I have been having another epic battle with spider mites that has been going on for over a month. The frequent spraying has taken a toll on me due to me having planted way too many plants this year so it takes so long to thoroughly spray a plant but when you are talking about over 120 plants then the amount of time involved even with a great back pack sprayer is just too much. The result has been that I haven't sprayed as frequently as is required in order to stop spider mites due to their super fast life cycle and massive egg laying capabilities along with the fact that they are just hard to kill with their web protection. I finally had enough and went to the local Stihl dealer and got a small back pack gas powered sprayer which is nothing but a back pack blower with a tank for feeding spraying material into the blower so it is atomized and fogged out.
What a relief this thing is. I had no idea how much time and effort it would save me although I thought it would help significantly with spraying spider mites due to the frequency of having to spray and the thoroughness that has to be maintained for the effort to be successful. What was taking between and hour and a half to two hours due to multiple tank fillings has dropped down to less than fifteen minutes. The amount of spray material has dropped by more than half. The last time I used Neem oil it took half a bottle to do my whole tomato patch. It takes only a third that much now and the coverage is amazing but you do need to be careful of wind direction because the spray is so fine that it will easily move with the wind so you can get doused if you aren't careful. I will still use my backpack sprayer for Daconil and anything really poisonous but after spaying everything in my garden with a copper spray in less than ten minutes I wish I could go back in time to when I thought of buying one of these things three years ago when it just seemed too expensive. I think it would have paid for itself by now just on the savings in chemicals and spray materials. Even if there is no way to justify the expense except in time saved it looks like it will be well worth it and I am kicking myself for not saving more time for the past three years.
Bill