[johnkeegan]

Last year I had to break down and get a hydroseeder. I got tired of the manual seeding and blown straw mulching. I bought a 600 gallon jet agitated sprayer (EZ Lawn) because all I want to use it for is repairing the lawn damage we incurred after our installation jobs and small seeding add-ons to larger installation jobs. It mostly worked fine but I have a few questions for any experienced hydroseeders out there. First, is there a quicker way to load the bales of cellulose into the machine without tediously breaking them apart by hand? Secondly, for the "mix" I use a high quality seed, starter fertilizer,basic tackifier and 100% paper cellulose. Are any of the other additives they push on you really needed ("bonded fiber matrix", tackifier crystals ..). Thirdly, we tried to change the mix to 80% paper/20% wood for better holding but the machine didn't seem to spray as well. Is this to be expected?

[Stonehenge]

I have the exact model you do. Like you, I couldn't justify a nice, big paddle agitation machine because I don't do enough lawn work (nor do I want to). We don't use the bales, but we were thinking about switching to them for cost reasons - good to hear your perspective on the issue. Instead, we use pelletized cellulose. We've also tried a partial wood mix, but we ran into issues like it sounds you did.

The one thing we used last year that did seem to help with erosion control while the Ryes got started might be what you're calling the BFM. It was small bags of man-made fiber strands cut into 1" lengths. We found that this did help keep the seed in place, enough so that it's now standard in our seeding protocol.

[Paul]

I have never used a BFM that didn't include all wood fiber, lots of tack, some have poly fibers but not all. Rates for BFM are 3000 to 4500 lbs per acre. Cost for factory made BFM run $30 to $40 per 50 lb bale.

[scl]

Look into mat blends new cellulose and corn fiber pellets. Even with my older Finn I doubled the amount of mulch I can load and al you do is pour it in and it takes some mixing to break them down. Coverage is about 15-20% less effective though.

[Stonehenge]

Paul, is that poundage standard? I spoke to a rep last season that said that even 2,000# / acre was on the heavy side. Maybe it's dependant on the application. I thought 2K/acre was what you used to do.

[Paul]

We shot 2500 lbs per acre of 100% wood mulch. BFM's are for slope protection, they must hold firm to the soils and stop erosion. I should have put in my other post that the bales have a application guide for the slope that you are going to protect. With that said , a BFM is kinda over kill on a flat lawn......... so you can get away with less.

[johnkeegan]

Just to clarify what's been mentioned here. My machine is jet-agitated. It appears that alot of the discussion here involved the application rates for materials that are designed for mechanically-agitated machines. Am I correct?

[Stonehenge]

My part of it isn't. That being said, I'm probably laying down #2,000/acre with our machine. However, that means we have to do a few things differently than normal to make that work, and still get home before dark.

[scl]

Not really. Its a matter of simple mathematics. Most jets that I know of don't like all wood or BFM mixes, but if you're shooting lawns and moderate slopes it shouldn't be a problem. I have gotten to where on a regular lawn install I shoot about 1600 to 1800 #'s per acre, for my best results. Thicker for slopes and hot weather, but averaging 1700. More hasn't yielded significantly better results, and less just sucks. On jobs with requisites, like gov. work, you put what they require.
Look up some of the cell./corn fiber stuff and give it a run. I think you'll like it. More body than paper, and ease of mixing.

[hydro-green ltd]

hi friend, even in New Zealand the jet agitator (EZ lawn) units are creeping into our markets. I have had a brief encounter with the units, where we used an American product called hydrogreen which is a blue bonded fibre matrix, the ratio was 4 bags per 500 gals. though it was time consuming once the fibre had broken down there was quit an easy flow. But another product that we kiwis use are reject pulp from the pulp and paper mills already broken down ratio to you specs. (60% pulp - 40% water and seed etc.., I now have built my own disc agitator hydro-seeding unit that has an average out put of 5,000 gallens per day over an area of 10,000 square metres, or i think just under 2 & half acres. sorry a bit of useless information. Well my fiend i hope this may help you.
chez, Bill