Are wider sprayer booms prone to breaking?

[Pilatus]

If you have changed to a wider sprayer (32,36mtr etc) during the last 5yrs, have you had more spray boom breakages than with a 24mtr boom?

 

[Beowulf]

The advice I got from Wallace of Kelso was that the early 'wide' booms produced by a lot of manufacturers arguably weren't up to the job, but that anything built more recently (last 10 years) could be expected to give a good service life with minimal repairs, barring any little accidents.

They were trying to sell me a second-hand sprayer at the time though, so take that with a pinch of salt.

 

[Al R]

Regardless of age wider is more stress/weight, the centre/fixing points will obviously be a lot more beefed up on wider booms compared to narrower booms to try and compensate for this. More wear and tare in a wider boom BUT I would always go wider than narrower, the cost of bushes/pins/springs is cheaper than losing 50% productivity.