has anybody done any spraying?

[shootermcgavin]

I'm wondering what sort of money can be made spraying? it it done/Ha? if it's a high density block say 2700 stems / ha on nice ground, how quickly could a ha be covered?

[Scooter]

There are a couple different types of spraying. Basal bark spraying means shooting liquid around the base of a bigger tree. Backpack spraying is a lot more common, to my knowledge. You'd carry around things like piss packs for fire-fighting, and spray chemicals everywhere.

2700 stems is not high density. I've looked at blocks that we considered using brush saws on to clear out a lot of the trees, which had as many as 100,000 stems/Ha. Imagine a block with 1600 density or something that you've planted before. If there are only 2700 stems/Ha, that's not that many more. It should be pretty easy to walk around with respect to the trees themselves. Mind you, the grass or the terrain could be a completely different story.

That's about the extent of what I remember from spraying. I only did a little bit, about eight or ten years ago.

[shootermcgavin]

It'll be with piss packs. the ground will be pretty fast. It's the nice mounds of england that's planted at 2700 stems / ha and they're spraying a pesticide, they have a problem with an insect they call a weevil. so it's going and spraying every tree, I'm just wondering how much ground can be covered in a day, I'm thinking 2-3 Ha. but that's a pretty rough estimate. We're looking to put in a bid price and don't know what we're doing! (we know what we're doing on the planting side though)

[Scooter]

Ah. Well, simple solution: How much time do you have? Because if you have a few days, go out and buy a piss pack, fill it with water, figure out how to spray properly, and go around and time yourself spraying a hectare. Make sure you include refill times! If you're planning on covering a ton of ground, you'll need to fill the piss packs more frequently, so you'll have to determine whether this can be done in-block or if you have to go back to a road on the edge or something like that.

Two to three Ha seems extremely optimistic, in my opinion. That means spraying 5400 trees. I've done over 5k in a day as a planter. You're looking at planting/spraying a tree every five seconds. 12 trees a minute, 720 per hour, 7.5 hours without breaks. That roughly matches your daylight window there right now, correct? But the problem is that with planting, you can presumably bag up with about 400 trees at a time, reasonably, if the boxes are 270's. Maybe double-box if the land is flat and fast, but let's not break our backs. So can a single piss pack hold enough spray for 400 trees? I'm guessing, and this is purely a guess, that you'd be better off assuming 1.0 to 1.2 Ha per day. But the big unknown here is how much volume of spray needs to be on each tree.

Maybe someone else with more spray experience can chip in here?

[Scooter]

Main thing, if this is a new experiment, BID CONSERVATIVELY!! You don't want to be making 13 dollars a day. Better to lose the job.

[whitepickup]

A couple of points to ponder:

- Is the spraying broadcast or spot? If it's broadcast you can probably do close to 3-4 ha if the ground is flat and free of slash. Negative factors on broadcast spraying include wind and rain. Spot application (spraying individual trees) takes more time so think more along the line of1.5 ha. You can usually push the wind limit a little more and adjust the coarseness of your spraying with the adjustable nozzle.

- If it's a chemical that you need to mix with water, look for nearby sources. If not you may have to get a tank.

Hope this helps and good luck!

[shootermcgavin]

Thanks for the advice guys. I was talking to a guy over in England who did it and he said he was doing around 2 a day at 30 quid / ha. He's not the fastest planter and their foreman was pretty slack. so maybe 3 on a good day. 50/50 bid price so 60 quid a ha. we'll end up buying the piss packs too. this may not be the best year. oh well, once ya got it ya got it.

[Wullie]

spraying in the Uk - Weevil Spraying. Generally we try and do 2Ha/day at £40/Ha.
All depends on the type of ground and the number of dead trees on the site.
So that we can cover the ground quicker, we have coverted our knapsack sparyers by adding the spot gun. This allows you to spray approx 1500 trees per tank. Hope this helps.