Cost of spraying

[ollie989898]

He must have been getting a bung from the contractor, no agronomist would be that fussy, there are things you can't mix though.

There are a few things you cannot mix but they are few and far between.

Agronomists who insist on separate applications for everything would make me mad, farmer or spray operator. There is only so many spray days in the year and maize season is a bit of a pain because you don't want to be spraying in the heat of the day if you can help it.

There was one muppet locally who would not mix starane with calaris and made the contractor apply both products one after the other on a considerable acreage whereas I had been mixing the two for years.

 

[Chae1]

There are a few things you cannot mix but they are few and far between.

Agronomists who insist on separate applications for everything would make me mad, farmer or spray operator. There is only so many spray days in the year and maize season is a bit of a pain because you don't want to be spraying in the heat of the day if you can help it.

There was one muppet locally who would not mix starane with calaris and made the contractor apply both products one after the other on a considerable acreage whereas I had been mixing the two for years.

Why are you no longer an agronomist? Sounds like you were really good.

 

[Al R]

I was ALWAYS thinking about the application of the product when I did a recommendation. It was a primary consideration.

Fields would be lumped together and where possible part cans would be eliminated by tweaking rates. I also made a note of what each farmer had in stock at the beginning of the season so I could try and use it up over time.

I would typically lump everyone's T1 and so forth into the same slot so that a contractor could expect to get around the circuit and do them all. Similarly maize and the like was roughly sprayed at the same time or sometimes slightly early. It was the same with grass destruction or weed control in grass.

I would mix products if it meant saving a pass with the sprayer.

Applying £1.50 worth of insecticide on it's own was nonsense. I tended to do something else with it where I could although the majority of my cereals were always deter dressed anyway due to being behind grass.

Wheat sown behind maize usually got deter or if not it was too wet to travel once it had emerged anyway.

Pre-ems and the like also played a role- I knew that crops would not be heaving with mess in spring because most of them had an autumn herbicide somewhere. Similarly maize was all pre-emerge sprayed because of the logistics of getting a contractor to the crop fast enough. It saved our collective bacon many many times.

The last thing I wanted to do was wind a spray contractor up, they were part of a team and even used to phone up where they thought I had missed something or made a cock up.

I knew that all the products being used at the time would mix as I was doing it all but with a 5/6 mix on 1 farm and then the other farms were all individual or might mix 2 products, needing a few days at least apart. Worse than that there was a lot of half rate’s going on
I sprayed a lot for 10 years so knew what would mix and what wouldn’t etc.. not letting me spray until 11am was another issue, meanwhile I was doing 200ac before that on my own place. The same agronomists insisted on 200L/ha and nothing below yet filling was with not much better than a hosepipe....

 

[ollie989898]

I knew that all the products being used at the time would mix as I was doing it all but with a 5/6 mix on 1 farm and then the other farms were all individual or might mix 2 products, needing a few days at least apart. Worse than that there was a lot of half rate’s going on
I sprayed a lot for 10 years so knew what would mix and what wouldn’t etc.. not letting me spray until 11am was another issue, meanwhile I was doing 200ac before that on my own place. The same agronomists insisted on 200L/ha and nothing below yet filling was with not much better than a hosepipe....

Insisting on 200L/ha- no way, I let the spray contractors decide the water volume. One or two of them were pretty handy (and rather more experienced in their job than I in mine) and would soon have told me to fudge off if I started doing daft things. There is no time in the job to be telling spray operators what to do. In fairness, most arable farmers are doing their work at less than 200L anyway. Telling them when they may spray or not- also never going to happen.

Spraying a crop then going back 2 days later, that is a very very dubious practice.

Filling with a hospipe or from a cattle trough is not on these days, farmers should all have clean water tanks on the place, they are dirt cheap and easy to rig up, be very useful in the event of a fire as well.

Have done a 7 and 8 way mix before but not recommended if I am honest. Would let farmer decide about doing weed control and T0 fungicide separately- their crop not mine.

I came across a farmer once who was being told which day to apply their T1 and T2 or similar on specific days. 'This field Wednesday, that field Friday' etc- all utter nonsense and no need for it. I think some people try to deliberately overcomplicate the job and mystify it for no reason I can fathom.

