Foliar Spray Mix Clogging My Electric Sprayer

shades · Oct 14, 2020

Hey Guys,

I'm spraying on a foliar mix of 2:5 kelp to humic acid with a little bit of yucca to help act as a wetting agent. I put it in my sprayer which worked for about 2 seconds then started spurting out instead of spraying a fine mist as it does with clean water. It's a little 0.75L electric hand sprayer. When I loosen the tip on it it will just stream a jet but when it clogs up it doesn't really do that, it just kind of dribbles. I mixed just a liter of solution, so roughly 0.30 grams of kelp and 0.75 grams of humic acid with 0.15~grams of yucca extract. I put the remainder of the contents of the sprayer bottle through a coffee filter and it looks like a lot of that 0.75 of a gram of humic acid is just sitting in the filter. Before putting it in the filter I brought the temperature of the solution to 25 centigrade hoping that extra heat would get it to dissolve into the water. I got 5 lbs of this bullshit here hopefully that's water soluble like I thought it was. Didn't think 30 fucking micron sized particles would clog a damn sprayer. I didn't get any fulvic acid because it seems to be way more than the humic acid and I'm broke right now. I'm waiting for the rest of the contents of the coffee filter to finish straining so I can tare out my scale with a blank filter and drop that one on to see how much humic acid didn't get into my plants. Maybe 2:2 or 2:3 instead of 2:5 like the target ratio I'm shooting for.

What can I do to remedy the situation and make use of my remaining humic acid? Just soil feed it instead? Does it get absorbed that way?

redshift75 · Oct 14, 2020

i would suggest getting a pump sprayer.

shades · Oct 14, 2020

redshift75 said:
i would suggest getting a pump sprayer.

Do you have any brands you would recommend I explore or stay away from?

redshift75 · Oct 14, 2020

shades said:
Do you have any brands you would recommend I explore or stay away from?

ill be honest i have like 10 brands on my farm. You could tell me they were all made in the same factory and id believe it. Walmart just had em clearances for like $2 by me were like $10. menards was same way as everyone clearanced out stuff end of season. Harbor freight is always good place. Higher pressure capacity with multiple nozzles will always be my goto sprayer. Because lots you want like 100psi with small nm droplets that usually come the variations depending on your needs. In your case youd probably want to be using the fan nozzle so you can spray bigger particles. One of my sprayers that i put aloe vera powder in. I attached a fuel filter for a snowmobile tank on the straw. so it helps break it up through the screen. This went a long way for me to be able to use it as a powder. before that i had to put it in the Ninja juicer and emulsify it with water to really get it to not stay caked. Even then would clog sprayer. Til i did that. Or id have to clean out the nozzle every .25-.5 L So if you use really cakey stuff. You can get away with putting it in a shaker bottle with water half full and shake it up/strain it. More time consuming. But an electric sprayer short of a larger field electric sprayer will clog. Even a backpack sprayer. Thats why hand pumps are best in my opinion for these jobs. Mosquito bits added helps make for good aggregate to shake your sprayer and bust up clumps and can be used all day during refills and flushed without worry. Might not be effective at end of the day. But I add it all the time cause B.T. is your friend and helps with all that stuff i mentioned. Thats my tips and stuff i can offer to using sprayers.

redshift75 · Oct 14, 2020

Let me add if i had to pick sprayers. These 2 are a must and im using them daily at this point. my 2 gallon sprayer has the nozzle kit from the backpack sprayer. Ill post that for reference as well. That comes with like 5 nozzles i believe you can find it as a parts kit on amazon for like $5-$15.