PLANT HEALTH CAREANT HEAL
Proper Dosing of TREE HEALTH CARE Products
By Shawn Bernick W
e all know that applying the proper dosage rate for a pesticide is critical for ensuring success with any tree health care product. Application of not enough active ingredient can result in
unacceptable or reduced performance against the target pest. Applying too much may result in higher product costs; increased risk to the applicator, environment and non-targets; and some products can cause adverse effects to the plant being treated if too high of a rate is applied. Although this concept sounds
simple, there are many steps that must be followed to guarantee the proper dosage is applied. To make it even more challenging, many labels for products that are used for tree care recommend a wide range of dosage and water dilution rates, provide vague application instructions, and do not include specific language for arborists who are making applica- tions to trees. For example, many labels require a specific amount of product applied per acre or per 1,000 square feet; this works great for turf and agricultural applications, but not necessarily for trees or shrubs. If that wasn't challenging enough, arborists must also consider the size of the tree being treated, the tree species, target pest, level of infestation and desired length of residual. Furthermore, products must be applied correctly to ensure the desired concentration is achieved throughout the canopy of the mature tree that you are treating.
12 Arbor Age / October 2011
Wow, this may not be as simple as first thought. Some of the key distinctions to proper dosing of tree health
care products are as follows: • Diagnose the problem correctly. It does not matter what dosage rate you apply if you are treating for the wrong problem. Some products have modes of action that are only effective on certain pests.
• Identify the host species correctly. Products such as tree
growth regulators have species-specific dosage rates that require the applicator to apply more or less active ingredient based on the
All photos courtesy of Rainbow Treecare Scientific Advancements
Carefully measure the amount of pesticide concentrate to ensure that the proper dosage rate is mixed and double check your work. It is important that the correct unit of measurement is used.
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