THE IERIGATION AGE. 



289 



SPRAYING AS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF PROF- 

 ITABLE APPLE ORCHARDING* 



By R. A. Emerson, R. F. Howard, and V. V. Westgate 



In 1906 the Experiment Station, in co-operation with the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, began a series of 

 spraying demonstrations in eastern Nebraska apple orchards. 

 In 1907 the work was continued by the Experiment Station 

 alone and in 1908 the work was again conducted jointly by 

 the Experiment Station and the United States Department 

 of Agriculture ; in 1909 and 1910 the Experiment Station 



Fig. 1. Showing distribution of orchards in which spraying tests were carried on. 



was alone in the undertaking. The work of the last three 

 years has not been reported previously. During the five 

 years, demonstrations have been made in twenty-two orchards, 

 representing eighteen localities in thirteen counties. That 

 the orchards selected were well distributed over the eastern 

 part of the state can be seen by reference to the accompany- 

 ing map. 



Before the work was begun it was well known 

 that it was possible by proper spraying to control 

 scab and codling moth, the most generally trouble- 

 some pests of apple orchards in this state. There 

 was available, however, very little definite informa- 

 tion regarding the cost of spraying or the profits 

 to be derived from it under our conditions. The 

 majority of farmers made no attempt at spraying. 

 Many of the more prominent commercial orchardists, 

 even, were trying to produce apples without spray- 

 ing, and those who were spraying more or less 

 regularly were, with few exceptions, not sufficiently 

 thorough in their work to get the best results. On 

 account of the lack of knowledge of the proper 

 means to employ in combating the common orchard 

 pests, many orchardists had come to believe that 

 apple growing was not a profitable business. And 

 under the conditions prevailing in many orchards, 

 this was a perfectly correct conclusion. 



It was therefore planned from the start not 

 merely to demonstrate the possibility of controlling 

 apple insects and diseases but also to determine 

 whether they could be controlled profitably. To 

 accomplish this it was necessary to know exactly 

 what it cost to spray, what sprayed fruit yielded, 

 and what it was worth in comparison with unsprayed 

 fruit from the same orchards. In every spraying 

 demonstration the time spent in mixing and apply- 

 ing the materials and the quantity of material used 

 were recorded. The cost of labor of men and teams 

 per hour was taken at the orchard owners' esti- 

 mates and the cost of materials was charged at the 

 prices actually paid by the orchardists. In every 

 orchard a block was set apart for the demonstra- 

 tion spraying, and another block, in every way com- 

 parable with the first, was left without spraying as 

 a check on the results of spraying. The exact yields 



of both marketable and unmarketable fruit from the sprayed 

 and from the unsprayed blocks, or from considerable parts 

 of them, were noted. The net value of the fruit was de- 

 termined by deducting from the actual prices received by 

 the owners the estimated cost of picking, grading, packing, 

 hauling, etc. The net value, therefore, was what the fruit 

 was worth on the trees. 



The work was done under all sorts of conditions. The 

 trees varied in age from ten years to twenty-eight years and 

 averaged about eighteen years. In some orchards they had 

 been well pruned, but in more cases they had been pruned 

 little or not at all for some years. In some cases the spray- 

 ing was hindered by the closeness of the trees and in others 

 by a secondary crop of bush fruits. In some orchards, on 

 the other hand, the trees were conveniently spaced and the 

 ground was free from troublesome bushes. A few orchards had 

 every convenience for mixing and applying 

 the spray materials while others were almost 

 completely without such conveniences. Take 

 for instance a case where it was necessary to 

 go a half mile or more from the orchard to 

 get water for spraying and where it was then 

 necessary to pump it by hand and lift it up 

 to the spray barrels in buckets. Contrast 

 this with the cases where the mixing sta- 

 tions were near the center of the orchards, 

 where a sufficient supply of water to spray 

 a considerable part of the orchard was held 

 in a large tank filled by a windmill or gaso- 

 line engine, and where the supply tank, dilu- 

 tion tanks, etc., were on platforms higher than 

 the spray wagon so that the mixtures simply 

 ran down into the spray tank. Under the 

 first set of conditions it often cost more to 

 mix the spray and get it to the orchard than 

 to apply it, while under the second set of con- 

 ditions little time was spent in mixing and 

 hauling the spray. Some orchards were provided with effi- 

 cient gasoline power spray pumps mounted on trucks carry- 

 ing large spray tanks, overhead platforms, and the like to 

 facilitate the work. The other extreme was a poor hand 

 pump with which it was barely possible to maintain pressure 

 for one spray nozzle. The cost of spraying naturally bore 



* Abstract of Bulletin 119, Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of Nebraska. 



:?. Type of barrel sprayer, suitable for a home orchard. 



