Time to change your sprayer nozzles?
Great reminder from UCCE colleague David Doll on thinking about changing your sprayer nozzles this winter. Great point made here on the loss of money from using worn nozzles that spray more than what you are expecting. Looks like they use about $200 of pesticides per acre in almonds, so the 5% extra going through the worn nozzles comes out to be $10 per acre. If he thinks that's a lot for almonds, David should look at how much is potentially being lost here in strawberries!
The average spray bill per acre for strawberries is over $1000, so a 5% loss per acre from worn nozzles comes out to be $50 per acre x 30 acres for the average farm = $1500. That's way too much money to be losing for something as small as worn out nozzles.
I can't agree with David more - check your spray nozzles!