Liquid fertiliser and sprayer rethink

Smithjamesjohn

Member
Arable Farmer
Irrelevant of the price difference between liquid and granular I’m thinking of moving back to granular for a few reasons as well as Urea being the cheapest form of N.

We are running a 6000l 32m trailed we bought cheap about 8 years ago but it’s well worn out. We’re at the stage where we need to do the pump, flow meter, pretty much all the water pipes due to them starting split as well as all the hydraulic pipes. Boom pivots and rear linkage frame and bushes etc and that’s not to mention some boom welding in places. Were seeing rate build up issues in herbicide and fert applications so it’s time to do something with the machine. The cost of the repairs are more than the used value so it’s time to move it on.

Thinking of buying a used SP for chemicals and moving back to 24m. Something £50,000-£60,000 in value like a Househam factory refurb and then a 3t new spinner with weighcells but I don’t need sectional control. Any views on what type of spinner around £10,000?
 

Heathland

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire
You need section control,with the price of fertiliser it'll soon pay for itself.
Can of worms which spreader🤣🤣.
I've got a KV Geospreader myself,and it was a well looked after used machine, very very happy.
I spread at 36m,no issues.
 

fudge

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Lincolnshire.
Whilst I agree with the above, section control is expensive if the tractor has to be equipped from scratch with guidance. I doubt it’s possible to buy an isobus spreader and equip the tractor for £10k?
 

Lofty1984

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South wales
What about future proofing yourself if you can get one with section control and plan on keeping the spinner for a few years that way if a tractor is bought with gps it can be used
 

Lofty1984

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South wales
Can someone explain how the section control works please with 2 spinning discs to a simple small farmer that has only just progressed past a bucket 😉
It’s witchcraft 😂 don’t quote me but think the shutter moves in a curve in the hopper so it’s dropped at different points on the disc so it stays open the same width but the opening pivots around
 

KB6930

Member
Location
Borders
Can someone explain how the section control works please with 2 spinning discs to a simple small farmer that has only just progressed past a bucket 😉
Kv shuts down or increases the rate as the section of ground gets narrower or wider and also alters the spread width narrower or wider as it needs to by moving the point where the fert goes onto the vanes by moving a shroud with a hole in around on the centre of the disc .

But yeah basically witchcraft 🤣
 

Smithjamesjohn

Member
Arable Farmer
90% of our fields are either square or oblong so section control would be a waste of money. I want to keep it simple to reduce the cost although weigh cells so it’s calibrating itself all the time would be money well spent due to fertiliser prices.
 

Lofty1984

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
South wales
90% of our fields are either square or oblong so section control would be a waste of money. I want to keep it simple to reduce the cost although weigh cells so it’s calibrating itself all the time would be money well spent due to fertiliser prices.
You say it would be a waste of money I’d value it more than the weigh cells for money saving even on square fields you will overlap and your ins and outs
 

Chae1

Member
Location
Aberdeenshire
tend to fall over in my experience…
I'm sure I remember reading on here you had to over apply by 20% to see any difference. If the rest of your crops hanging it won't take much.

Personally I've never had section control and can hand on my heart say I have never had bits go flat due to over application.

Bought a new spreader 2 years ago without section control or weigh cells.

If we're out at 36m it would be a necessity. But op is speaking about 24
 

quattro

Member
Location
scotland
I personally think weigh cells are excellent
section control comes down to width and competent operator
l did a 36acre 3cornered field once operator controlled and then straight again using geo and manufacturers rep driving 100kgs per pass
apart from the hard job of pressing a button at the CORRECT time there’s was no difference
 

snarling bee

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
I would still say at current fert prices you would save between £5 and £10 per ha just on fert, that is without under and over application around the headlands causing flat crops or poor yield. Until you have had SC you dont realise how good it is and how poor even the best operators are by comparison. The best way I found doing it manually was to do one application per season the opposite way to normal, ie you turn off where normally you turn on, and all the triangle bits are done the opposite way etc. Even with that system I would still say SC is a must if you have more than say 200 Ha of crops.
We did one straight headland with liquid and then the rest of the field with the SC spinner. When the crop took up the N I was dumbstruck how accurate the spinner was. There was a 1-2 m wide pale strip next to the definite cut off of the liquid application, the whole length of the headland (300m) regardless of whether it was an 'in' or 'out' tramline. Absolutely awesome. It would be almost impossible to do that manually without marking every turn on point with a stick or something.
I use the Amazone GPS dome as it was cheaper than the unlock on the Trimble, it could therefore go on any tractor.
 

SFI - What % were you taking out of production?

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    Votes: 80 42.3%
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    Votes: 66 34.9%
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    Votes: 30 15.9%
  • 50-75%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 75-100%

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 100% I’ve had enough of farming!

    Votes: 7 3.7%

Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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