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Fruit & Orchards

Lime-Sulfur spray for Fruit trees

9 years ago

Prepared lime-sulfur spray at home as per details below. Please let me know if this is the correct method. Please suggest improvements.
1) Purchased 99.8% pure sulfur and hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) on ebay
2) Mixed 7 ounce sulfur and 3.5 ounce lime dry
3) Added the mixture to boiling water (34 ounce)
4) Added boiling water in between to compensate for the losses.
5) The color started changing to red and dark brown as in the photos
6) Boiled for 45 minutes color was dark reddish brown
7) After cooling it, diluted with 1:10 ratio and sprayed it on fruit trees

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Comments (9)

drew51 SE MI Z5b/6a
9 years ago
I love the smell of lime-sulfur in the morning! I bought some before it was banned. I'm good for a few years. I think i would do this on the grill outside! Thanks for the recipe, this is a nice, safe product!
Pachhu
Original Author
9 years ago
I used camping stove outside the house. It took less than an hour. It was not at all complicated. My first time.
I did take all safety precaution. Thanks Drew51
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you could always do a flush of water ifr you think it was too much.
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appleseed70
9 years ago
Pretty cool. Seen this done a bunch of times in videos etc.

Just curious....,couldn't you have bought the hydrated lime at your local big box or concrete supply house for less than the shipping when ordering online?
It's very cheap...I know Lowe's sells it.

Was the sulfur you bought finely powdered? How much "stink" was generated during the cooking?

Did it spray well or was it prone to clogging the nozzle?

Thanks for posting...I'm gonna get around to making some of this one of these days.
Pachhu
Original Author
9 years ago
I bought both 1 lb of lime and sulfur on ebay for $5 each plus shipping $5. It was excellent grade. Both were in very fine powder form. Mixing was very easy both dry and in boiling water.

After 10 minutes it started smelling rotten egg. Since it was in the open yard I could hardly notice that.

It did spray well in the beginning but at the end it started clogging. I must have sprayed a gallon of diluted stuff. I have around 30 fruit trees. Peaches, apples and pears require full cover of the plant with the spray. I also spray small blueberry bushes at the ground so that the rabbits don't bite the twigs because of the smell so also for other tree trunks.

Last year I made the Bordeaux mixture which is much easier to make and gives very good results but for peaches I still had PLC hence the lime-sulfur spray this time.
Michael
9 years ago
What did you measure the powders with?
cheeto1
9 years ago
what is spray used for? i have 2 really old apple trees that produce heavily but fruit is small but lots of holes: birds and/or worms? i just moved here a year ago and place was not taken care of. one tree is not looking so good. i put the apples in my compost but would be great to be able to eat instead.
Pachhu
Original Author
9 years ago
michael357: I weighed them in a small weighing machine.

cheeto 1: The spray is mainly used as a dormant spray for fruit trees. To control worms in apples I tie disposable foot sock to each of the apples when the apples are 1/2" dia which is very effective apart from the spray.
northwoodswis4
9 years ago
I bagged about 2000 apples at 1/2" size in ziplocks. About three-quarters of them then fell off the tree. This has happened more years than one. One year I carefully thinned them with a scissors. Another year I left the extras on the tree for spares after so many fell. I have several varieties, with same results for all varieties. What am I doing wrong? Should I be spraying kaolin at petal fall for curculios? It is a lot of work bagging, and is discouraging to find all those bags with tiny apples in them on the ground. Northwoodswis
Pachhu
Original Author
9 years ago
northwoodswis4: Sorry to hear that. I have 4 apple trees which are 7 to 8 years old. I used foot sock last year (see photo of foot sock) with a very good success rate. No worms. But before the bud break I used Bordeaux spray two times.

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