 

[Clive]

Somedays it pays great, big blocks, decent field sizes, good water and chemical logistics agronomists that "think" and customers that help and understand they might not be your only customer

Other days its rubbish and a lot of days your covering the significant cost of men and machines that are sat in a yard earning nothing

The equipment is very expensive these days to the buy and run, operators willing to work early or late or in contact with ag chems are getting harder to find

It's certainly one of the better paying contracting jobs but like most things in ag is hardly a get rich quick scheme !

In summary I think the NACC rates are set based on the reality of the costs of the service not just a guess and are about right

 

[ollie989898]

Somedays it pays great, big blocks, decent field sizes, good water and chemical logistics agronomists that "think" and customers that help and understand they might not be your only customer

Other days its rubbish and a lot of days your covering the significant cost of a men and machines that are sat in a yard earning nothing

The equipment is very expensive these days with the buy and run, operators willing to work early or late or in contact with ag chems are getting harder to find

It's certainly one of the better paying contracting jobs but like most things in ag is hardly a get rich quick scheme !

The ever growing cost of the chemicals, the legislation and certification involved, the ever growing cost of the machinery and the growing expertise of the man applying them etc, all mean that it is the kind of work that many farmers just won't entertain doing themselves. I think you can nearly justifiably charge what you like or even fudge off the customers do you don't really want to be messing with. £5 an acre is nearly a ridiculously low figure considering the equipment, level of expertise and legislation involved these days running a contractor type outfit.

 

[Clive]

The ever growing cost of the chemicals, the legislation and certification involved, the ever growing cost of the machinery and the growing expertise of the man applying them etc, all mean that it is the kind of work that many farmers just won't entertain doing themselves. I think you can nearly justifiably charge what you like or even fudge off the customers do you don't really want to be messing with. £5 an acre is nearly a ridiculously low figure considering the equipment, level of expertise and legislation involved these days running a contractor type outfit.

Kind of the way I see it. there is loads of work out there and that trend seems to strengthen every year, good labour and people willing to invest in equipment or employe their own operators decreases all the time and the cut price contractors give up when they realise they cant do the job properly

Certainly no point in racing to the bottom or being a busy fool, I never thought it would be the case but I find myself turning work away more and more these days and in a position to pick and choose a bit more

 

[ollie989898]

Kind of the way I see it. there is loads of work out there and that trend seems to strengthen every year, good labour and people willing to invest in equipment or employe their own operators decreases all the time and the cut price contractors give up when they realise they cant do the job properly

Certainly no point in racing to the bottom or being a busy fool, I never thought it would be the case but I find myself turning work away more and more these days and in a position to pick and choose a bit more

The use of GPS I think has become essential in contract spraying, I would nearly tell your customers to forget putting tramlines in and you will drive where GPS tells you to, you could probably convince them to let you stay on near normal rubber as well.

 

[Clive]

The use of GPS I think has become essential in contract spraying, I would nearly tell your customers to forget putting tramlines in and you will drive where GPS tells you to, you could probably convince them to let you stay on near normal rubber as well.

we do - cant work to others tramlines anything like as well as RTK can put them in. I recall an operator coming back from a job last year where he was spraying some already tramlines OSR, over a 40ish ac field he had an entire tramline less when he finished such was the previous overlap !


Only have a couple of spray only contract customer though, most of what we do is part of S2S contracting, where we do that we have invested in putting tanks and stores to ease logistics on other peoples farms

 

[An Gof]

You must have big fields to do 500acre/day.
Where I reliefed last year, 2 modern (1 new) SP’s with 36m booms, only doing the 1 farm but very spread out. 200ac/day was target, 300ac/day was good, 400ac/day was ambitious and needing over 16hour days.

By far the best paying contracting job if you have good clients with at least 50acre of each crop type to save half loads. A bad agronomist or poorly timed agronomist who doesn’t like mixing products can kill a spraying contractor. A good agronomist who’s on top of the job and will mix products can save a contractor and the farmer a lot of time and money! I helped a contracting friend out for a few months once and the agronomists on those farms wouldn’t mix any fungicides with herbicides or insecticides or trace minerals so individual passes. Cost the farmers and my time a fortune! £1.50 cost of insecticide, £5/acre to put it on!

