Soil drench quantity per tree

[Timbogrow]

Reason I ask is I'm going to make a trailer for a 50 or so gallon tank I can tow behind the lawnmower and use to do soil drenches of liquid fertilizer. I was thinking a gallon/tree would be ok for now. After testing the 15gallon spray trailer im sure this will save me time and effort. I was contemplating getting the 4 gal battery powered backpack sprayer and it was the same price (100$) as a 15gal tank with pump and 15' sprayer hose and wand so I went with the larger. Had an extra car battery to run the pump so I got a battery box from wallmart for 12$. The 4gal sprayer isnt large enough for my property without filling it several times and backpacking it around in the dark. Here's the spray trailer, worked super good! Added a hole in the lid, a small section of garden hose, pre-filter, and a quick connect so I don't have to stand holding the hose.

[Daintree]

First of all, nifty and resourceful contraption!
As far as quantities, I would hope that whatever product you are using, be it fertilizer, insect control, etc gives you some sort of guidelines.

Carolyn

[Timbogrow]

I should have said I am planning on using fish emulsions. The 5-1-1 and the 0-10-10 plus whatever other organics to feed the soil microbes. I had tried the hose end sprayers but they clog with emulsions.

[Timbogrow]

First of all, nifty and resourceful contraption!
As far as quantities, I would hope that whatever product you are using, be it fertilizer, insect control, etc gives you some sort of guidelines.

Carolyn

Thank you! Yea the neem, micros and foliar sprays give a ratio and that's probably impossible to mess up applying......I suppose what I'm trying to ask is if a gallon or 2 per fruit tree planted in the ground sufficient? I may need to upside the tank to 100gal and get pneumatic trailer tires and a small axle. So I don't sink in the sandy soil.

[shot]

I do this with sf nematodes.In the evening with enough H2O to get them on damp soil surface they even kill fire ants!

[Timbogrow]

I do this with sf nematodes.In the evening with enough H2O to get them on damp soil surface they even kill fire ants!

Wow, impressive little buggers!

[spaugh]

1 gallon of fertilizer is not really doing a whole lot for a large tree.   

[Timbogrow]

1 gallon of fertilizer is not really doing a whole lot for a large tree.

How many gallons would you think? Most of my trees here are about 6-7' tall/wide with some larger and smaller trees.

[spaugh]

It depends how strong you are mixing it.  But if it is at the suggested rate you probably want at least 5 gallons.

If you want to do it the easy way, you can set up a mazzei injector on your sprinkler system.  Thats what I do.  Put a few pounds of dry water soluable fertilizer in a 5 gallon bucket, add water, and feed it to hundreds of trees at once while I stand around and have a beer. 

[Timbogrow]

It depends how strong you are mixing it.  But if it is at the suggested rate you probably want at least 5 gallons.

If you want to do it the easy way, you can set up a mazzei injector on your sprinkler system.  Thats what I do.  Put a few pounds of dry water soluable fertilizer in a 5 gallon bucket, add water, and feed it to hundreds of trees at once while I stand around and have a beer.

That's sounds better than driving around with a trailer! Thanks Spaugh!

[spaugh]

Bro I am going to do a youtube video and show my mazzei later today.  Ill post something here in a bit. 

Those trailers with the tank and pump setup me and the neighbors use to spray weed spray along the road here.  We have a mile of private road to keep up and my neighbor has a quad and a tank like that and we use glyphosate in it. 

[Timbogrow]

That would very cool to see! Thanks for sharing. I just put foliar spray stuff in there like neem & micros. I tend to keep things a little weedy without glysophate.

[spaugh]

Ill go do a video in a bit. 

If you buy a mazzei, get the real mazzei brand.  They have knock offs on amazon for like 5X cheaper but they dont work as well.  And also make sure to buy the correct size for your flow rate.  They have a chart to guide you on getting the right size. 

[Timbogrow]

I'm going to have to re-plumb everything but in the end it will be easier to maintain. I have zones all over the place throughout the 3 acres. Some are on the sprinkler system converted to drip and some are on just drip. I just need to plumb all the zones from 1 spot so I can use 1 injector for all the zones and buy some 1" mainline and plumb out from my well point.

