I'm battling Johnson grass in our newly planted pecan orchard. I've been spraying with a boom sprayer at night to keep drift down, but I'm about to try a wick.

I just ordered a 5' wick applicator from here. https://store.green-leaf.us/product/string-wing-wick-applicator/ Hopefully it shows up by Friday so I can try it out this weekend.

Having a hard time figuring out the correct concentration. Some places say to mix at a greater concentration as you don't always get enough on the leafs with a weaker concentration. Anyone have experience with this?

helpful

WheelinAg said:

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Having a hard time figuring out the correct concentration. Some places say to mix at a greater concentration as you don't always get enough on the leafs with a weaker concentration. Anyone have experience with this?

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Let us know how it works.

I got the impression from the website of the place I linked on Page 1 that you pour undiluted 41% glyphosate into the pipe and use that. It's pretty sticky at that concentration, so I'm not sure whether you'd need to add a surfactant or not.

When I try it, I'm going with the 41% because I would rather do it once than having to go back and do it again, but that's my personal preference.

Ribeye-Rare said:

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Let us know how it works.

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Will do. Unfortunately, when the Johnson grass really started growing, my tractor was down with a dead hydraulic pump and I was more focused on fixing that than the grass, so it got a strong hold.

I've already hit it on both sides of the trees with the sprayer, but I haven't gotten the 20ish feet in between. Eventually, I want to plant a cover crop or something like Bermuda, so I'll need a wick anyway to help it along.

Also, that video above says 1/3 glyphosate.

Edit: Here's my nightmare. You can see the trees and how tall the grass is on some of them. I'm sure the spraying I did isn't hitting much of the tall stuff as the nozzle is dragging on it. Being my first year doing this and not living at the property yet has made the upkeep and learning curve steep. Thee good news is I've only lost a few trees out of the 502 I planted. My goal this year is just to get them through the season as best I can until we move there.

Well crap, I used to be able to link google photos. I guess it doesn't like it anymore.

Back in the 70's family converted an idled Farmall M picker into a wick applicator machine, mounting a 20 ft pvc pipe to the drum lift linkage. Used undiluted Round Up chasing johnsongrass in cotton and soybeans.

FearNoWeevil said:

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Back in the 70's family converted an idled Farmall M picker into a wick applicator machine, mounting a 20 ft pvc pipe to the drum lift linkage. Used undiluted Round Up chasing johnsongrass in cotton and soybeans.

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We had something similar mounted on the front of a JD 4020 where the cultivator normally went. It was a piece of about 3x3 angle iron with a PVC pipe hose-clamped to it. The PVC had a bunch upf rope wicks. After the first season that angle iron was bowed back like a longbow. It must not have worked very well because I don't ever remember it being used again. I think that piece of angle iron is still sitting behind the shed.

The guy that does hay on the rest of our place and many of the surrounding fields says they used to have a pto driven wick that wiped the blades of the Johnson grass more effectively. I need to ask him more questions when I see him next.