Herbicide basics for food plots

[CentralKyHunter]

So I am probably gonna spray some Cleth odium for the first time next week over a couple acres of oak seedlings.

As stated above the label calls for 6-15 oz per 20 gallons per acre

Any advice on the actual amount of oz's per gallon?!?! That's a broad range !!

 

[Buckly]

I use 16 oz per acre. Use the amount of water your sprayer calibrates for an acre. My sprayer is 25 gallons and will do exactly 1 acre at 4 mph. Make sure to use crop oil with it or you will be disappointed in the results..

 

[Heart shot]

We have a lot of RU resistant marestail in our bean plots. Also tried to do BW this summer and it was overtaken with marestail. We do spray n throw Usually with Gly, but now with the marestail not dying it isn't working as well. What would u recommend we use to kill it all?

 

[Tenured Student]

Great Thread!

 

[Razorback]

We have a lot of RU resistant marestail in our bean plots. Also tried to do BW this summer and it was overtaken with marestail. We do spray n throw Usually with Gly, but now with the marestail not dying it isn't working as well. What would u recommend we use to kill it all?

https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/4364-plan-now-for-good-marestail-control-in-soybeans

 

[Chad23]

What's the most eco friendly? My house and my well reside at the base of a 12 acre plot I'd like to practice some no till plots on. I'm just concerned about contamination. We have three dogs and a small child, not to mention a ton of deer come through here.

 

[Razorback]

What's the most eco friendly? My house and my well reside at the base of a 12 acre plot I'd like to practice some no till plots on. I'm just concerned about contamination. We have three dogs and a small child, not to mention a ton of deer come through here.

I don't think there's any evidence to justify a huge concern about using these chemicals correctly (following the label precisely). Although I did see an article recently about some possible danger from using glyphosate, but I haven't read the article yet. If you're going to no-till just use cover crops for weed suppression. Cereal rye, for example, has a chemical effect on other germinating plants, plus the mulch it makes prevents a lot of seeds from germinating. But, it has to be killed one way or the other (chemically or physically) in order to use as a mulch. Look at notillfarmer.com for quite a few articles about it.

 

[Mitch123]

With the Clesrcast stuff, I've heard of people using it in their alalfla, clover and chicory fields. Since it's the same AI as the Raptor. Curious if anyone here has tried it before with non aquatic species.

 

[skindog1]

With the Clesrcast stuff, I've heard of people using it in their alalfla, clover and chicory fields. Since it's the same AI as the Raptor. Curious if anyone here has tried it before with non aquatic species.

I sprayed it for the first time on my clover 9 days ago to try and control yellow nutsedge. I can't tell it had any effect. Gonna mow it again this coming week, give it another week to see, and then hit it with basagran. I had already taken care of most of the grass with clethodim. Sedges are a PIA!

 

[Mac]

Hi Everyone..first post, some really great info here.
I have a small red and white clover plot that is growing well. It's aprox 10 ft by 200 ft. That is the size you can spray with a two gallon pump up sprayer.
I'm mixing Bonide Grass Beater (sethoxydim) with Butyrac 200 to control the weeds and grass. Results are OK, but I still have assorted weeds, like Joe Pye weed, and grasses that I don't know the name.
Does anyone have a recommendation for more effective chemicals that can be purchased in small quantities ?

 

[Razorback]

Check the labels but I believe those two chemicals are not to be mixed with each other. Doing so reduces their strength. People do it all the time, though, so that may not be your problem. Are you sure the grasses that aren't killed are actually grasses? They may be nutsedge. Raptor/beyond/newpath/pursuit/clearcast will kill sedge and joe pye weed. You can get it in small amounts from Whitetail institute. It's called slay. You have to mix it with crop oil and AMS.

 

[Mac]

Thanks for the response.
Just went to the plot to identify the weeds.
Your guess was correct. I do have sedge growing in places, and some other short thick grasses I haven't identified.
I also have small ravenna grass shooting up. There is a large stand nearby, easy to identify, but I always called it wild pampas grass.
Next year I'll use Slay per your rec.

