Oldryder,

No. 2:

W/ so many trees, you'll surely have pests at some point which will require more than dormant spraying.

While you may be able to make a hose end sprayer work for now, eventually, the time commitment and waste of a hose end sprayer will make it impractical. Plus there is the consideration of trying to get the appropriate rate of active ingredient with a hose end sprayer, which is probably not easy to do.

With 80 apple trees and 55 cherry trees, your operation is almost big enough to justify a small air blast sprayer. They make some small motorized units that pull behind an ATV.

Otherwise, I'd suggest a pull behind tank sprayer with a wand. I use a 60 gal. Fimco electric sprayer w/ a wand. It doesn't have much power for tall trees, but I keep my trees low anyway, so it's been working for me. Motorized spray units are much more powerful (for spraying taller trees) and also more expensive. Additionally, there is maintenance involved w/ a gasoline motor vs. an electric motor, which requires no maintenance. There is really no right or wrong answer, rather whatever suits your needs.

No. 3:

Oil performs best when it's sprayed to the point of run-off. However, there is no reason to spray the ground. I've never heard this recommended, and can't imagine what benefit it might incur. I have heard of allowing fungicide to hit fallen fruit as a brown rot spray protocol, but that would serve an entirely different purpose than spraying the ground w/ oil.

No. 5:

For your current needs, you'll probably find 2.5 gal. jugs the most economical. You end up using quite a bit of oil. It's generally mixed at 2% for a dormant spray. Obviously, this means for every 100 gal of spray on the trees, you'll use 2 gal. of oil. As your trees get larger, it may make sense to buy dormant oil in 55 gal. drums. Your local farm coop will probably have the best price and the most options.

oplea;

thx for comments. I do have a 25 gallon elec sprayer I use to spray RoundUp thats mounted on the back rack of an ATV. However, it lacks the reach for the mature trees.

For now I'll use the hose end on the small number of mature trees and the elec. for the young trees. will buy a more robust sprayer when I find a good deal.

will check co-op for the oil.

YOur comments were very helpful. Thx.

Note: At a minimum I am also expecting to spray some fungicide/insecticide after petal fall and again some weeks later plus some bagging to make sure I get at least some pristine fruit.

Your welcome.

One other thing worth mentioning. When washing the Round Up out of your 25 gal. sprayer to prepare it for fruit trees, make sure you use some herbicide neutralizer to wash the tank out.

I have a dedicated sprayer for herbicides and sometimes use 2-4D, sometimes glyphosate (Round Up). When I switch from glyphosate to 2-4D, even after washing the sprayer out, sometimes there is enough glyphosate residue left in the sprayer to kill grass. For this reason, I've not used my 60 gal. fruit tree sprayer for herbicides.

You can buy herbicide neutralizer sold in farm stores, or you can make it yourself. Generally, it's a 1% ammonia solution. Ammonia is an alkaline which breaks down Round Up fairly quickly. If you want a thorough reading on properly washing a tank, you can click on the link below.

Note: If you look on the table in the link for the appropriate cleaning solution, they show only water as the cleaning solution for Round Up Ultra. This is because Round Up supposedly washes out easier than many other herbicides. But, as I mentioned, I've had times when there were still glyphosate residues after washing out with plain water. For that reason, I would use a cleaning solution even with Round Up. Interestingly, the table does recommend a neutralizer for Touchdown, which is another glyphosate product.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cleaning Sprayers to Avoid Crop Injury