This Month at the Weed and Pest

With the cold weather and snow pack, customers in the office have been few and far between, but plenty of work has been occurring. Crook County Weed and Pest started the month by welcoming two new board members at our monthly board meeting.

Vance Steedley and Wade Dennis were appointed by the Crook County Commissioners to fill two expired terms on the board. They both bring great new knowledge and ideas, and we are pleased to have both of them representing the county.

The treatment window for using Rozol to poison prairie dogs is rapidly coming to an end. Due to label restrictions, March 15 is the last day to apply Rozol products to control prairie dogs.

The Weed and Pest has limited stock still available, and won’t be purchasing any more without expressed need. If you are planning on utilizing Rozol before March 15, please contact the Weed and Pest to ensure we have enough on hand to complete your project.

With the cold weather and snow pack, this method of control may be very difficult at this time of year, please visit with us to discuss other options for prairie dog control.

A sprayer equipment calibration tool has been developed and published on our county website available for public use. It can be found at: http://www.crookcountyweeds.com/calibration.html. Calibrating spray equipment is one of the most overlooked, yet most important, aspects of weed control, as it ensures you are applying the proper amount of herbicide to the target weed.

Calibration is a fancy word that essentially means “tuning” your spray equipment. It represents how many gallons it takes a certain sprayer to treat/cover one acre of ground; or any other given area.

The rate can be adjusted/changed many ways, such as: application speed, total swath width, sprayer pressure, nozzle type. It is imperative to calibrate any and all application equipment, whether it is a backpack, ATV/UTV boombuster, handgun/spot sprayer or large boom system; even if the person you bought it from (or borrowing it from) “guarantees” it is calibrated to a certain rate.

Each type of equipment, and each individual sprayer, will produce a different calibration rate. Because of this, a different ratio of herbicide will be added as a result. Most herbicides give recommendations in amount/acre, so if your equipment is calibrated in rate/acre, you will know how much herbicide to put per gallon/gallons.

There are vast differences between each sprayer, and calibration is necessary to ensure you are putting the right amount of product in your tank. If not, you could put too much and kill way more than you want, or not enough and not kill any weeds; both would be very upsetting.

In other news, a few Weed and Pest members attended the Wyoming Weed Management Association annual commercial applicator recertification training held in Casper. Supervisor Andrew Litzel and board member Wade Dennis both attended the event.

This year was a new format from prior years because it allowed for new applicants to come to the training for education, and then take the test at the end to get their license. Prior to this, the event was just used to gain credit hours for maintaining certification.

This event provides knowledge and expertise from a plethora of industry experts ranging from UW professors, Weed and Pest Supervisors, chemical industry representatives, Wyoming Department of Ag employees and many more. Because of this format, this year’s conference had one of the highest attendance rates in the history of the event, with over 350 people attending.

The Weed and Pest also continued its partnership with Blake Hauptman at the UW Extension office for local private applicator training. This was held on January 30 in the basement of the courthouse and had fairly good attendance, although not all expired license holders attended.

This free training allows people to come and listen and learn the basics of pesticides, application procedures, and overall safety. At the end, attendees are granted a Wyoming Private Applicators License. This license allows landowners to purchase, and apply Restricted Use Products; additionally, will be safer when applying pesticides.

Although this private applicator license is not required for a vast majority of products, these trainings provide great knowledge about proper handling and application of pesticides that is extremely valuable. Due to the number of expired license holders not attending the Sundance training, there is a potential to have a second training held in Hulett.

If you are one of those with an expired license who missed the opportunity, or anyone who is interested in attending a pesticide training class, please contact the Weed and Pest (283-2375) or Blake at the UW Extension Office (283-1192).