Feldspar thread

[Brisel]

Field size, shape and poles along with traveling time to the field makes a big difference. I'll bet you have no gates to open and nice big fenland fields?

 

[Feldspar]

Ha/hr figures can be misleading. Maybe they're spraying at a slower speed and are applying their produces in a more effective way. That's too broad brush a figure, but the general point is valid -- i.e. different operators make a huge difference in what they can get done.

 

[Will7]

Field size, shape and poles along with traveling time to the field makes a big difference. I'll bet you have no gates to open and nice big fenland fields?

I don't have trees or gates, but they have some enormous Wold fields.

 

[Will7]

Ha/hr figures can be misleading. Maybe they're spraying at a slower speed and are applying their produces in a more effective way. That's too broad brush a figure, but the general point is valid -- i.e. different operators make a huge difference in what they can get done.

I disagree, hence ha/m/day. IMHO you are better to get the spray on at the right time, rather than going at 6km/hr in 300ltrs of water trying to get the perfect coverage. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. You will get the fertiliser done on non spray days anyway.

 

[Feldspar]

I disagree, hence ha/m/day. IMHO you are better to get the spray on at the right time, rather than going at 6km/hr in 300ltrs of water trying to get the perfect coverage. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. You will get the fertiliser done on non spray days anyway.

Did you average it out over a number of products? If you were doing a T0 and they were doing Atlantis, they could be forgiven for going more carefully to get a very important job done properly?

 

[Will7]

Did you average it out over a number of products? If you were doing a T0 and they were doing Atlantis, they could be forgiven for going more carefully to get a very important job done properly?

Both t2, I didn't ask their mix but you ought to get the chemical in in the time it takes to fill with water.

 

[e3120]

This, and them being highly skilled, is the most underestimated asset which never appears to be too high on people's priority list when discussing spending £100+k on a new bit of tin.

By way of an example I benchmarked myself on a 6000hr 3000ltr 24m self propelled vs a large estate that runs 3x relatively new 5000ltr 36m and they did 6.6ha/day per metre of sprayer, whilst I did 7.75ha/day.

A chap on the seat that does not need to get the calculator out all day lifts output considerably.

Does this not just confirm what we expected - that moving from 24m to 36 gives more output (186Ha/day to 238 with your well-gathered figures), but not 1.5 times, because moves etc take just as long with a 36 as a 24? I realise you're trying to de-couple the different working widths in your benchmark, but I'm not sure that the result is fair.

What do I know? If I cover my 100ac with my 12m before it gets dark I'm happy.

 

[dontknowanything]

Both t2, I didn't ask their mix but you ought to get the chemical in in the time it takes to fill with water.

I'm guessing you don't fill at 1000l/min

 

[Will7]

I'm guessing you don't fill at 1000l/min

Fert yes, spray no

Edit: Fert is about 850ltrs/min. Hoping a few hours in the gym might convert my pigeon chest into something more sculpted capable of filling the chemical for 30ha in 3 minutes!

 

[Wiking]

What type of liquid N products do you have avalible in the UK, anyone have a link or similair? The only thing I can get here is NS 27-4... What about liquid logistics how much do you expect to be able to store on farm and in what kind of bowsers @Brisel @Feldspar

 

[Brisel]

http://www.yara.co.uk/crop-nutrition/fertiliser/liquid/
http://www.omex.co.uk/products/
http://www.bunnfertiliser.com/brands/bunnliquiduan
http://www.bfs.uk.com/liquid-fertiliser.asp

Storage - I intend to have enough storage on farm for 50% of my spring requirements. I'm a bit short on that at the moment but am building concrete pads for rented liquid tanks.
Bowsers - I have a 10,000 litre tank that fits into a 14t grain trailer which I leave parked up by the field edge. The sprayer leaves the yard with a 6,000 litre load on board then with another 10 m3 in the bowser that's normally enough to finish each block of fields. For this spring I will get an 8m3 tank for the trailer, put the 10m3 in the yard permanently as a backup water source for the sprayer then I will have enough room in the trailer for water or fertiliser, plus a chemical locker, bin for empties and a 1,000 litre ibc of managenese. The bowser will be manned most of the time - Although my farm is mostly ring fenced we can have to go through 4 locked gates to get to some fields then have to shut them behind. Better to let the bowser driver do all that so the sprayer can be left to spray or do liquid rather than spend 1/2 hour just getting to the field.

