casually remarks that one died as he places another order.
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We discussed last year that it is not wise to collect budwood from a pear with rough scaly bark, because we think that problem can be transmitted through the budwood. I have just had someone bud pears using budwood from stock trees that had fireblight last season. Fireblight can be transmitted. Not good.