 

[Mac]

I would like to run my mixture past you guys to be sure I haven't screwed something up.
This is for a 2 gallon pump-up sprayer that covers 0.1 acre of 3yr old red clover.
0.4 oz Slay
1 oz GrassOut ( 26.4% Cleth )
0.8 oz Sure-Fire crop oil
At what point of growth, or date, do you think I should do the first spraying?

 

[Razorback]

I would like to run my mixture past you guys to be sure I haven't screwed something up.
This is for a 2 gallon pump-up sprayer that covers 0.1 acre of 3yr old red clover.
0.4 oz Slay
1 oz GrassOut ( 26.4% Cleth )
0.8 oz Sure-Fire crop oil
At what point of growth, or date, do you think I should do the first spraying?

It depends on what weeds youre targeting. If the grass you’re wanting to look is a cool season grass, you can spray the Cleth any day the temp is over 50 degrees or so. The warner the better. I assume you’re talking about warm season grass and broadleaf weeds. Regardless, weeds need to be fairly small and growing actively. Warm season broadleaf weeds somewhere around June here in the mid south. Check the slay label but most weeds need to be 4” or less. A field of 4” weeds looks to me like they’re smaller than 4” so don’t wait too long. Also, if you’re mixing the slay and cleth, do it in the order shown on the labels. Both of those take a while (>10 days) to show any signs they are working so be patient.

 

[Mac]

Thanks for all your advice Razorback. You're right, 4" is tough, especially when you have many different kinds of weeds, germinating at different times, but I have a better understanding of how to mix and apply the chemicals,

This is definitely a work in progress and I'll see how it looks late summer.

 

[Brushpile]

What do you recommend for Canadian Thistle that comes up in clover and alfalfa?

 

[Razorback]

What do you recommend for Canadian Thistle that comes up in clover and alfalfa?

I don’t have it in our plots, luckily, but Basagran is supposed to control it.

 

[Mitch123]

What do you recommend for Canadian Thistle that comes up in clover and alfalfa?

Have had good success with Butyrac when you get on them early. It is a broadleaf spray that we always use in our clover plots.

 

[Hunter63]

I am new to the game. Is there a formula to figure out how much herbicide to use per gallon of water? I see so many ozs. per acre. But have no clue how much to add to my 15 gallon tank.

 

[j-bird]

I am new to the game. Is there a formula to figure out how much herbicide to use per gallon of water? I see so many ozs. per acre. But have no clue how much to add to my 15 gallon tank.

Do you know how much area your sprayer will cover with only a gallon of water or a full tank of water?

if your looking at the oz applied per acre....you will have to find out some things first, if you don't know.

I will warn you, I am an Engineer, but I am also a practical guy with simple means....

Install your sprayer on your vehicle of choice. Put some water in it and see how wide a spray pattern it covers at a particular pressure setting. The pressure setting makes a difference (so you will need to record that). Measure that distance in feet (round down).

Next empty your tank and only put a gallon of water in it. You are going to need to drive at a constant and proper (for spraying, the driver and equipment) speed and measure in feet how far you travel. You will want to record that as well. Either in mph or gear setting and engine rpm or the like. What we need to do is measure how far (in feet) the vehicle travels while dispersing the entire gallon of water.

After that...it's just math. Say you spray width is 6 feet and you travel 300 feet to spray the 1 gallon of water. This tells me that your "rig" will cover 1,800 square feet with 1 gallon of water (6 x 300). This means that a full tank of 15 gallons will cover 27,000 square feet (1,800 x 15). An acre is 43,560 square feet. So....we take your 27,000 and divide it by 43,560 and your sprayer will cover .62 acres at that speed. I would simply round that to .6 just to make the math easier. So if my chemical tells me that I need to apply 18 oz an acre....and I know my sprayer only covers 6/10 an acre.....then I know I only need to add 10.8 oz of chemical into my sprayer (.6 x 18)! So I add 11 oz of chemical - if I can determine to that accuracy.

Now....this is where the psi and the speed accuracy all come into play... The more consistent you can replicate the setting in which we collected our data the more consistent your application will be as well. The pressure and travel speed all have a big impact on the area you cover and thus the amount of chemical applied.... so once you find the best settings for you....try to stick with them.

If you can tell me how wide your sprayer covers and how far you travel to dispense 1 gallon of water thru the sprayer we can certainly make you a chart if needed.