Pesticide Application

[Stumper]

The only guy in town that does tree spraying (and actually shows up) is leaving. He thinks I should get into spraying. My gut reaction is "No thanks". I don't like the chems and I think that 75% of the spraying people have done is a waste.I wouldn't mind applying insecticidal soaps and BT but I'm not sure I can do that without the whole headache of state licensing. However, I would like to hear input from you guys. One little thing kicking around in my skull is buying the rig he is offering and using it for fertilizing. Whadaya think?


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[Ax-man]

I was never crazy about spraying chemicals for liability reasons.

Pest control isn't that big of a market in our area, fertilizing is in more demand but is still a niche market.

What gets me is the national lawn care companies offer tree fertilizing. For $ 40 bucks they will fert all the trees in the yard.

They do a poor job, squirt ,squirt or for a big tree they do four squirts around the base of the tree. Next thing you know the hoses are rolled up and off they go to another job. It is hard to convince someone who has this service done that they are doing it incorrectly. It is also impossible to compete against this.

If you can can get a clientele going it is good for days when the wind is blowing hard or on rainy days when other types of tree work can't be done. I've done fert work with it pouring down rain.

If the cost isn't outrageous to buy the rig and get an inventory of different types of fertilizers. I would go for it, your not going to get rich, of course, but you will have an edge over the competition.

Reselling the sprayer is going to be a problem to if you decide to get out of it, not many buyers for one of those.

Larry