[spaugh]

Trust me, I have so many different zone and valves and pumps and crap. Its annoying.  I have 3 different main points and 3 injectors.  Each spot has 3 or 4 valves on an injector.  It would be better to have them all on one, it just didnt work out that way here.  If you have 3 acres though for sure an injector is a good thing to have.  You need an easy way to fertilize if you use liquid ferts.

We also keep chickens and toss fresh poop out under the trees and use dry store bought fertilizer that gets spread by hand but if I want a quick shot of fertilizer, the injector is the way.  You can run fish emulsion, seaweed etc or water soluable inorganics like Jacks.  Ive got an old bag of jacks laying around Im going to inject it here shortly when it cools down a bit. 

[Timbogrow]

Yea it probably would be cheaper and less effort to just get a few injectors instead of re-plumbing and the back breaking trenching. I've been using this coop-poop brand fert with azomite, iron plus and black cow on most everything in the ground. The dragonfruit just got triple super phosphate and sulfur of potash with black cow and sunniland iron plus. They were starting to get a little sunburnt so I modified the trellises with more Sable palm leaves. Works really good.

[spaugh]

Ok I did the video, it's uploading.  Here's a picture of the plumbing.  1.5" mainline and 1" injector hanging off it.  You can see the valve arraignment.  I put arrows on the mainline also so you can see which way it flows. 

[spaugh]

Here's the video

https://youtu.be/1i74bRYE0WI

[Timbogrow]

That is real slick, I like that. If I just extend my dripline zones from the hose end over to the well point I could have 1 injector. Then there's just the few plants converted from pop up sprinklers to figure out. I'll just draw it out from my property survey to come up with a good plan.

[JCorte]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for sharing the video.  Just showed it to Scott to see if it's something we could incorporate.  We have 70 valves and he thinks that it would be challenging to set that up on each valve the way the current irrigation is set up.  He said some of the runs are really long.  We have about 3,000 trees that are still alive.

Janet

[spaugh]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for sharing the video.  Just showed it to Scott to see if it's something we could incorporate.  We have 70 valves and he thinks that it would be challenging to set that up on each valve the way the current irrigation is set up.  He said some of the runs are really long.  We have about 3,000 trees that are still alive.

Janet

If you are just using the water for irrigation (not drinking) then you could put the injector at the water meter or well head.  Basically you just put it upstream of all the valves.  I can talk to him about it whenever i see you guys again if its something you want to do. 

[JCorte]

Sounds good, plan on visiting next month.

Janet

[shot]

I have direct injection for the whole grove but i don't use it for nitrogen fertilizer as my mixed grove would be huge mistake for some fruit bearing trees even to much phosphorus and potassium fertilizer would be a no no.I have injected nematodes sf through the whole grove but your  orifice diameter should be close to 45 thousands or better.

[Timbogrow]

I have direct injection for the whole grove but i don't use it for nitrogen fertilizer as my mixed grove would be huge mistake for some fruit bearing trees even to much phosphorus and potassium fertilizer would be a no no.I have injected nematodes sf through the whole grove but your  orifice diameter should be close to 45 thousands or better.

I was wondering how bad some of these fertilizers clog the emitters. I've been running straight well water through mine and they still work all the way up to when I enlarge the rings from the growth they put on. I'm sure if I run fish emulsion through there they might get fouled up with gunk. Maybe I'll stick to what I've been doing. The trees look happy with what they get, it just becomes obsessive pleasing them 😆.

[nattyfroootz]

I've been considering setting up a mezzei system but I have like 3 separate zones that can't quite be hooked up. Thinking of getting a mobile dosatron-mixrite situation with a mobile 50-100g tank.  I've got a 320 that I use to fertilize my potted plants with fish and kelp but would love to get fertigation going in my orchard, seems like itll help step things up big time. I'm thinking my microsprinklers should be able to handle the gunk. Anyone use a dosatron or mixrite?