Crazy yet desperate irrigation ideas !

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
VERY silly idea (but that’s what forums are for) ..........


could you use a sprayer fed water by an umbilical system to irrigate crops ?

36m going as slow as possible (so extremely slow on cvt ) on auto steer so you could take the man out the cab with runs taking hours to complete just supervise (maybe not legal even ! ? )

umbilical system pumping water to the sprayer filling it as fast as it empties ?

utterly crazy idea and cost also probably crazy and unviable but could it work ?
 

Sid

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
South Molton
VERY silly idea (but that’s what forums are for) ..........


could you use a sprayer fed water by an umbilical system to irrigate crops ?

36m going as slow as possible (so extremely slow on cvt ) on auto steer so you could take the man out the cab with runs taking hours to complete just supervise (maybe not legal even ! ? )

umbilical system pumping water to the sprayer filling it as fast as it empties ?

utterly crazy idea and cost also probably crazy and unviable but could it work ?
Know a local farmer that uses umbilical slurry kit to water fodder beet from the river.

Through a sprayer? I would imagine blockages would be biggest issue.
 

Spud

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
YO62
Think you need to get the calculator out Clive. You'd need 100m3/ha to put 10mm on. Thats 100,000 litres per hectare. Not viable, sensible or safe. If you have the water source and unbillical kit, why not just use that? Have you an irrigation license from your root crop years?

At about £40/acre inch (depending on system and age of kit) you'd need a yield increase of 1/4t/ac for every application just to cover costs. Is that likely? No point spending a quid to gain 90p
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Think you need to get the calculator out Clive. You'd need 100m3/ha to put 10mm on. Thats 100,000 litres per hectare. Not viable, sensible or safe. If you have the water source and unbillical kit, why not just use that? Have you an irrigation license from your root crop years?

At about £40/acre inch (depending on system and age of kit) you'd need a yield increase of 1/4t/ac for every application just to cover costs. Is that likely? No point spending a quid to gain 90p

sadly don’t have water or the umbilical, just the kind of daft thing I wake up thinking about at night !

I saw @dontknowanything on twitter applying 4.5mm through his sprayer to veg plots so can’t see why you couldn’t do it at field scale if there was a way to keep the sprayer tank filled a f you had the water available ?

economics wouldn’t work though, even more normal irrigation methods rarely stack up on combinable crops
 

Clive

Staff Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lichfield
Thats a U turn, 3 weeks ago you stopped the engine when opening a gate, now you have the idea of getting off while moving!... anyway I emptied a sprayer in 50 yards to flush it out on cobbles of an OSR seedbed as an experiment... made no difference. There is a lot of water needed to put an inch on an acre.

it’s not going to happen and I know how ridiculously in economic it would be so not change there ! Just thought it would make an interesting discussion to learn if actually possible or not ?

a supervised cvt tractor moving without a man on the seat in the middle of a field and a umbilical lump unit would be no more dangerous than a rain gun in many way ......... but I still wouldn’t do it
 
Last edited:

Gerbert

Member
Location
Dutch biblebelt
Clive, veenhuis rotamax is worth a look. Not cheap though, but interesting.
Agree with that it is a bit odd that you say you should turn off a tractor when you get out, and now letting the tractor drive itself while you are not in it.... zelotic views yada yada yada whatever.
 

dubs

Member
water.jpg
 

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