Only 200 acres a day with a 36m SP sprayer in 16 hours Just how spread out was the farm? West Wales to Staffordshire?

 

[Al R]

Only 200 acres a day with a 36m SP sprayer in 16 hours Just how spread out was the farm? West Wales to Staffordshire?

A lot of small fields, bed work or high rates liquid fert and high rate water. 400ac would be 16hour plus not 200ac, 200ac was achievable in 8 hours normally but on bed work and high volumes soon cut rates back. If I ever have time again i’d Happily go back there, a very well run operation!

 

[Clive]

Only 200 acres a day with a 36m SP sprayer in 16 hours Just how spread out was the farm? West Wales to Staffordshire?

It happens sometimes - we had a day like this earlier this autumn where we did less than that for a customer with a 36m 6000L machine (just over 100ac all day in fact !) - bits here and there, long road moves, poor support, desire for higher water rates and different mixes etc

Customers often forget those days when looking at prices though

 

[Al R]

It happens sometimes - we had a day like this earlier this autumn where we did less than that for a customer with a 36m 6000L machine (just over 100ac all day in fact !) - bits here and there, long road moves, poor support, desire for higher water rates and different mixes etc

Customers often forget those days when looking at prices though

7ha block which was 7 fields was the worst I did with 36. Did it a few times and failed to do it in under 3hours. It was 1 tank obviously and in 1 block but a lot of poles meant fold every time etc..

 

[two-cylinder]

Perhaps this thread ought to be named Cost of poor spraying?
Contractors rushing about in inappropriate weather and soil conditions to get on.
It's one of the jobs that's far better done in-house.

 

[Clive]

Perhaps this thread ought to be named Cost of poor spraying?
Contractors rushing about in inappropriate weather and soil conditions to get on.
It's one of the jobs that's far better done in-house.

depends very much on the contractor - don't tar all with the same brush, I see some in house operations spraying on some interesting days as well !

 

[Jim75]

Perhaps this thread ought to be named Cost of poor spraying?
Farmers rushing about in inappropriate weather and soil conditions to get done
It's one of the jobs that's far better let out.

Corrected it for you

 

[Spud]

Even if your using an old mounted 1200l sprayer at 10km/h at 100l/ha, you will average one load/hour including filling.

At £11/ha doing 12ha/hour that works out at £132/hour. So in answer to your question there's plenty of profit in the job!

The realistic cost of the job depends on the age of the tackle involved and how much it's depreciating per year, but when you can hire in a man and tractor at £25/hour I think it gives you a rough idea of what it really costs per hour!

You won't do 12ha an hour for many hrs a day unless you're in big fields. Typical here at 24m running from one point within mostly a 5 mile radius with a 4000lt trailed sprayer is 8-10ha/hr, average field size 5-6ha.
Not a bad job at £10+ per hectare, longest season of any machine on the farm, and no earth wearing parts to change constantly.

 

[ollie989898]

I think the going rate is pretty good value, you get a machine arrive that is all compliant, accurate and more importantly, legal (tested) and an operator who usually knows the job inside out and is very experienced. A lot of people could buy their own plough or powerharrow and make a half good job at something, but spraying, a lot of folks would struggle just reading the recs and pouring the product in. Chemicals expensive and a mistake even more so. A good accurate sprayer and operator that knows what he is about can give far better results and value for money than a leaking disaster you just dragged out of the nettles.

 

[ewald]

Interesting thread - I have often thought that spraying and combining are the last two jobs that I would contract out, mostly due to the time critical issues.
As a small farmer I would tend to be less of a priority for a busy contractor, specially in a busy time. I think that spraying is a good way of thoroughly keeping an eye on the crops, and despite the earlier comments about ‘leaking disasters being dragged out of the nettles’ I think that most fairly competent and interested operators can still do a pretty good job with older tackle. We are also less likely to be forced into spraying in unsuitable conditions due to an excessive workload.

 

[Brisel]

I think the days of “leaking disasters” are mostly over with the advent of NSTS and NRoSO. Timing is everything and some thinly stretched contractors do test the limits of timing. When I worked for a contractor who did spraying as part of the services I’d be given recs that were weeks out of date and weeds well beyond the dose rate of some of the herbicides.

Spraying would be the last operation I’d outsource unless I had a very good contractor and insufficient time to do the job properly myself.