Sentence:  Where Industrial Customers have had experience over the years dealing with various Applicators, and have come to know the ones that can be depended upon to live up to their word and the spirit of the contract, the tendency in recent years has been to say — "OK, you're the <WSD>weed man</WSD>, you know your business and we know ours.  Here's what we want." 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  One who destroys weeds, especially one who works in agricultural weed suppression.