How do you work out the application rate for a rotary muck spreader?
Rotary muck spreaders
- Thread starter Farmer andy3231
- Start date
- Location
- Wormingford, Essex
Same as you would for a rear discharge.
How do you do that? I've never used a muck spreader before
- Location
- Co antrim
Go spread a small field and see how many loads it takes. Then go weigh the spreader full and empty and that get you a good estimate of how many tons per acre in a certain gear.
- Location
- Limousin, France
Get the correct spreading pattern you want. Place a 1x1 metre board on the ground, drive past it with the spreader going and then stop. Take muck off the board and weigh x 10,000.
eg. 1.5 kgs x 10,000 =15000kgs or 15 tonnes per hectare.
eg. 1.5 kgs x 10,000 =15000kgs or 15 tonnes per hectare.
- Location
- northumberland
Load spreader, drive to field, set it going, wait 20mins until it eventually starts spreading, ride the clutch as it has stopped again, realise you've started against the wind as it's all blowing back onto tractor, drive up n down field in various gears trying to get it to match up half decently with previous run, then repeat as many times as it takes to either run out half way over field or to finish field and still have a 3rd of the midden left then try n fill in the bare bits with left over midden, then retire to house stinking of
to have a brew and wish you'd baught or hired a rear discharge spreader that would've made a far better job in a 3rd of the time
Assess how much the spreader holds, ie 5cuM will actually have about 3-4CuM in. Look up on google how much nutrient is in a load. Go out and spread the loads across a known sized field, keeping a record of load numbers. Get calculator out.
I have an approx heavy and light application rate calc ...
I have an approx heavy and light application rate calc ...
Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
Mine went to the scrappy a long time ago….worst piece of machinery ever inventedmaybe @Northeastfarmer farmer will know..
Well for goodness sake, NEVER fill it full!!!
Leave some room either end whatever you do, else you sit there for ages while the chains work there way to getting a good "bite"!
Not the view we take. It was a major step forward in its time. We had some sort of rear discharge spreader probably an MF. It used to break chains which meant graiping out the load which had just been graiped in. My father was very calm but this one day the spreader broke down for the last time and he phoned Rickerbys and bought a Howard 100 which had just been launched in the early 1960s. All they had was the version with an opening door on the other side. It cost more. He didn’t care.
This was a huge step forward. It had to be geared for the tractor. The machine itself was strange in that it needed an ever faster forward speed to keep spread fairly even.
Hard to underestimate what a game changer it was for small livestock farms at that time. Later I bought a field complete with half buried MF rear discharge spreader. Best place for it!
TripleSix
Member
- Location
- Helmsley, North Yorkshire
Load spreader, drive to field, set it going, wait 20mins until it eventually starts spreading, ride the clutch as it has stopped again, realise you've started against the wind as it's all blowing back onto tractor, drive up n down field in various gears trying to get it to match up half decently with previous run, then repeat as many times as it takes to either run out half way over field or to finish field and still have a 3rd of the midden left then try n fill in the bare bits with left over midden, then retire to house stinking of
We pee'd about for about 4 days spreading a 40 ac field with a barrel spreader.
Now hire a rear discharge and do it in less than a day
A valuable lesson in the difference between theory:
And practice…..
And practice…..
Load spreader, drive to field, set it going, wait 20mins until it eventually starts spreading, ride the clutch as it has stopped again, realise you've started against the wind as it's all blowing back onto tractor, drive up n down field in various gears trying to get it to match up half decently with previous run, then repeat as many times as it takes to either run out half way over field or to finish field and still have a 3rd of the midden left then try n fill in the bare bits with left over midden, then retire to house stinking of
serf
Member
- Location
- warwickshire
Have you been looking over our hedgeLoad spreader, drive to field, set it going, wait 20mins until it eventually starts spreading, ride the clutch as it has stopped again, realise you've started against the wind as it's all blowing back onto tractor, drive up n down field in various gears trying to get it to match up half decently with previous run, then repeat as many times as it takes to either run out half way over field or to finish field and still have a 3rd of the midden left then try n fill in the bare bits with left over midden, then retire to house stinking of
...
Northeastfarmer
Member
- Location
- Cleveland
I had a Howard 100 and a 150, both were utter crap, you spent more time griping it out to start because you’d over filled it by half a shake of the much grab….then don’t get me started on the state of the tractor after a day spreading….got a bunning rear discharge now and it’s the best invention out
- Location
- pembrokeshire
the big mistake with rotor spreaders was overfilling
Hilly
Member
- Location
- Scottish Borders.
I used to hire a big twin axel rotor spreader , ised to run it in 1000rpm fill it to max apart a little bit to get it started , if had plenty horse power it would run with an rd and didnt disgrace its self but covering the tractor was fairly normal , i would buy one now …
When I said graiping it in that is exactly what they did . Hand held graips until a loader finally arrived. I think the rotaspreaders had to be filled in the middle brim full and tapered down to ends. No danger of overfilling here!
Completely eclipsed by modern rear discharge which shreds everything. Scarily similar to that MF in design
Completely eclipsed by modern rear discharge which shreds everything. Scarily similar to that MF in design
- Location
- sw scotland
The best way to learn was on a tractor with no cab. I have spread a lot with barrel spreaders but of course they can't match a rear discharge as they are much smaller and also cheaper.
You have to shake the muck in and leave a gap at the ends for the hammers to start. Low gear then changing up until more chains working.
I never worried about weight, more judgement if you were growing grass needing a light coating or black for turnips.
You have to shake the muck in and leave a gap at the ends for the hammers to start. Low gear then changing up until more chains working.
I never worried about weight, more judgement if you were growing grass needing a light coating or black for turnips.