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Blue Mule Hose End Build

23K views 90 replies 19 participants last post by  Grass Clippins 
#1 ·
I think I may have actually found a hose end sprayer that makes it worth learning. I'm not going to go to far into the product details because you can see that for yourself on their website. What I'd like to do is review how I arrived on picking the sprayer I picked, how I plan to use it, and my overall opinion.


https://bluemulecleaning.com

This is a really cool company based in North Little Rock Arkansas who appears to make quality products. I've called a few times with questions and they are very helpful and friendly. By way of "Hose End Systems" they have sprayers and foamers. We're obviously looking at sprayers…for now. Drill down a little further and they offer:

Compact Spray-All 20B (BLU09)
Compact Spray-All 50B (BLU10)
Hose-End Spray-All 50 (BLU11)

The 50 & 50B are both referred to as Medium Volume Sprayers, while the 20B is a Low Volume Sprayer. I'll be using this for the Greene County Products so I opted for the Medium Volume Sprayer due to the higher dilution ratio. I believe Greene County Recommends at least 20:1. Under "Requirements and Technical Details" they list the dilution ratios for each metering tip provided. When I need to do a low volume application I will use my backpack sprayer.

Now to compare the 50 to the 50B, which to choose is based on the size of your lawn. My lawn is around 25,000 sq. ft. and growing so I chose the Hose-End Spray-All 50. If you have a smaller lawn the Compact Spray-All 50B would be a nice little setup but I don't want to have to keep stopping to fill up the 32 oz. container.

The Hose-End Spray-All 50 arrived last weekend and this thing is Bad-A. It just feels good to walk around with, very high quality. "Machined in the USA, not molded" they say. The 50 does not come with a bottle so I found a 2.5 gallon Carboy from U-line with standard 38 mm threads. Check out my backpack setup!





 
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#2 ·
Over the next few weeks I'll be using this sprayer to apply Greene County Products in accordance to their DIY Seeding/Over-Sedding Instructions.

Greene County DIY Seeding/ Over-Seeding Instructions

All of my data is below, for those who care, but in short I should be able to cover around 26,000 square foot, per application, while only having to refill one time. I picked the metering tips that would allow me 2 minutes to cover 1,000 square feet.





 
#4 ·
Colonel K0rn said:
Looks like a solid setup! Interested to see your results, any chance of seeing it in action?
You got it, but it may be a couple weeks before it sees any action. So far I've only tested it with water. I forgot to mention that it has a fan tip nozzle.

 
#5 ·
That does look like something I could use. I have the Chapin and I feel like the bottle is too small and the spray pattern is a little off for me. I don't see any in line check valves in the pictures so it can possibly siphon if you drop the trigger below the backpack level if it is primed up. Can't wait for you to post on the gcf review. Thanks
 
#6 ·
M311att said:
That does look like something I could use. I have the Chapin and I feel like the bottle is too small and the spray pattern is a little off for me. I don't see any in line check valves in the pictures so it can possibly siphon if you drop the trigger below the backpack level if it is primed up. Can't wait for you to post on the gcf review. Thanks
I looked at the "pro" hose end sprayer from Chapin and Hudson but I didn't like the horizontal spray pattern and the uptake hose does not go to the bottom of the bottle. While I like a horizontal spray pattern on my backpack sprayer I feel a vertical spray pattern might work better for soil applications that are being watered in. The ortho dial and spray has a nice chemlawn pattern, but that thing is a piece of crap.

I've never thought about a check valve on these...interesting idea. I wonder if the siphoning power would be enough to open the valve and not affect the output. If my little backpack breaks on me I was thinking about hooking the jug handle up to a string trimmer harness. That would help keep it below the sprayer.

 
#7 ·
The dedicated hose end sprayer hose arrived today. I was looking for something light weight and ran across this deal on amazon. Underhill H75-075C 3/4" Ultramax Economy Lightweight Commercial Hose, 75' Length for $52.12. It's a nice hose and only weight around 14.5 pounds.

Clear
 
#8 ·
Here it is in action, pretty comfortable set up. I mixed up 6 oz of RGS and 6 oz of Air8 and sprayed that before taking the picture. I used the Medium Green Metering Tip which is around 8.06 oz/min and it sprayed very dark brown water for about a minute and a half. After that I put some water in the tank with what little was left for the pictures, this is why the spray looks clear in the pictures. It was highly diluted so that I would play around with it. I'm still getting used to it, but I'm planning on wagging my forearm back and forth while walking at a very slow pace to cover 1,000 sq. ft. in 2 minutes, a good full wag will get you around 10 foot of width.

