Licence to print money?

[RFR]

Neighbour was having his spreader tested as he had a few different fertilisers to spread, ours needed doing as its been a couple of years not used.
Rang up to see if i could get done the same day, easier than that, pop it along to neighbours get it done there saves lifting and resetting the trays!
And get a group discount on top of buying group discount, So off i went.
1 spreader, 1 product, 2 quick runs through the trays to make sure. all OK
£260+ VAT with the discount, for less than an hours job!

They know how to make money out of farming!

 

[farenheit]

Still one of the cheapest things we do on the farm each year!

 

[Nearly]

No one has a small field any more to run round on the opening of the season and get off to check the little white balls are bouncing into the middle of the next tramline?

 

[Luke Cropwalker]

I can never understand why anyone would pay for this service. Easy enough to test your own spreader, you only have to buy the test trays once and then you can test as frequently as necessary.

 

[milkloss]

Still one of the cheapest things we do on the farm each year!

And that is exactly how it's sold to you.

agronomist coming round saves you money.
dealer coming to service all your gear saves you money.
sprayer test saves money.
insurance rep coming round gets you the right cover and saves money.

trouble is that 'saving all this money' also costs money.

 

[Steevo]

And that is exactly how it's sold to you.

agronomist coming round saves you money.
dealer coming to service all your gear saves you money.
sprayer test saves money.
insurance rep coming round gets you the right cover and saves money.

trouble is that 'saving all this money' also costs money.

Almost makes you wonder whether there's an opening for someone to save you money by coming around and seeing which things save money and which don't.....

 

[farenheit]

And that is exactly how it's sold to you.

agronomist coming round saves you money.
dealer coming to service all your gear saves you money.
sprayer test saves money.
insurance rep coming round gets you the right cover and saves money.

trouble is that 'saving all this money' also costs money.

I'm not doing it to get a certificate. I'm doing it because getting it wrong is far more expensive. And I wouldn't personally rely on the figures in a book when I have 600 tons to spread.

 

[David.]

They test a particular product on one day under one set of conditions.
Batches of the "same" product have varying spread characteristics, RH has an effect, and unless they can turn off the breeze, you have no chance of a consistent result.
The only time used this service, I had some of the worst striping ever.
They will tell you that unless you have trays every metre and get a pretty graph it can't be right. Ballcocks.
Buy or make a set of trays and get some thin test tubes, and a funnel, Sulky kit has only 4 trays, and test is easy and quick, and consequently gets done regularly, every different product/batch etc.
Be interesting to see how this sort of parasitism pans out if farm incomes are indeed to reduce. Probably supposed to have them out twice a year, because mistakes will be even less affordable...

 

[Hobbit]

I was thinking of making my own using cat litter trays with some cardboard baffles. Today I spent ten minutes weighing and grading some urea then put it all in the Kvernland app, happy days off to the field thinking all is good. Two tramline in and I get out to check, fooking hell it’s nowhere near!

 

[warksfarmer]

And that is exactly how it's sold to you.

agronomist coming round saves you money.
dealer coming to service all your gear saves you money.
sprayer test saves money.
insurance rep coming round gets you the right cover and saves money.

trouble is that 'saving all this money' also costs money.

Stop inviting them and eventually they give up and don’t come. Makes things so much simpler.

 

[Steevo]

Not a cheap option, but you can buy trays from SCS here:

Products | SCS Spreader & Sprayer Testing | Certified NSTS Testers

SCS are the leading NSTS Certified Testers across the UK. We've been testing Spreaders, Sprayers, Granular Applicators and Slug Pelleters for over 200 years.

spreadcheck.com

 

[David.]

Stop inviting them and eventually they give up and don’t come. Makes things so much simpler.

Ask yourself how many of the people who come up the drive would you see, if they didn't get to take a cheque away with them. They don't come for your benefit.

 

[HarryB97]

Have never bothered testing my spreader. The app for settings is pretty spot on and i can tell how good the spread pattern is by looking out the window or getting out and looking at the spread ground. Modern spreaders are so good you rarely get an issue.

 

[Devil's advocate]

Have never bothered testing my spreader. The app for settings is pretty spot on and i can tell how good the spread pattern is by looking out the window or getting out and looking at the spread ground. Modern spreaders are so good you rarely get an issue.

How wide are you spreading?

 

[Will 1594]

Neighbour was having his spreader tested as he had a few different fertilisers to spread, ours needed doing as its been a couple of years not used.
Rang up to see if i could get done the same day, easier than that, pop it along to neighbours get it done there saves lifting and resetting the trays!
And get a group discount on top of buying group discount, So off i went.
1 spreader, 1 product, 2 quick runs through the trays to make sure. all OK
£260+ VAT with the discount, for less than an hours job!

They know how to make money out of farming!

Pop round here with it have trays , and if you brought your own fert Could do it for nowt ,
can geuss who ripped you off ,

 

[Steevo]

How many trays do people usually use when testing?

 

[7610 super q]

If 2 600 kg bags get used in the first 20 yards, I cut it down a bit. *



* Just kidding.

 

[Wombat]

Not a cheap option, but you can buy trays from SCS here:

Products | SCS Spreader & Sprayer Testing | Certified NSTS Testers

SCS are the leading NSTS Certified Testers across the UK. We've been testing Spreaders, Sprayers, Granular Applicators and Slug Pelleters for over 200 years.

spreadcheck.com

I made my own with bits from the garden centre. Total cost about £15

 

[DieselRob]

It’s all well and good saying it’s a rip off but if you had your own trays would you know what to do with the information to correct the spread pattern? You’re paying for that information and guidance as well. Some spreaders could be handling 6 figure sums of fert this year… £260 is a lot cheaper than spreading it wrong in that instance

Disclaimer… I’m not saying it’s good or bad value, just giving a viewpoint. Now where’s my tin hat

 

[Nearly]

A friend has a load of offcuts of plastic tread floor. It would make good inserts for trays.
Hmmmm.