Christmas tree farming: How to spray for Aphids/Mites using Ultor and Stihl backpack blower.
Hello rob here from the flanagan Homestead it’s friday night may 28th i’m Loading up the truck I want to talk to you a little bit about What we’re doing tomorrow morning uh Because tomorrow i’ll just be it’ll be Go Time and uh i won’t have time to film it But we’re putting ultor On tomorrow morning at sunrise We’re going to doing this to kill the Aphids i’ll show you some of the damage That is starting to do the to the grand Fir trees The nobles aren’t being affected yet the Nobles have barely got New branches growing out the grand firs Are now four or five inches out and We’re already seeing aphid damage Which the aphids really get after the Grand first more so than My other varieties nobles they affect Some i will need to spray them but That’s not going to be happening In today’s video i can wait till longer And the nordman’s i Pretty much don’t even need to worry About it the normans are so tough Uh fantastic tree and aphids don’t seem To bother them So anyway uh we will be spraying old Tour I get this at valley a from valley egg In chehalis
This is about this is 48 ounces and it’s About 200 Um it’s supposed to be applied at about 12 ounces per acre give or take Depending on your situation We do this in a backpack sprayer i got a Steel sprayer That holds three gallons of water in it Or three gallons of mix And it sprays out i’ve got an on Off switch right here for a flow of Water or Whatever i have in there and uh this has Been great for a small farmer because i Could spray stuff On the trees and i don’t have to have a Tractor with a blower Or anything so we will be applying about Three ounces Uh per tank full because we’ve figured Out the rate that we do there And so i’ll be working up and down the Fields blowing this on the trees And barry will be mixing and then help Me put the pack on this could get heavy Not that i can’t put it on but it’s just He mixes pours it in I put the pack on and go and we actually Get this Job done really quickly um we need to Have a surfactant And you know i was calling the people at Valley egg just to double check and make Sure
I’m doing everything right sometimes you Get lazy after doing it year after year And they said yeah definitely use a Surfactant but avoid the Non-ionic but use the Organic i forget the term i’ll put it in The notes here And we didn’t have any of that actually Here in town i know i have some Surfactant out at the farm And i hope that it’s the right one but That actually helps draw it up The beautiful thing about ultor is it’s Both A contact killer if it hits aphids it’ll Kill it on contact but it’s also Systemic It draws it in to the plant and takes it Down to the root and this will kill the Aphids on the branches and it’ll also Kill root aphids So we don’t have to use any other Chemical other than altor we’ve been Using it Basically since we’ve started the farm 17 years ago When we started having to spray for Aphids We are being encouraged to rotate to Something else so that they don’t build Up a tolerance to it But it’s worked so well for us so Probably next year we’re going to switch To something else
But we’ve been using altor successfully For Well about almost 20 years Okay double checking my notes uh they’re Recommending the surfactant to be a Methylated seed oil or mso surfactant as Opposed to an nis Sometimes i always forget what all these Terms mean but one works better than the Other So they want us to use an mso when using The Old tour This is one of those jobs that you can Definitely do by yourself but it’s so Much faster and so much nicer when other People are there I’m the only person that’s going to be Spraying i have the backpack We have one backpack sprayer and go up And down but You could do a tank full and you know Just a few minutes and it’s about the Same amount of time it takes someone to Mix Up uh some more tour in a bucket have it Ready You get done with a tank he pours it in Puts it back on your back and you get Going so we Can i’m suspecting and i’ll time it and We’ll check it at the end of The video but i’m suspecting that we’ll Do the thousand
Grand furs on that one acre in 20 minutes So you might be asking why are we going Out uh why am i going out so early on Saturday morning Um they recommend that for two things uh There’s with this backpacks player the Droplets are small enough That uh they’ll blow around in the wind And two You want to do it before the bees are Out if you’re spraying on a bunch of Bees and Other insects that you don’t want killed You can cause some problems so you Minimize the damage to other things if You get up there get out there and you Do it as Quickly as you can right after sunrise Good morning i’m going to be putting on My rain gear Just in case i’m walking through any of The Plants that i got the chemical on i Don’t need this brushing back on my legs So Always best to keep the chemical off of You So many of you know i’m not a big fan of Using too much chemical and i want to Keep it off of me As well so i’ve got the ring gear on i’m Gonna Pull this hoodie over my head pull it
Tight just in case there’s a miss Settling back down it’ll settle on that I will be wearing a respirator and stuff To keep it away from my eyes Better to be safe than sorry Oh [Music] Hey So Uh So [Applause] [Applause] [Applause] So [Applause] Okay i’ve finished the grand firs in 25 Minutes I told you it wouldn’t take very long uh It’s less than an acre But i came out to use the rest of tank On the nobles Although it’s not necessarily time to do It but uh there was a gap in this tree And i noticed probably the worst i’ve Ever seen A patch of aphids on one of our nobles So if you come in here closer you can See This is really bad here we’ve got some Older ones And we’ve got the smaller younger ones In there And then if you go down to the patch
Below There’s a lot more in there and see they Are they are just sucking the pitch or The sap right out of this tree And they’re really going to do a lot of Damage we did check the trees Around here and we don’t see anything Like that But uh we definitely gonna get some Spray on this tree really heavy And it won’t be long until we’re doing All of the nobles here soon Thanks for joining me and my business Partner barry once again on the flanigan Homestead and eastport christmas free Farms Where christmas trees are my business Teaching including horticulture is my Job And outdoor projects are my passion join Us again soon we’re going to be Sharing christmas trees and showing you The signs that we built Have a good day
