Kaolin Clay: Improved Spray Application 

There’s always room for improvement in our holistic orcharding practices. With the reliable instruction of Michael Phillips we’ve been relying on kaolin clay for a decade and a half now. But spraying the mix onto the fruit trees in Rosslyn’s orchard hasn’t been especially convenient. We’ve relied on many, MANY refillings of a backpack sprayer to coat the trees, foliage, and fruit. Yesterday Glen Gehrkens successfully undertook our improved spray application of kaolin clay.

Instead of mixing, toting, and spraying 4 gallons at a time, we’ve upgraded to a 25 gallon electric sprayer that is transported by the John Deere Gator.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s quickly revisit the value of using using kaolin clay.

Spraying Rosslyn’s fruit trees with kaolin clay is part of our nontoxic, organic, holistic orcharding regimen. It’s an effective way to reduce plum curculio(Conotrachelus nenuphar) larvae and European apple sawfly (Hoplocampa testudinea) larvae without resorting to toxic pesticides.

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Sure, spraying kaolin clay onto the trees creates a curious camouflage look, but it’s proven quite an effective deterrent. (Source: Holistic Orcharding: Kaolin Clay)

Tony Foster has been a good sport in recent years. Not only does carrying the heavy backpack through the orchard, pumping and spraying, pumping and spraying, pumping and spraying,… and lapping back-and-forth to the hydrant to refill the sprayer with more water and kaolin clay take a toll on hot day, but there’s the challenge of settling. From the moment you finish mixing the clay in the water, the fine white particulate begins to settle to the bottom of the tank. The only way to counter this is to periodically perform a little jig to agitate the backpack, ensuring that the clay remains in suspension.

But the big tank, properly mixed with a blending paddle on an electric drill, then sprayed efficiently with an electric pump while moving about the orchard with the Gator? It’s practically pleasure!

Thank you, Glen, for successfully troubleshooting this improved spray application. And while this first application is definitely late in the season due to the amount of rain we’ve received, I am hopeful that we will be successful now that we’re back on track.