By Brian Hefty: If you want to do the best possible spraying in 2010, I’ll give you 4 things you need to do TODAY:

1. Buy 3-way nozzle bodies for your sprayer. This will allow you to have 3 options for spray nozzles at your disposal at all times while spraying. In other words, if the weather changes, weeds increase, or for any other reason you want to switch spray tips, you can do so in 5 minutes or less.

2. Buy NEW turbo teejet nozzles for spraying Roundup. With turbo teejets, you can spray with “some” wind and still keep drift down. When spraying Roundup, I never recommend exceeding 10 gallons per acre, and if you’re in a burndown situation with no canopy and very small weeds/plants, you can use as little as 3 gallons per acre as long as you keep spray pressure up.

3. Buy NEW fl at fan nozzles for spraying fungicide or Ignite (the new version of Liberty). These products require greater spray coverage than Roundup, so we “prefer” 15 to 20 gallons per acre.

4. Buy NEW fl at fan nozzles for spraying Roundup in heavy weed pressure. Our recommendation for many years with Roundup has been this: spray your weediest fi elds on the calmest days using flat fan nozzles at 10 gallons or> less of water. This will give you the best spray coverage when control is ultra-critical. When you’ve got only a few weeds in the field, go ahead and use turbo teejet nozzles, but when you need every last weed stopped, use flat fans. Unfortunately, this will mean spraying when there’s almost no wind, since flat fans create smaller droplets and more drift potential than turbo teejets.

Did you notice how I said NEW spray nozzles for each of these? I feel that spray nozzles are the most neglected piece of equipment on the farm. Your nozzles wear out fairly quickly, and if you don’t replace them, your spray pattern is distorted, your weed control suffers, and your yields go down. Replacing your spray tips doesn’t cost much, so do it today so you’re ready to go when spring rolls around.