I don't get that. If ball moss is a parasite, how does it grow on power lines? I know, it's sucking the juice out of the power lines
Neither ball moss, nor its cousin, Spanish moss, are parasites. They are epiphitic opportunists. They live on whatever nutrition and water they can get from the air. The reason they seem to kill trees has to do with the tree and the moss. In oak trees, the tree itself shades out the lower branches. Since the lower branches cannot compete for sunlight, they die. But before they die, the ball moss starts to grow on them. The moss starts out very small and sparse. As time goes by, the tree is cutting off the lower limbs while the moss on those lower limbs continues to grow. So both things are happening separately in the same location. Eventually it looks like the lower limbs were smothered out by the thick coating of moss. As the new growth comes out on the tree, it doesn't have any ball moss growing on it yet, but it will. It always looks like less moss on the newer growth because the moss is very small (young).
You can scrape the moss off the tree with a curved pruning saw. Hold it with the flat side against the bark and cut between the bark and the moss. It falls right off. The baking soda will apparently kill the moss. It will also kill other fungus growing on your trees and anything else the spray lands on. I think you still have to scrape the moss off the bark, though.
You might be able to get the spray higher in the tree with a trombone sprayer rather than a hose end sprayer. If you are pretty strong, you can really shoot a spray up high.