25cm or 50 cm nozzle spacing

[Banana Bar]

I’m far from convinced this is worth speccing on a new sprayer. Please discuss. I don’t want to know about your 15 yr old Chafer or 20 yr old Bateman.

BB

 

[Wigeon]

My rule: "is it going to grow me another tonne of wheat?" If yes, buy it. If not, don't.

My Bateman is only 17 yrs old though, so not sure if I'm qualified to comment.

I'd be tempted by them, but since my booms spend 50% of the time in the crop and the other 50% endangering passing pigeons I'm not sure I would see much benefit.

 

[Adeptandy]

If going new I’d go 25cm, think it’s a lot better in the wind with good height control and better coverage from what I experienced in the dim and distance past on a 12m Berthoud mounted on 25cm

 

[moretimeforgolf]

I decided to stick with 50cm when I replaced my sprayer last autumn. I was concerned about having double the nozzles and more blockages because they would need to be smaller gauge. You’ll be amazed at what proper 50cm level boom actually is! Trailed Horsch LT compared to previous Knight EUA.

 

[Bobthebuilder]

Didn’t bother with 25cm when we got the horsch as the boom stability out ways it, but if your going very high water volumes then I could see it being a help

 

[Thomas Simpson]

I find 25cm spacing helps me get extra spray days you would not get at 50cm.its amazing how the drift is reduced with the drop in height. Would spec it again.

 

[Cambridgeshire]

I’m far from convinced this is worth speccing on a new sprayer. Please discuss. I don’t want to know about your 15 yr old Chafer or 20 yr old Bateman.

BB

The nozzle spacings and Performance Of them are surely the same regardless of the age of the sprayer.

 

[Hampton]

The nozzle spacings and Performance Of them are surely the same regardless of the age of the sprayer.

You’d have thought, wouldn’t you, but not according to some on here

 

[Hampton]

I would say that yes it is worthwhile on a high spec new sprayer over large acreages. Anything that means extra spray days and improved efficacy has to be worthwhile.
The multi select is also good. I do a similar thing with my chafer, but manually using the separate spray lines. I’ll use a courser droplet on headlands and around water courses, then switch to the other spray line and do the field centre with a finer nozzle. Automatic selection would be great, but is extra cashola.

 

[fred.950]

I would be looking at PWM before narrower spacing.

 

[moretimeforgolf]

I would be looking at PWM before narrower spacing.

I like the idea of PWM but it’s very expensive and I believe you can only use it with flat fans and not low drift nozzles.

 

[Feldspar]

Can see split opinions on this, but I would definitely go for 25cm. Have not had any more problems using 02 nozzles than I did before using 03s. If I was spraying 4000ac I would need all the spraying time I could get. Can't find the study, but I found work which saw a 56% reduction in drift dropping from 50cm down to 30cm. You notice a big difference between the two in the field. That's a lot more chemical going in the right place. Last week in particular was a classic example. With the last sprayer there were days I had gone off to spray a distant block when I would have had to have aborted due to the wind. However, with the ability to drop the boom right down, I carried on doing a decent job and finished what I started out to do. For me getting the Horsch boom technology without the ability to drop the boom down to 30cm is missing out on one of the key advantages (which puts me at odds with views expressed above, but just saying it as I see it).

Would say too that you definitely want auto-nozzle switching. It's available as an upgrade afterwards, but again I see it as a must have.