With spraying, always spray in the morning. When you spray late in the day, the plant won’t absorb as much of the herbicide. Overnight it’s respiration changes and by morning, many herbicides have oxidised and are far less effective when daylight returns.
Don’t spray if rain is forecast in days ahead. No matter how some of these products say they can be used as. Residues will still find their way into waterways.
There are some great ways to get more out of herbicides. Add Seasol. We found by accident that Seasol was a far better alternative to urea in herbicide mixes. The purpose of these to to get more herbicide absorbed into the plant via the leaves. (This is how all herbicides work, not through the roots as many think). The stomata remain open and as a result absorb far more in. Without the Seasol, the stomata constrict far more and reduce the uptake and increase the time it needs to be on the leaf.
I am not really able to say exactly how we found this, but I will say someone really fkd up and it was expensive.
Add food die. We use marker dye in horticulture, but food dye is a good cheap alternative. It will also dye the plastic of your sprayer a bit, so you won’t use it for fungal sprays or insecticides by accident and have a big problem.
Using a dye cuts down on your time and reduces the amount of herbicide needed because you can spray only where needed.
Make it all stick. We use special stuff to do this but you can make do with dish washing liquid or a high grade liquid wetting agent like Baileys Grosorb or Scott’s. This keeps it on the leaf and down through any fine hairs or waxey leaf surfaces.
Don’t spray if it’s windy. Spray drift could bugger your loved plants.
