Compatibility & mixing: how to mix your tank

It might sound like a national tourist authority website but www-wales is actually the slogan we use at Syngenta as a reminder of the best order in which to add ingredients to the knapsack or sprayer tank – starting with the products that are the most difficult to disperse and dissolve. Adjuvants are usually added last, though those designed for use as compatibility aids should go in just before any wettable powders.

Ensure each product is thoroughly mixed, dispersed or dissolved before adding the next.

Here’s how it goes:

• W: Water goes into the tank first, before any product; fill to around half the tank and start agitation

• W: the first products to add are those formulated as a Water-soluble bag (WSB), if you’re using any, and allow each to disperse fully

  • If an adjuvant is being used as a compatibility aid, it goes in here, otherwise at the end

• W: next add any Wettable powders (WP)

• W: then any Water-dispersible granules (WG)

• A: Agitation should be maintained; allow these harder-to-mix ingredients to disperse evenly, which may take a few minutes, before continuing

• L: Liquid flowables ­– suspension concentrates (SC) and suspo-emulsions (SE) – are the next in

• E: then Emulsifiable Concentrates (EC) or microemulsion concentrates (MEC)

• S: Solutions (SN) or Soluble Liquids (SL) are the easiest types of product to mix so come last; these include any biostimulants and liquid fertilisers and most adjuvants

Finish by filling the tank to the required volume and continue to agitate throughout the spray application.

Following www-wales will give you the best chance of getting the tank-mix partners you’ve chosen to mix quickly and easily and keep the risk of foaming to a minimum.