WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO SPRAY? AND IF IT RAINS, DO I NEED TO SPRAY AGAIN?
Theese are the two most common questions we get.
Most people “think” rain is bad and will have some adverse affect on their recent treatment BUT the fact is rain will generally HELP!
Why? Because water is essential to getting our products into the ground, cracks and crevices.
The following short video (less than 60 seconds long) gives a quick summary of why you have nothing to fear if rain is predicted to land on your property and you just sprayed. As you’ll hear and see, the rain is a “good thing” and should be welcomed whether you’ve just applied our granules, bait or spray.
If you stop and think about it, most all of our products need to be mixed with water so they can be applied. So if water was a “bad” thing, it would not be used in the first place.
Now once a treatment dries, it tends to stay where it was sprayed. And if you have springtails or clover mites or mole crickets or termites or ants or any other insect living in the ground? The treatment will never reach them unless you either water it in OR it rains.
Conversely, SUNLIGHT IS ABOUT THE WORSE THING FOR ANY of our products. In fact direct sunlight will quickly break down most any of our chemicals and the main reason why spraying in the evening is always the best time to treat.
Treating in the evening insures the treatment can dry overnight having a good chance to take out active nocturnal pests AND setup so by the next day, its had time to creep into the ground before the sun starts breaking it down.
And if it was to rain the next day? All the more better!!
WHAT TIME IS BEST TO SPRAY?
When using our insecticides outside, the best time to apply them will be RIGHT BEFORE DARK.
This is due to the impact sunlight (aka: UV light) will have. Simply put, UV light is… let’s say “not your friend”.
The following “short video” (less than 60 seconds long) summarizes why sunlight is not good for insecticide treatments.
UV light will degrade all our products. And if the spray you applied hasn’t dried? Sunlight will break it down even faster. For this reason its best to spray 1-2 hours before the sun sets.
This will allow the treatment to sit over night meaning it will have plenty of time to dry without being degraded by UV light.
WHAT ABOUT HERBICIDES?
So with herbicides, also known as weed killers, it could be best either right before dark OR early morning.
If you’re using a “selective” herbicide, like a crabgrass killer to kill some weeds in your Bermuda or Zoysia turf, it would be best to spray in the evening. This will help keep your “good” grass happy and healthy. Good grass won’t like the herbicide you’ve applied and if you use it in the morning allowing it to dry throughout the day, your grass will suffer. To avoid burn or stress, use selectives in the evening so they won’t hurt your good plants.
Now if you’re spraying a total weed killer (everything sprayed you want dead) like Pramitol over a gravel drive way, use it mid morning. This will allow the sunlight to “help” the treatment stress and kill targeted weeds that much faster.
So for weed killers used in areas where you want everything sprayed to die, let the sunlight help you reach your goal.
WHAT TEMPERATURE IS BEST FOR SPRAYING?
There isn’t a “best” temperature needed for insecticides. In general, insects will get active once temperatures get up over 40 degrees. And for insecticides to impact targeted pests, you’ll do best if they’re active. So once the temps get to 45-50 degrees, you could have a range of pests get active.
So in general, anytime there are pests moving about a good spraying will affect them whether its 50 degrees outside or 100 degrees.
As for “freezing” temperatures; once you get to 40 degrees or less, the cold will actually slow the degradation of the chemical so it can last much longer. Freezing temps of 32 degrees can preserve chemicals so they can last many months compared to just a few weeks when its 90 degrees outside.
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