Mennoniteman
Well-Known Member
General rule of thumb; surfactants are mixed at 1 cup/25 gallons of water.I was wondering if I can use dish soap instead of crop oil, if so what would be the amount in 15 gal?
I would still use about 1 cup total of your homemade mix (half soap/ half vegetable oil) for 15 gallons of water. Unlike the herbicide ingredient, getting the exact amount of surfactant isn't critical since it's purpose is just to help the spray mix stick to vegetation, a little heavier is better.
Up top I said to make your own homemade surfactant: Mix 2 tbsp of vegetable oil and 2 tbsp of liquid dish soap with 1 gallon of water. While these measurements are a good rule of thumb for smaller tanks and hand pump sprayers, if you extrapolate these numbers it's going to take way to much soap for bigger tanks. In my 150 gallon tank I use 1 cup for every 25 gallons of water as noted above, or, 1.5 quarts for 150 gallons of water. IMO this is the bare minimum of surfactant to use and expect it too work and be effective in getting herbicide to stick to plants, you can go up to twice this rate before you need to worry about damaging plants from too much surfactant.