Help: Country Way 25 gallon / 7 foot sprayer

Rock Crawler · Apr 28, 2018

I ran to Rural King with my son today and we grabbed a Rural King Country Way 12 volt, 25 gallon chemical sprayer.

It has a boom across the rear with 2 nozzles, one at each outer end.

Interestingly, they provide you a pair of unmarked grey nozzles and a pair of unmarked blue nozzles but in the instructions they mention grey, red and white nozzles and provide a chart to refer to that also is based on nozzles that see not supplied in the box.

So I filled it up and tested it for function and verify that we are leak tight. All is well. I then filled to 25 gallons and added 100 oz of Gordon's Trimec Lawn Weed Killer.

So I ran my Rhino at 5 to 7 mph, sprayer pressure at 20psi, used the blue nozzles that appear to be smaller than the included grey, and covered around 200'x120' and the tank was fully depleted.

So I liked almost the full gallon of Trimec and covered maybe 1/6 of the yard.... I bought 3 gallons at Rural King for $22.99 a gallon, I'm thinking that I'll need at least one more gallon.

Am I over applying?
Driving to fast or slow?
It's the product I'm using at least decent?
Any advice is welcome!

Rock Crawler · May 3, 2018

So I sprayed 77,100 square feet or 1.77 acres with 75 gallons of water mixed with 2.5 gallons of Gordon's Trimec.

My oz to gallon was measured to be 4 oz per gallon.

I did not do a science experiment to determine time to cover distance/area and then use buckets to measure volume sprayed over that time. I instead went with the manufacturers instruction od the 4oz per gallon. I know, there are more precise ways of establishing a flow compared to travel speed than mix, spray and hope.

Am I to late to attack crabgrass for this year? As of today, I am not seeing the new growth. But, it may be down there starting. I see that Rural King has a "step one" fertilizer with pre-emergent crabgrass stuff. I was thinking about going and getting that to try. Is there a sprayable crabgrass pre-emergent that is affordable? I used that Trimec lawn weed killer that the licensed RK employee suggested and I liked that it was only $22.99 a gallon and that 3 gallons got me done. Cheap and functional is always good to find?

M5farms · May 3, 2018

calibrating a sprayer is not rocket science I've seen old men with a 3rd grade education figure it down to the row. You will never know what you are applying without calibration .

Dadnatron · May 3, 2018

First, you MUST accurately calibrate your sprayer. There is no option other than to 'give it a shot' and repeat as necessary. However, you WILL end up both wasting money AND inappropriately treating whatever you are working on. Especially a NEW sprayer. You obviously were applying more than you intended and with the 'wrong chemical' you could be killing your lawn to the point that it could take several years for the herbicide to dissipate. Its unlikely given a RK purchased product because they dilute them down from the beginning, but it is not a given.

Second, timing is everything in spraying. Pre-emergents only work if you spray them before things have sprouted. Post-emergents only work 'well' if there is enough weed to kill and not so much weed to overcome the spray.

I've not read of anyone being overly happy with 'spray' fertilizers. I would recommend broadcast granules.