Jun 1, 2026 · 41 min · 9 segments
In this Q&A episode, Brady and Shaun answer listener and landowner questions on three practical forestry topics: whether diesel or dish soap should be used as surfactants in herbicide applications…
Sean TangerHostThe first one of those I wanna touch on, uh, actually, actually yesterday, Sean, I had a, uh, guy with Extension go, "Well, why can't I just use diesel?" And he was talking about adding it in as a surfactant with, uh, with different herbicides, uh, dif- dif- you know, herbicide applications that are out there.
That, that, that, that's in the, that's in the, the back of my head to go through.
Surfactant being a, uh, an additive to a herbicide mix that helps it to stick to, to the plant or helps it penetrate through leaf cuticles or things like that.
There's anti-drift adjuvants, right? That helps, uh, helps water droplets fall straight down.
There's surface tension adjuvants, which are surfactants, and that's really what we're talking about with diesel fuel or the other one that I was about to say there, uh, dish soap.
That's the other one [chuckles] that I'll get, "Well, what if I just put a few drops of Dawn in, in my, my tank?" There's-- And there's, there's some other, other things, dyes and things like that, that you can add into different mixes.
You know, you have that water out there, and it's got that greasy sc- you know, scum on top of it, and you drop a, you know, a drop of soap in, what happens? Boop.
The grease runs-- It basically changes the surface tension of the water, and what happens is, uh, if you think about a water droplet being round, sitting on top of a leaf or something, well, when you add that surfactant in, what happens is the surface tension of, of the water changes, like I said, and then that drop will flatten out, and it covers more surface area.
And then, of course, you get, you know, ability that comes along with that through different chemical processes to actually help pull, carry the, the herbicide molecules through the, especially waxy leaves, but through the leaf cuticle in- into the internals of the plant.
The first one of those I wanna touch on, uh, actually, actually yesterday, Sean, I had a, uh, guy with Extension go, "Well, why can't I just use diesel?" And he was talking about adding it in as a surfactant with, uh, with different herbicides, uh, dif- dif- you know, herbicide applications that are out there.
That, that, that, that's in the, that's in the, the back of my head to go through.
Surfactant being a, uh, an additive to a herbicide mix that helps it to stick to, to the plant or helps it penetrate through leaf cuticles or things like that.
There's anti-drift adjuvants, right? That helps, uh, helps water droplets fall straight down.
There's surface tension adjuvants, which are surfactants, and that's really what we're talking about with diesel fuel or the other one that I was about to say there, uh, dish soap.
That's the other one [chuckles] that I'll get, "Well, what if I just put a few drops of Dawn in, in my, my tank?" There's-- And there's, there's some other, other things, dyes and things like that, that you can add into different mixes.
You know, you have that water out there, and it's got that greasy sc- you know, scum on top of it, and you drop a, you know, a drop of soap in, what happens? Boop.
The grease runs-- It basically changes the surface tension of the water, and what happens is, uh, if you think about a water droplet being round, sitting on top of a leaf or something, well, when you add that surfactant in, what happens is the surface tension of, of the water changes, like I said, and then that drop will flatten out, and it covers more surface area.
And then, of course, you get, you know, ability that comes along with that through different chemical processes to actually help pull, carry the, the herbicide molecules through the, especially waxy leaves, but through the leaf cuticle in- into the internals of the plant.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
