zxcvbob wrote:
TomYoung wrote:
Hi all:

Three years ago I bought the Bayer Season Long Grub Control.
[snip]
Anybody know what a proper dilution ratio for this product might be?



The bottle should say what strength the product is in the bottle.
[snip]
Find another bottle of the same chemical that's already diluted in a
ready-to-use sprayer, or a concentrate with directions how to mix it.
You can calculate the dilution ratio from that.

For a hose-on application, the dilution rate is not so critical anyway.

Also, the sprayer bottle might tell you how many square feet it covers.
You can figure out a guesstimate just from that info.

Hi Bob:

Thanks for the reply.

I'll admit, I've never understood the whole "covers so many square
feet" and dilution ratio issues. For example, this bottle has 1.47% of
active ingredients, 98.53% inactive. The bottle says it covers 5,000
sq. ft. and it has 32 oz of product in it.

So, I know that each sq. ft. of my lawn needs a dose of 0.0064 oz. of
product (32/5000.)

If I dilute at a gallon of water to an ounce of product and my lawn is
300 sq. ft. then it needs 1.92 ounces of product (.0064 x 300) which
means I spray about 2 gallons of my product/water mixture.

If I dilute at 100 gallons of water to an ounce of product then I need
to spray about 200 gallons of my product/water mixture.

The two things that have always puzzled (because I'm not a green thumb
and have never studied these things) a

1. How does the dilution ratio affect the efficacy of the product?
I'm certain it does; after all, if I spread 2 gallons of water over 300
sq. ft. I'm pretty sure that it would evaporate before ever getting
down to where it needs to work. On the other hand, if I spray 200
gallons over the lawn perhaps the concentration of "active ingredient"
is so small that when it sinks to the activity zone it has no effect.
Hence, your suggestion to find another product with the same active
ingredients?

2. How do I know how many gallons per minute I'm spraying, so I know
how fast to walk over my lawn and when to stop? The instructions that
came with the hose end sprayer doesn't say. Is this a situation where
you need to do a test, like spraying water into a 5-gallon bucket, so
you know your gallons per minute?

Thanks again.