Hey guys, Zach here with EZ Custom Ag Services. It’s a foggy morning, 2nd of August and we’re prepping for another run at fungicide today.
We’ve been out and about covering acres the last few weeks just talking with guys having some compatibility issues in our late season herbicides, doing our late post passes, and really this is something we could prevent early in the year while we’re making these chemistry decisions in the wintertime. While the snow’s flying we could do that by simply jar testing, getting our ratios correct, and putting her all in a jar and letting it sit and seeing what happens.
This isn’t something you want to find out the hard way. This is not a compatibility issue in the tank. It is definitely not something we want to deal with sitting at the end of the field. It’s something we want to get in there and understand what’s going on early because nobody wants to dig out of the spray tank.
Now there are compatibility agents that can be tossed in, but at that point it’s a rescue mission, and that’s again something we could have prevented earlier. I’d say most times one thing we lack at is putting enough carrier in the tank. We’re really shooting for efficiency. That’s the name of the game in this business and spraying in general, farming in general, and in its efficiencies. If we want to be efficient while we’re spraying we’re going to cut that rate.
We’re going to go longer in the field. Well, that’s fine and dandy until we find out what that threshold is when things don’t get along well in the tank. Again, this is where we can jar test, get our ratios right, see what works, and what doesn’t work.
We also need to follow mixing orders. We need to read our labels when we get our product in February or March. We need to read our labels and understand what we’re dealing with, what goes with what, and how that’s going to affect the crop. If we’re going on a post pass we don’t want to find out the hard way by burning our beans and sacrificing any yield.
At this point in the year we want to understand what we’re dumping in the tank, how it’s going to get along, and how it’s going to play with our leaf surface on our beans, and on our corn.
One place we like to refer to if we have any questions, or you know have any doubt in our mixing order is the Oklahoma State University Extension. On their website, they have a great breakdown of whales that compare our mixing order. They spell it out pretty easy for everybody to understand. That’s one I like to refer to if I’m a little bit unsure.
Again, it’s reading our labels or reading our product labels before we actually get out to the field. One other thing we can look at, too, is our pH. Let’s check that pH of our water before it even hits a tank, let’s read our labels, let’s see what pH it’s calling for. Is there something else? Do we need to add an acidifier to get the best performance out of our herbicide? It’s these small things that we can look at in that cold winter timeframe, as opposed to sitting on the end of the field cursing our chemistry guys, because something’s not playing well in the tank.
It’s something we preach here is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that applies. We bring that up in fungicide with making an early application of fungicide, but we can apply this to any facet of life. So, let’s get out there, let’s understand what we’re dumping in our tanks. We have these expensive machines, we have this very expensive chemistry. Let’s make sure it gets along because nobody wants to dump a thousand gallons into a tote because things didn’t get along well, and it’s something we could have prevented early.
That’s what I have to say today, guys. We’ll see you next time in the field.