2/2/2020 – The front lawn has Florida Betony coming up all over and in some places it is solid. There are other weeds including henbit also scattered in the turf. After much research into herbicides, we settled on ferti-lome’s Weed Free Zone (WFZ) with a non-ionic spreader sticker. On Jan. 25th, I sprayed it on a test location south of the Frescati and the Betony in that area has clearly turned dark purple.
The weather this afternoon was great for the first of February: clear blue sky; a light breeze; low 60’s.
The areas and plan were as follows.
Decided to spray it at 1 oz./1,000 SF and not the max that is 1.5 oz/1,000SF.
- At 1 oz./1,000 SF for 12,000 SF (from Google Earth with a buffer to not overspray into beds/plants) will need 12 oz.
- E-W is 160 feet and N-S 75 feet to safely be back from plants; i.e. staying back to not spray into beds or Sunset Magic Crapes.
- Sprayer does a 40″ (3.33 ft.) swath. So, 160×3.33= 533 SF per swath. So, a round should spray 1.1 gallons and cover 80″ or 6’8″ plus the overspray. At 75″ wide and 6’8″ per round it will take 11 rounds.
- Expectation is to respray in 7-14 days as recommended for heavy infestations. May only need to spot spray the heaviest.
- If this still appears to kill the weeds we will spray more areas.
What actually happened was:
- mixed 4 gallons at 1 oz. WFZ and 2 tsp Hi-Yield Spreader Sticker per gallon and sprayed it along the Crape beds and east 4-board fence. This was the first time to use the tow-behind sprayer and it worked well.
- mixed 8 gallons and sprayed it.
- Mixed 1 gallon and I sprayed with the wand–as Mary drove the mower ahead of me–along the east side of the driveway from the carport apron south to the crape bed; east along and up to the crape beds then north up to the bed along the east 4-board fence.
- The 13 gallons were sprayed at:
- the front yard from the driveway to the beds
- the east yard between the small garden to the pecan trees to the north end of that garden
- two swathes between the Frascati and the patio
- a swath along the west edge of the driveway from the south edge of the Old Oaks canopy to the first citrus tree.
- a swath along the road fence west of the gate to the corner veering around the Christmas tree and along the field fence to north of the azalea; then east to the citrus.
Using Google Earth those areas total about 18,000 SF. So 13 gallons is 0.72 gallons/1,000 SF. That is slightly less than the recommended range of 0.75-1.50.
The mower was operated with the pedal full pressed and the throttle lever pulled down to just at the black choke lever. Next time could mix a stronger solution as the mower was going about as slow at it could go smoothly. Or, spray it the same and go both ways to get double or 1.5 oz/1000 SF.
