Welcome to Rose Gardening
Free Big Images Of The Flower Rose Article
Insecticides & Fungicides/Spreader-stickers, Wetting Agents: Getting the most out of Your Sprays
Thomas Ogren
Spreader-stickers, Wetting Agents: Getting the most out of Your Sprays
Thomas Ogren
Spreader-stickers or if you prefer, sticker-spreaders, are agents we can add to garden sprays to make them more effective. These additives are commonly used in commercial horticulture and in agriculture, but for some reason are as yet relatively unknown to most gardeners.
Sticker-spreaders can be made of many different components, organic or inorganic. Often the actual ingredients in a particular brand of sticker-spreader will be kept secret, as a proprietary formulation known only within the company producing it.
Some brands use silicone-based surfactants, oils, emulsifiers and buffering agents, while others may use odd combinations of things like fish oil and fatty acid soaps. Several are made entirely from some sort of emulsified soybean oil. Actually, common dish soap will act as a sticker-spreader, it just won’t be as effective.
To be totally technically correct here, sticker-spreader is a combination of two adjuvants. Adjuvants are materials added to spray mixtures to increase the effectiveness of the main active ingredient.
If we want to be completely correct with our terminology here, we probably ought to note too that spreaders are adjuvant surfactants. Surfactants are adjuvants that reduce surface tensions of solutions, helping them spread and cover leaves more effectively.
Stickers are adjuvants that aid in the attachment to a surface.
The water-soluble wax product often used to spray Christmas trees to keep them turgid, Wiltpruff, is also sometimes used as a sticker-spreader.
I recently did some comparison spraying of roses in my own garden. I was spraying the roses with a homemade combination to keep the darn deer from eating them into the ground.
With both batches of spray I used, per gallon of water, two raw eggs, four cloves of garlic, and a cup of skim milk. I blended all the ingredients in a blender before putting them in the sprayer. I sprayed two different sections of roses. In the first section I used the above mix, with the addition of 6 tablespoons of dish soap. In the second section of roses I used the same mix but used two tablespoons of a commercial grade sticker-spreader.
What was the difference?
Both sprays did keep the deer from eating the roses, for awhile.
The spray with soap resulted in roses that were not eaten for six nights following the spraying.
Deer did not eat the roses sprayed with the sticker spreader mix for 15 nights. It seemed obvious to me that the sticker-spreader had indeed locked the smelly spray material onto the roses better than had the soap.
Sticker spreader is sometimes used to make leaves on foliage plants shinier, and this works pretty well, too. If, for example, you are just spraying your roses with insecticidal soap (for aphids) and a little baking soda (for rust and mildew control) mixed with water and a bit of sticker-spreader, you’ll immediately notice that the spray does stick to the leaves better and it also make them shine.
Spreader-stickers can also have somewhat of a synergistic affect when used with insecticides. It not only helps the insecticide adhere better to plant surfaces but it also helps the insecticide penetrate the bodies of insects it contacts. Perhaps most importantly, spreader-sticker also protects the insecticide or fungicide from washing off in the rain and from breakdown from sunlight.
I think I paid less than five dollars for a pint of spreader-sticker at a local nursery. A little bit goes a long way, so it seems inexpensive enough. Some of the insecticides I like most, organic botanical-based ones such as Neem are kind of pricey, and using sticker-spreader gets me more bang for my buck.
About the Author
Tom Ogren is a nationally know gardener and has appeared numerous times on HGTV. His website is www.allergyfree-gardening.com
Free Big Images Of The Flower Rose Best products
Comprehensive guide to Roses.
Home And Garden - Country And Rural Life.
Gardening and Birds, Raising Chickens and Goats, Baking Bread.more coming soon!
Gardening eBooks: Award Winning Author!
E-publisher specializing in gardening.
The Weekend Gardener
The Busy Persons Guide to a Beautiful Backyard Garden!
Your Perfect Lawn.
Step by step guide on building and maintaining a perfect garden lawn
Free Big Images Of The Flower Rose News
Parish Pump Hailsham - May 4, 2012
ART CLUB Exhibition and Sale. The annual exhibition will be held at the War memorial Hall from May 5 to 7 at 10.30am to 5.30pm. Entrance is free and paintings are always realistically priced but please note there are no credit card facilities. Refreshments will be available.
Read more...Gifts from the heart
Remember that you have many ways to spend less and add more meaning for a special Mother's Day On Mother's Day, it really is the thought that counts. Back away from the credit card and summon your creativity to give heartfelt, spend-free gifts.
Read more...What to do this summer in the Philippines? Here are 101 choices
There is absolutely no better time than now to wonder and wander around the Philippines. Trust me – I’m a veteran of the travel and tourism industry. Related posts: 7,000 summer jobs for poor kids & out of school youth Philippines featured in History Channel’s ‘Hidden Cities’ UK travel website says Philippines as Asia’s undiscovered jewel
Read more...Jubilee lines
Carol Ann Duffy invites leading poets to recall a year in verse 1953 Dannie Abse Winged Back Strange the potency of a cheap dance tune. – Noel Coward One such winged me back to a different post-code, to an England that like a translation almost was, to my muscular days that were marvellous being ordinary. 365 days, marvellous; to an England where sweet-rationing ended, where nature tamely ...
Read more...Parish Pump Hailsham - May 11, 2012
A JUBILEE BAZAAR will be run by the WI at the War Memorial Hall tomorrow afternoon, Saturday, from 2pm to 4.30pm. There will be cake and produce, plant and paperback book stalls, a raffle and chocolate tombola plus tea and biscuits. Everyone will be welcome.
Read more...