24 EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 



On a very steep hillside, a full tank may not be drawn to advantage 

 and, in addition, the trees tend to be low on one side of the spray rig and 

 high on the other. It is more difficult and takes more time to cover the 

 tree. A few of the orchards have wet areas in the early spring and con- 

 siderable time is lost with the large outfits because of the traction. 



The water supply affects the efficiency of both the labor and the 

 machines. Any arrangement which permits quick filling in handy loca- 

 tions is all that is required. Growers with good tank fillers and 

 conveniently located brooks or ponds in or near the orchard are able to 

 apply as many gallons per man and machine hours as those who are 

 equipped with stationary, overhead water tanks. The lack of water 

 supply at the right locations, inadequate facilities for pumping or loading, 

 and travel to and from the water supply were important items of time 

 loss in some orchards. More careful planning of the route taken by the 

 spray machine could save some travel and time in several orchards. 



In two instances records and observations were made concerning 

 the practice of transporting water or spray mixture to the sprayer by 

 means of a "supply" tank mounted on a truck, thus saving some time of 

 the expensive spray outfit by eliminating travel of the sprayer back and 

 forth from orchard to the water supply. 



In one orchard, spraying was done with a small 100-gallon-tank ma- 

 chine of a pump capacity of six to seven gallons per minute. Operating 

 in 1934 without the supply tank, a total of 8700 gallons were applied at 

 an average rate of 79.6 gallons per machine hour or 39.8 gallons per man 

 hour. In 1935, using the supply tank, a total of 20,200 gallons were ap- 

 plied at a rate of 129.4 gallons per machine hour, or 41.7 gallons per man 

 hour. It appears, that the use of the supply tank did not increase the 

 efficiency in man labor materially, but that by increasing the output of 

 the machine about 62.5 per cent it made it possible to cover the orchard 

 in a considerably shorter time. Timeliness is an exceedingly important 

 factor in disease control. In this case the additional man and the portable 

 tank enabled the operator to get along a few years longer with his small 

 machine. 



In another orchard, a larger 300-gallon-tank machine of 25 to 30 gal- 

 lons per minute capacity was operated. In the early season sprays, fill- 

 ing from waterholes in the orchard, 21,000 gallons were applied at the 

 rate of 280 gallons per machine hour or 93.3 gallons per man hour. In 

 the later applications, using the supply tank, 30,635 gallons were applied 

 at the rate of 402.9 gallons per machine hour, or 100.7 gallons per man 

 hour. This indicates a slight increase in labor efficiency. Furthermore, 

 late in the season, the waterholes had dried up and the efficiency with- 

 out the supply tank would have been lower than in the early part of the 

 season. 



Records in both orchards seem to show that carrying the water or 

 the mixed spray materials to the tank is advantageous chiefly as a means 

 of speeding up operations when quickly coverage is needed to protect 

 against disease. From the point of view of economy of operation, pro- 

 viding wells or water holes in the orchard or constructing a system of 

 supply tanks about the orchard is more desirable than using extra trucks. 



With rough topography and small orchards, the medium-sized ma- 

 chine appears to be the most efficient for most orchards under New 



