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  • From: Scott Smith <scott@cs.jhu.edu>
  • To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] tree row volume
  • Date: Wed, 12 Jan 2011 08:09:15 -0500

Anton, there are so many factors that I think its hard to calculate how much
to spray just based on canopy area. Dormant trees are just sticks and need
less spray than tight cluster which in turn needs less than fully leafed out.
Also different sprays have different spreading ability so need more or less
-- in particular things that can bead up require more spray. And it depends
what needs to be targeted, for example some sprays you don't need to hit the
trunk with but for others its important.

My simple method which is probably what many others do is to remember what it
took the previous year and go from there. If you have not sprayed trees at
all your calculation could be a good initial guess.

The calculation that I find difficult is that many chemicals are rated per
acre so I need to take my small orchard and figure out how much chemical per
gallon to use. I just compute I have .2 acre or whatever of peaches and
remember how many backpack loads it took on that .2 acre and do the math from
that.

Scott

On Jan 11, 2011, at 2:58 PM, anton ptak wrote:

> I'm curious as to how others have approached figuring tree row volume for
> young trees. I'm going to lay out my calculations and would welcome any
> comments or suggestions. Might be helpful for anyone else wanting to
> figure what exactly to do when it comes to spraying (whatever it is) on a
> per tree basis. Winter seems to be a good time for math.
>
> We are entering our 3rd yr and, having not seen much disease or insect
> pressure with the small amount of production we had last year, we won't be
> going nuts on spraying, but wanted to do some preventative measures and
> have some things on hand in case of seeing a problem. Things we're
> planning on doing are: dormant copper for some fungal diseases, micronized
> sulfur for scab, fish for foliar feeding, a few red ball traps for apple
> maggot, and surround for Plum curculio and a the potential for codling
> moth. I'm also curious if anyone else has been faced with a similar
> situation - new planting, low initial pest/disease pressure, and beginning
> a minimal spray program.
>
> As we have a couple hundred 2-3 yr trees on a wide variety of rootstocks,
> seems as though figuring the amount needed per tree and then multiplying
> that would work well. I've noted a couple sources that mentioned a rate of
> 1 gallon per 1000cu.ft of canopy (which would be somewhere around a full
> grown semi-dwarf size tree). I could approximate my tree volume on my 3rd
> yr trees by multiplying 6x6x6 to give 96 cu.ft or let's call it 100 to make
> it simple. so that's 0.1 gal. Since I'm using a backpack sprayer I
> probably won't be as efficient as I could be, so I'll add another 25% and
> call it 0.125 gal or 1 pint. On 200 trees that would be about 25 gallons.
>
> Then there are the grapes and berries to worry about but I think I'll just
> mix an extra 5 gallons or so and see how that does, adjusting if necessary.
>
> Anton Ptak
> zone 4a western WI
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