@m311att I tried several times to get it to siphon and nothing happened. Once it's primed the mix it's going anywhere.


 
#9 ·
Grass Clippins said:
The dedicated hose end sprayer hose arrived today. I was looking for something light weight and ran across this deal on amazon. Underhill H75-075C 3/4" Ultramax Economy Lightweight Commercial Hose, 75' Length for $52.12. It's a nice hose and only weight around 14.5 pounds.
Was this a warehouse deal? I would buy one on the spot, but I can't find it.
 
#10 ·
Thinking about this more and more, this is probably the easiest method for someone with a larger yard to apply products like Penterra that need very high dilution rates.

Penterra's instructions recommend 1 ounce of product (high rate) to 5 gallons of carrier per 1ksqft, a 0.156250% concentration. With a Chapin backpack sprayer you'd need to refill every 1ksqft, and you'd still have to reduce the rate to 0.8 ounces (4 gallon capacity). With this unit someone with an 18k sqft yard could fill up that 2.5 gallon carboy with 18 ounces of Penterra for a 5.625% concentrated mix. Using the orange 1/36 dilution tip (though varies a bit with hose pressure/volume), we'd be at a perfect concentration of 0.156250%. Assuming my math is right.
 
#11 ·
adgattoni said:
Grass Clippins said:
The dedicated hose end sprayer hose arrived today. I was looking for something light weight and ran across this deal on amazon. Underhill H75-075C 3/4" Ultramax Economy Lightweight Commercial Hose, 75' Length for $52.12. It's a nice hose and only weight around 14.5 pounds.
Was this a warehouse deal? I would buy one on the spot, but I can't find it.
It may have been, it came directly from Underhill's Amazon page. I must have bought the last one. I'll sure more will post up soon.
 
#12 ·
adgattoni said:
Thinking about this more and more, this is probably the easiest method for someone with a larger yard to apply products like Penterra that need very high dilution rates.

Penterra's instructions recommend 1 ounce of product (high rate) to 5 gallons of carrier per 1ksqft, a 0.156250% concentration. With a Chapin backpack sprayer you'd need to refill every 1ksqft, and you'd still have to reduce the rate to 0.8 ounces (4 gallon capacity). With this unit someone with an 18k sqft yard could fill up that 2.5 gallon carboy with 18 ounces of Penterra for a 5.625% concentrated mix. Using the orange 1/36 dilution tip (though varies a bit with hose pressure/volume), we'd be at a perfect concentration of 0.156250%. Assuming my math is right.
I'll look up Penterra this evening and plug it ti to my excel sheet. This will also be very useful for greeene co. 18-0-1. It's around 12oz per 1k sq feet mixed at 20:1. I did the math and I believe it will be less expensive to apply than Milorganite.
 
#13 ·
Grass Clippins said:
adgattoni said:
Thinking about this more and more, this is probably the easiest method for someone with a larger yard to apply products like Penterra that need very high dilution rates.

Penterra's instructions recommend 1 ounce of product (high rate) to 5 gallons of carrier per 1ksqft, a 0.156250% concentration. With a Chapin backpack sprayer you'd need to refill every 1ksqft, and you'd still have to reduce the rate to 0.8 ounces (4 gallon capacity). With this unit someone with an 18k sqft yard could fill up that 2.5 gallon carboy with 18 ounces of Penterra for a 5.625% concentrated mix. Using the orange 1/36 dilution tip (though varies a bit with hose pressure/volume), we'd be at a perfect concentration of 0.156250%. Assuming my math is right.
I'll look up Penterra this evening and plug it ti to my excel sheet. This will also be very useful for greeene co. 18-0-1. It's around 12oz per 1k sq feet mixed at 20:1. I did the math and I believe it will be less expensive to apply than Milorganite.
Would be easy to use with soluble ammonium sulfate/urea as well. Might do that and use the spreader for humic DG.

Thanks for the heads up on this product!
 
#14 ·
@adgattoni have you ever considered using an inline pellet pro? This option would allow you to apply a wetting agent every time you use the hose end sprayer.... I think I may have just sold myself on this idea. Amazon has it for $89.90 while the Underhill site is $113.77

https://www.amazon.com/Underhill-PPWA50K-PelletPro-Wetting-Applicator/dp/B00G20OKY4/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1538006521&sr=8-19&keywords=underhill+hose

 
#15 ·
Grass Clippins said:
@adgattoni have you ever considered using an inline pellet pro? This option would allow you to apply a wetting agent every time you use the hose end sprayer.... I think I may have just sold myself on this idea. Amazon has it for $89.90 while the Underhill site is $113.77

https://www.amazon.com/Underhill-PPWA50K-PelletPro-Wetting-Applicator/dp/B00G20OKY4/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&qid=1538006521&sr=8-19&keywords=underhill+hose

I actually do have the pellet pro. My use case for the blue mule would be to put down a heavy dose of penterra, then top it off periodically with the pellet pro. I get the pellets from rrproducts.com.

