For those who do hack and squirt or drill and fill, considering use of Garlon, is there a problem with standard utility squirt bottles? Is it worth the investment to use an in-line vaccination gun hooked to a hydration bladder? I was reading that some chemicals gum up the spray bottles but I don’t know which ones.

Bottles are cheap.

Harper’s mix is 50/40/10 water/garlon3/imazapyr and works very well

I do quote a bit, and just use bottles from Lowes, Walmart, etc. Many herbicides will swell the seals or degrade them. You won’t be able to do some and then Come back next month and do some more with the same bottle, depending on what you use and the bottle brand. Some are better than others, for sure. If you think you’ll do this a lot over the years, it may be worth getting something made for herbicides.

Thanks guys. I’m concentrating on sweet gum and musclewood. I can probably do my target area in a day if the delivery system is working. But I would be upset if I got to work and the spray bottle method was failing to deliver.

I’d just take a couple extra bottles and get after it. On drill/fill I like how the bottle nozzle fits in a hole made by the 3/8” auger bit.

Be careful using the imazapyr if you have oaks in the area you are trying to save. I use 60% garlon and 40 %water if oaks are in the area that I don’t intend on killing. Depending on tree size you can also try basil bark treatment with diesel and garlon.

That’s good info. I am planning to save the oaks and the maples. I’ll even leave some sweetgum and muscle wood.

As long as you don't have any major runoff it's not likely you'll have any issues with non-target trees. Root grafting between species is very rare.

Only way I'd let a sweetgum live is it was saw log size and I knew a timber harvest was upcoming in the next year or so. They produce too many seed to leave untreated.

When do y’all stop treating? I just did about 3.5 acres this morning and I’m hoping it’ll take. Not exactly sure when the sap starts rising?

I guess it depends on the weather, but I expect we'll have early green-up. I hoping to have at least 3-4 more weeks to get it done.

I plan to girdle a bunch next weekend and spray. I spent about 3 hrs this afternoon cutting down loblolly in my long leaf stand to try and open the canopy.

I suspect we are getting close. I’d say a couple more weeks and it’ll be moving well.

Last year, I did some drill and fill on sweetgum with Method in late February. They are graveyard dead and falling over. I cannot kill one with Method applied as a foliar spray, but apparently doing the drill and fill at the wrong time of year will get it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

What is method? I’m fixing to girdle everyone on my property and this may be easier.

Are you using a vet syringe to apply the Method herbicide? I looked into it but the price, $900+ per 2.5 gallons, turned me off.

Turkey neck, it is a noncrop herbicide related to picloram. Used a lot in the utility and railroad markets. We had it in quarts, but that was discontinued. Can buy from Helena or Red River, for example.

K bush, I do herbicide research and have an assortment of different size medical syringes. Cheap plastic ones you can buy online. My mix size in my work is usually 2 liter bottles up to 3 gallon. As such, I use them for precise measuring. You can imagine mixing that small for a product that may go out at a few ounces per acre. I may only need a few milliliters.

One of the extension biologists was discussing it and they were using the vet syringes to apply exactly 1 mil per hack.