Labor for 14 acres?

[ted putnam]

Originally Posted by Trueturf

Hey man do not worry about these guys telling you not to do it. If you feel like it is something you can handle then go for it. I do applications for a large site all done by hand about 12 acres. Anything ride on pretty impractical for this site, lots of small grass islands, narrow corridors etc. Really the key is staging your product in convenient fill up points. I can walk spread the whole thing by myself in about 6-8 hrs.

...and you spot spray weeds the next day?
No doubt that it can be done. And if your schedule isn't that full, why not? Extremely labor intensive though. I would only take it with a signed contract. Too many tire kickers when it comes to large sums of money. Huge properties like that always concerned me. I've never liked having too many eggs in one basket. I've seen guys base the majority of their business on 10-12 large properties. Things are great until you lose 4 of them for whatever reason (Usually a lowballer). Can be a ship sinker.

I charge a set price per acre for weed control/fert that waivers very little. I would charge $2800/per app myself. And that would be doing it with a Z-spray. If they didn't want to pay that much, no prob. I've got plenty who will. The question you need to ask yourself after figuring materials is, How busy/hungry are you presently and how busy do you see yourself in the near future? This will help you decide if this fits into the direction your business is headed.