 

[Wiking]

Cheers for the links. If I had those type of products avalible I would probably consider liquid fertilizer aswell. I need a few more acres I reckon (currently around a thousand) before I can justifiy an AGT
How long will the bowsers last? Are they written off in ten years time?

 

[Brisel]

Until they fall off the forklift tines lifting them in or out... or approx 10 years

 

[Fuzzy]

The huge benefit of two sprayers is that if you have two hours of decent wind in the morning, you can send both sprayers out in different directions to different farms to be ready to start when the wind drops. Together they get four hours of spraying in total. Say your one big sprayer has double the capacity, but it has these two jobs to do on two different farms with different sensitive crops. It starts at one farm at the beginning of those two hours, spends an hour to finish the job that took the smaller sprayer two hours to do, but then has to wash out and drive to the other farm which takes 45 minutes. By the time the big sprayer gets to the second farm, it has to fill up with the new chemical, which takes 15 minutes, and then it has run out of spraying window. The results is the two sprayers get four hours of spraying in, whereas the big sprayer only gets an equivalent of two hours of spraying in (assuming double capacity).

A bit of a contrived case, but that sort of thing does happen quite a bit.

The other much more serious aspect to all of this is the Sprayer Operator ! Now it may well be some people have an operator who is happy to get up at 4.30 to load 6 lorries with wheat, to then fuel the 8000litre £400,000 sprayer and then head off to do the first 800 acre block before lunch(no time for stopping for lunch gotta get on !) and then moves 80 miles to the next 700 acre block which he finishes just before dark (although he can at least pour himself a nice cup of tea whilst on the return 80 mile journey!)
But it would be much easier with 2 sprayers and 2 less stressed operators.

 

[Brisel]

You'd need to have 2 operators who talk to one another if they are likely to be spraying the same fields - that makes better sense than just splitting the farm in half and having one sat there while the other has a lot to do.

 

[Mr Charisma]

The other much more serious aspect to all of this is the Sprayer Operator ! Now it may well be some people have an operator who is happy to get up at 4.30 to load 6 lorries with wheat, to then fuel the 8000litre £400,000 sprayer and then head off to do the first 800 acre block before lunch(no time for stopping for lunch gotta get on !) and then moves 80 miles to the next 700 acre block which he finishes just before dark (although he can at least pour himself a nice cup of tea whilst on the return 80 mile journey!)
But it would be much easier with 2 sprayers and 2 less stressed operators.

Strange you should say this ,,,,, over the last couple of years the local big affairs have all had to go out looking for new sprayer operators ,,,,, with varying success I believe ,,,,, all very well if your a keen owner operator , but even being a owner operator the ' just nipping out to put a couple of loads on ' at 7 pm can start to wear a bit thin with wife's and family ,,,,, those who are young enough not to worry about such things may just change their minds after 30 odd years

 

[Brisel]

These guys do exist but are becoming a rare breed. Find youself a person in their 20s with no family and some expensive habits then you soon have someone who likes overtime

 

[ajd132]

me and my father often work it like this if were flat out. He will get up at 4am (he likes getting up early) do a couple of loads then I will take over at 8 and spray for another 12-14 hours. Can get serious amounts done. And we would rather do it ourselves than pay someone to do it. We need to pay for lots of shooting in Wales anyway!

 

[Feldspar]

me and my father often work it like this if were flat out. He will get up at 4am (he likes getting up early) do a couple of loads then I will take over at 8 and spray for another 12-14 hours. Can get serious amounts done. And we would rather do it ourselves than pay someone to do it. We need to pay for lots of shooting in Wales anyway!

Of course your father can get out quickly in the morning, he only needs to put his flip-flops on.

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Strange you should say this ,,,,, over the last couple of years the local big affairs have all had to go out looking for new sprayer operators ,,,,, with varying success I believe ,,,,, all very well if your a keen owner operator , but even being a owner operator the ' just nipping out to put a couple of loads on ' at 7 pm can start to wear a bit thin with wife's and family ,,,,, those who are young enough not to worry about such things may just change their minds after 30 odd years

I can see this heading towards the "lonely harvest wives" again