If you are new to growing fruit trees or bushes, you will have to learn how to protect them from insects. Many people do not like the notion of using pesticides, but it is quite difficult to prevent substantial numbers of bugs descending on your crops without using them.
There are various worries about the use of insecticides ranging from worrying about killing non-harmful pests to poisoning oneself with the insecticide that may remain on the fruit. In the remainder of this piece, we will endeavour to deal with your problems whether they be selfless or selfish.
Firstly, we will dispense with your concerns about poisoning yourself with the pesticide on your fruit. There is virtually no danger of poisoning yourself with modern insecticides, if you follow the directions on the label.
The pesticide will have a short to medium term life in the open air, so that if you spray when you are advised to, it will have dissipated by the time you come to eat the fruit. You should always wash fruit just before eating it anyway.
Hand-held spray guns are easy to fill with the right concentration of insecticide and, usually, water. They are simple to use and you can direct the spray exactly where you would like to. However, this is solely good for use on bushes and dwarf trees. It is not practical to climb trees with one hand clutching a sprayer.
Therefore, if you spray mature fruit trees, you will need to use either a hose pipe or a power spray to dispense the insecticide. In the majority of these systems, you connect a bottle of the pesticide to the end of the hose and the water passing over the top of the bottle sucks up some pesticide.
This is a fairly good system, but is rather haphazard with regards to the concentration of the pesticide mix that you dispense to your fruit trees. These systems work best with a high water pressure, but in some areas water pressure is not constant and so neither is the concentration of pesticide.
Therefore, you have to pay particular attention to the pesticide as you cannot guarantee the water pressure from mains water pipes. Professional growers use power hoses to circumvent this difficulty. The amateur has to use wits in the kind of research into the characteristics of the chemicals, especially if the water pressure varies hugely..
Basically, you will need a pesticide that has a fairly wide tolerance of safety and efficiency. These details will be on the label and so it is crucial to read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. You need to pay attention to the recommendations for your own safety too, because the concentration may rise and fall without notice.
The thing to concentrate on whilst spraying is to cover the whole tree but without spraying any area twice, because that increases the chances of drip. Dripping not only wastes insecticide but it covers the region under the tree killing bugs that may not be harming your tree - collateral damage. This is very hard to do and will take practice.
A couple of last tips. Dripping may also cause the pesticide to be drawn up into the tree by the roots. Be attentive to the direction of the wind, so try to spray on a calm day. Many pesticides are lethal to fish, which is another reason to take the direction of the wind into account.
There are various worries about the use of insecticides ranging from worrying about killing non-harmful pests to poisoning oneself with the insecticide that may remain on the fruit. In the remainder of this piece, we will endeavour to deal with your problems whether they be selfless or selfish.
Firstly, we will dispense with your concerns about poisoning yourself with the pesticide on your fruit. There is virtually no danger of poisoning yourself with modern insecticides, if you follow the directions on the label.
The pesticide will have a short to medium term life in the open air, so that if you spray when you are advised to, it will have dissipated by the time you come to eat the fruit. You should always wash fruit just before eating it anyway.
Hand-held spray guns are easy to fill with the right concentration of insecticide and, usually, water. They are simple to use and you can direct the spray exactly where you would like to. However, this is solely good for use on bushes and dwarf trees. It is not practical to climb trees with one hand clutching a sprayer.
Therefore, if you spray mature fruit trees, you will need to use either a hose pipe or a power spray to dispense the insecticide. In the majority of these systems, you connect a bottle of the pesticide to the end of the hose and the water passing over the top of the bottle sucks up some pesticide.
This is a fairly good system, but is rather haphazard with regards to the concentration of the pesticide mix that you dispense to your fruit trees. These systems work best with a high water pressure, but in some areas water pressure is not constant and so neither is the concentration of pesticide.
Therefore, you have to pay particular attention to the pesticide as you cannot guarantee the water pressure from mains water pipes. Professional growers use power hoses to circumvent this difficulty. The amateur has to use wits in the kind of research into the characteristics of the chemicals, especially if the water pressure varies hugely..
Basically, you will need a pesticide that has a fairly wide tolerance of safety and efficiency. These details will be on the label and so it is crucial to read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter. You need to pay attention to the recommendations for your own safety too, because the concentration may rise and fall without notice.
The thing to concentrate on whilst spraying is to cover the whole tree but without spraying any area twice, because that increases the chances of drip. Dripping not only wastes insecticide but it covers the region under the tree killing bugs that may not be harming your tree - collateral damage. This is very hard to do and will take practice.
A couple of last tips. Dripping may also cause the pesticide to be drawn up into the tree by the roots. Be attentive to the direction of the wind, so try to spray on a calm day. Many pesticides are lethal to fish, which is another reason to take the direction of the wind into account.
About the Author:
Owen Jones, the writer of this article writes on many topics, but is at present involved with home ant infestation problems. If you would like to know more, visit our website at Bugs Infestation.
0 comments
Post a Comment