I never really got the same effect from the pellets as @Redtenchu got with Penterra in the Soil Surfactant/Wetting Agents thread, so I've been aching to try this approach out. However, my wife and I are building a house and I'll soon have an 18k sq ft lawn, so I don't really want to refill my Chapin backpack sprayer 18 times to try it out, haha. They don't make Penterra pellets either, so this is probably the best option.
 
#16 ·
@adgattoni
Haha...nice! You guys have thought of everything.

You may be able to stick the siphon directly into the 32 oz Penterra bottle, if it has the standard 38 mm threads, and use the Brown .56 oz/min meter. My GPM is 2.44, so if I spray 1,000 sq. ft. in two minutes I would be laying down 4.88 gallons of water and 1.12 ounce of Penterra. Those numbers fall short and I'm guessing it may be to thick for this to work?

The other way would be to use all 320 oz of the 2.5 gallon carboy to water it down and thin it out. You can manipulate the ratios to "meter up" or "meter down" to get super accurate...probably not necessary. Increasing the water to penterra moves you up to the next meter but decreases you dilution rate and coverage. GPM stays the same, at 2.44 GPM, regardless of the which metering tip I use.

 
#19 ·
Laying it down.....

Application 1 was almost perfect. Only issue was that I ran out of product with about 3K sq ft remaining. On the Blue Mule site they have a calculator that will allow you to adjust your psi, in the chart, to dial in your metering tips. When I called Blue Mule their rep told me that I would not need to do this. I think he may have misunderstood me because higher psi definitely caused me to go through product quicker.

Application 2 was a nightmare. I will never, for as long as I live, mix Humic-12 and Microgreene without a lot water to dilute the mix. I had to stop about 10 times to rinse the clogged screen. It took forever and was incredibly messy.

Things to change: I'm going to replace the hose that goes from the jug to the sprayer with something thicker/stiffer. It tends to bend and collapse the flow. I may also look at getting a 5/8 inch hose vs a 3/4 inch hose. 150 feet of 3/4 inch hose will wear you out.

 
#22 ·
I stand corrected. The psi doesn't effect oz/min, it only affects the dilution ratio. I must have been walking to slow. I also adjusted the square footage last week but forgot to update the metering tip. I should have used the light green metering tip @ 7.01 oz/min for Application 1.
 
#23 ·
g-man said:
I would think that regulating your water pressure would be ideal to get even coverage.
I thought so to but maybe one of our engineers can explain why psi doesn't effect output on hose end sprayers. I'm going to mess around with the amount of water I'm adding to see how close I can get things to match up with the metering tip. Or I could just be happy with "close enough" and move on with my life. :lol:
 
#25 ·
Still learnin said:
I wonder if this would be easier and less time consuming than a book sprayer on a mower. I'm talking on 1 or 2 aces.
You probably could rig something up if you have someone to manage the hose while you ride. Getting the pressure from the water line vs a pump would save money on equipment, that's for sure.

Anything over 1/2 acre would probably call for a new strategy. I'm covering 1,000 square feet every 2 minutes now, and to me it's not a big deal for it to take 40 minutes to water in 20,000 square feet per application. Once you start pushing 45 minutes though that starts to change things, for me at least.

I could have just sprayed this with a backpack sprayer, in half the time, and watered it in. Unfortunately, you can't do that with Nitrogen (GreenePunch), so I'm using the BioStimulant as practice.
 
#26 ·
Still learnin said:
I wonder if this would be easier and less time consuming than a book sprayer on a mower. I'm talking on 1 or 2 aces.
Sorry I didn't really answer your question in the previous post...

1. It depends on what you are sprayer. If it's bio-stimulants, then no I don't think it would be better than a backpack sprayer/followed by 5-10 minutes of irrigation. The spray pattern is fanned but only around 2ft wide so you have to give it the old wrist flick for coverage.
2. If is something like nitrogen, that's requires a high dilution ratio at application, then it might be quicker because you are not having to constantly refill the backpack sprayer. But on the downside, that would be a lot of hose.

Once I get irrigation, I'll mainly be using this for Nitrogen (GreenePunch).
 
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