“SPRAYING” 
A Subject of Many Angles 
Perhaps one of the most contro- 
versial of all subjects having to do 
with the business of fruit growing, is 
“Spraying.’’ Every orchardist nowa- 
days realizes the tremendous im- 
portance of a proper spray program, 
of course. It is no longer necessary, 
as it used to be, to argue for spraying, 
as the effectiveness of such a program 
for the production of quality fruit has 
been too widely proved. 
The points of controversy now, are 
how much, how, and when! Which 
still leaves quite a lot of room for 
argument. 
In a publication such as “The 
Orchardist’’ which is read by fruit 
growers in different states and dif- 
ferent strata of fruit country, in which 
spraying practices are different, we 
can only point out some of the more 
important general practices, leaving 
the details of dates, seasons and so 
forth for the orchardist to take up 
with the chemical houses which study 
the needs of each local section, and 
with the state agricultural depart- 
ments which have definite facts and 
figures for the growers of their own 
states. 
It is important for growers to keep 
continually in touch with county 
agents and state experiment stations, 
so as to be informed of special con- 
ditions to be met. When an early 
spring like we had this year causes 
the codling moth to emerge early, it 
may result in three broods. 
Operating an orchard naturally in- 
volves a heavy permanent investment 
which includes land, trees, growing 
the trees, packing ‘house, storage, 
crates, ladders, sprayers, water sup- 
ply, etc. To protect this investment 
it behooves the orchardist to do his 
best possible job in insect and pest 
control, in order to get the largest 
and best crop he can and thus rea- 
lize a greater percentage of profit on 
the investment, over the period of 
years of the orchard’s life. 
6 
A grower may practice the most 
up-to-date methods of soil manage- 
ment, fertilization, pruning, thinning, 
etc., and make a large outlay for 
spraying materials and labor for ap- 
plying them, yet if he does not use 
these spray materials in such a man- 
ner that they will do the job they are 
intended to do, he may still miss the 
boat. 
Most studies of spraying operations 
and their results, seem to show that 
a large number of fruit growers do 
not get the spray material fully ap- 
plied to all parts of the trees in suf- 
ficient volume. This means that the 
equipment may not be right or may 
not be used right. While there prob- 
ably is no perfect spray material, yet 
the materials are such that they will 
give a high degree of control if ap- 
plied to cover fully. 
Many factors determine the right 
way to spray, timing, concentration, 
frequency of application, method and 
thoroughness. The points of timing 
and frequency have been pretty well 
worked out by the state agricultural 
departments and published in bul- 
letins, but the factors of thoroughness 
and method of application still are up 
to the grower or to the equipment 
people, and failure in these points 
seems to be more frequently observed 
than in the other points. 
Thus a grower may blame the spray 
materials which he has used, if re- 
sults are unsatisfactory, when he 
should rather blame the way the 
materials were put on and the 
thoroughness of the job. 
There is a marked trend now, in 
the control of apple scab, away from 
materials that cause foliage injury, to 
materials that cause relatively little 
injury but are effective if correctly 
used. It must be recognized by 
growers that these newer materials 
cannot be used in the same way 
as the older caustic materials, but 
must usually be applied on a little 
