Steve & Pat,

Hmm. since Cleary's is systemic, I thought it was wise to saturate the
plants. But I'm hearing you say it's not necessary. That would make life a
lot easier.

We have a couple of pump up tank sprayers, both with hose and wand. We've
been meaning to invest in a better one, so now is probably a good time to do
so.

Thanks again!

Diana (pest!)


"Pat Brennan" wrote in message
...
Diana, Just so we are using the same terms, you are not doing a drench
just a spraying. A drench is when you want to get the chemical down to
the roots and requires you saturate the mix with the chemical. With a
spraying you are spraying the leaves with a fine mist just to the point
the chemical starts to run off the leaves. Depending on a lot of things I
would guess I can spray 300 to 500 square feet of orchids with a gallon of
spray. I can drench maybe 30 square feet with a gallon.

Try a sprayer, you will be surprise how fast it goes. It is safer, you
will use much less spray, you will be exposed to the unmixed chemical less
(remember the unmixed chemical is something like 700 times more toxic that
the spray), the mix will be much more accurate(!!!), as Steve points out
you can focus on the plant being sprayed, and you will get better
coverage. The more accurate mix is reason alone not to use the hose end
thing.

I once attended a demo where plants were sprayed with a UV mix with
various sprayers. After the spray dried, a black light was used to show
how well the sprayer covered the plant. The hose end sprayer gave the
worst coverage and used the most spray.

My sprayers of choice are Solo (both pumpup and backpack). Avoid the
cheap ones, they do not make a good spay pattern and are just junk.

Pat

"Steve" wrote in message
...
Diana Kulaga wrote:
Thanks for responding, Pat, as usual. I imagine the hose end device is
less accurate than an actual measure, but when you're doing a drench for
all these plants, isn't it unwieldy to use a gallon pump? I'd be
refilling it constantly, no?...............................

Does your gallon sprayer have a hose and spray wand or is the spray
nozzle attached to the top of the tank? If you have a hose, I think you
should try a batch in your sprayer anyway. I have nearly as many plants
as you, and I spray them with Cleary's in the summer (outside). I use a 3
gallon pump up sprayer which I usually only fill to about 2 gallons. Two
gallons pretty much covers everything. I tend to thoroughly spray the
plants that have a history of fungus problems. The others get sprayed,
but I don't take much care about covering every surface.

Steve