ROOTED IN RESEARCH EFFECTIVE BROADLEAF WEED CONTROL WITH NOVEL LAWN CARE APPLICATION EQUIPMENT
By Aaron Patton, PhD
Te lawn care industry has recently shifted to using ride-on sprayer/spreaders (Figure 1) to make fertilizer and pesticide applications to lawn and athletic turf. Tis equipment has provided many benefits to the lawn care industry including: (1) treating large lawns in a shorter time, (2) applying granular and liquid materials simultaneously, (3) applying at consistent speeds throughout the day, (4) reducing water used to mix products, and (5) increasing retention of experienced employees. However, this equipment has a fit for sod farms as well by allowing growers to apply custom applications to smaller fields or sections of a field soon to be harvested. While ride-on sprayers are increasingly popular, their small spray tanks necessitate a low application volume.
Similar to large agriculture sprayers commonly used on sod farms, most ride-on sprayer/spreaders apply liquid in carrier volumes of 10 to 20 gal/ac with nozzles delivering coarse spray droplets to reduce particle drift risk. While low spray carrier volume is common in row crop agriculture and research documents the efficacy of low volume applications of 2,4-D, it is uncommon for lawn, sports, and golf applications as volumes of 43 to 87 gal/ac are more common. Frequently used postemergence broadleaf herbicides recommend that practitioners apply herbicides in carrier volumes of 22 to 218 gal/ac when treating lawns and few herbicide labels include instructions on applications to lawns at lower carrier volumes. As such, our research objective was to evaluate the efficacy of postemergence broadleaf herbicides using new ride-on sprayers at low spray carrier volumes in comparison to traditional application technology and spray carrier volumes.
Figure 1.
Ride-on sprayers are commonly used to treat lawns, but they are a useful piece of equipment for other segments of the turf industry such as sod farms.
For more information about calibrating ride-on sprayers, boom sprayers, and rotary spreaders see the Purdue Publication: Patton, A.J., F. Whitford, D. Weisenberger, G. Hardebeck, and J. Trappe. 2013. Calibrating ride- on pesticide sprayers and fertilizer spreaders: Keys to accurate application. Purdue University Extension Publication. PPP-104. Available at:
https://mdc.itap.purdue.edu/
58 TPI Turf News January/February 2019
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