Sprayer MOT

[Y Fan Wen]

It's all a complete load of rubbish. I wouldn't be at all surprised if all these regulations come to pass. The powers that be only want organic farming and furry wildlife roaming the UK countryside. They want to turn it into a big park and if UK farmers can't produce actual food under those circumstances, they will be further condemned as being uncompetitive. This even while they import from the cheapest sources possible with no regard to 'rules'. We are being trussed up, bent over a barrel and prepared for a jolly good old-fashioned rogering.

And of course, exporting farming means it is much much easier for gb to reach the carbon targets that have been signed up for. When I raised this scenario in 'another place' I was shouted down and one poster offered to supply me with a foil helmet. Well, we shall see.

 

[balerman]

Speaking to a guy who supplies sprayers he reckoned testing was bad for him as so many of the smaller growers went to using contractors so he lost sales and spares trade.Has anyone else heard that the test is being tightened up re boom yaw my tester sair after 2018 my knight would fail on this and potentially also fail by not having individual nozzle shut off which they are talking about

The test Is being tightened up as from tomorrow,26th Nov.My sprayer (Hardi LX1000) is being tested on Monday still using the old paperwork apparently,they did express concern that the boom may fail under the new rules,needs to be straight (which mine wont be) as well as level when in work.

 

[Drillman]

My sprayer was tested in july. Tonight the booms fell off I doubt it's covered 400 acres since it was tested.

Its now a case of bodge it up or replace it.

 

[bravheart]

My guess is it will be a requirement of cross compliance so on rpa inspection it will be checked, if not in place then a fine.

believe the test results are available to anyone online and can also be traced through the sticker they put on the sprayer so rpa will arrive on farm already armed.

 

[Cowabunga]

What is the point? Really, I truly fail to see what the reason is apart from job creation at farmer's expense.

 

[Bumble Bee]

What is the point? Really, I truly fail to see what the reason is apart from job creation at farmer's expense.

We had an eye opener last week. We tested some sprayers for a network of farmers. They were mostly grassland base and so had never been tested before.

They were all given an operator check sheet before the test to help them get their machines upto scratch and were told verbally and on the information sheets that the machine had to be presented to us clean on the inside and out and filled with clean water.

We had machines arrive with different nozzles across the boom.
One machine had no pressure gauge fitted and 2 machines came to be tested loaded with sheep dip!!!

This is reminiscent of when we first started testing arable sprayers, (although i don't ever recall any with sheep dip in). I doubt that you will find many poorly maintained arable sprayers now and we have got used to that fact.
This has been due to being tested regularly.

 

[Cowabunga]

We had an eye opener last week. We tested some sprayers for a network of farmers. They were mostly grassland base and so had never been tested before.

They were all given an operator check sheet before the test to help them get their machines upto scratch and were told verbally and on the information sheets that the machine had to be presented to us clean on the inside and out and filled with clean water.

We had machines arrive with different nozzles across the boom.
One machine had no pressure gauge fitted and 2 machines came to be tested loaded with sheep dip!!!

This is reminiscent of when we first started testing arable sprayers, (although i don't ever recall any with sheep dip in). I doubt that you will find many poorly maintained arable sprayers now and we have got used to that fact.
This has been due to being tested regularly.

Had these idiots passed their competency tickets to use their sprayers?
I don't get that. They know what's expected in a test, yet they turn up with sprayers like that? Sounds unlikely to me. Two machines loaded with sheep dip to a test! Pull the other one mate! Not one, but two!
I don't believe a word of it.

Sounds to me as if you are making it up to justify job creation. Your job. I've used the word before. rubbish!

 

[Kidds]

But the different nozzles and no pressure gauge is pretty normal.

 

[Bumble Bee]

I wouldn't have believed it either. But seeing is believing.
Apparently it is common practice to pen your sheep up and stick the boom over the top of the sheep and 'give them a good doo'
It's a different world when you get up them hills. We even had 2 that were booked in and forgot to turn up!

Re competence.
I don't know if they have passed any test. From what i hear the grandfather rights test is so easy that you can't fail. It was made this way as (and we've heared it on here many times) they had been spraying for years and know everything there is too know and why should they have too go through the full training and test ritual.

Just because you and possibly your neighbours are doing everything by the book does not mean that everybody is.
As a sprayer tester and a spraying contractor a maybe get to see a bit more than most and there has been (and maybe still is) some shocking practices going on out there.

 

[czechmate]

Fortunately, because most of my place is in olives and almonds I need a very narrow sprayer. I do not like air sprayers and use a hand lance when high spraying is required. Only sprayers of 3m and over need an MOT. Mine is 2.95m. The MOT is an EU requirement, not a UK one.

Seriously, I like my car (23y.o.) to go through an MOT, because then I know it is safe. A sprayer is similar. A couple of nozzles putting out half as much again as they should, or a bad spray pattern, and you can lose a lot of money. I know we should all check our sprayers in accordance with the "best practice" we all said we would when we received our certificates, but do we?

I bought a sprayer at a farm sale, talking 1980's before testing, bloody hell, it had a mixture of 100, 150 and 200 lt/ha (10, 15 and 20 gall/acre if you prefer) nozzles in it!. Also if using cheap and cheerful nozzles In a hard water area it is shocking just how fast the rate is all over the place.
As has been said, it's something you always "mean" to get around to but being forced to do it every year (for assurance) made sure of it. Actually the cheap nozzles and hard water didn't come close to lasting a year on several hundred acres of milling wheat - hard tips becoming a good investment, then just letting my tester do the jug test for me

 

[7610 super q]

It does make me smile that the ones trying to justify these rules are the very same ones that make money out of these schemes.......

 

[Selectamatic]

My question, the OP of this thread is still unanswered.

What am I legally doing wrong using an un MOT'd sprayer?

Can one of the chaps who have contributed to this thread, who are testers themselves clarify it for me?

 

[balerman]

I wouldn't have believed it either. But seeing is believing.
Apparently it is common practice to pen your sheep up and stick the boom over the top of the sheep and 'give them a good doo'
It's a different world when you get up them hills. We even had 2 that were booked in and forgot to turn up!

Re competence.
I don't know if they have passed any test. From what i hear the grandfather rights test is so easy that you can't fail. It was made this way as (and we've heared it on here many times) they had been spraying for years and know everything there is too know and why should they have too go through the full training and test ritual.

Just because you and possibly your neighbours are doing everything by the book does not mean that everybody is.
As a sprayer tester and a spraying contractor a maybe get to see a bit more than most and there has been (and maybe still is) some shocking practices going on out there.

I can well believe it,i know from experience that its like going to a different planet working for hill or upland farmers,having a sprayer tested would hardly make it to the bottom of a long list of jobs needing to be done.Even a small scale arable farmer will be putting thousands of pounds worth of chemicals through his sprayer every year and its one of his key machines.A dripping nozzle or lack of a pressure gauge aint exactly going to bother a chap spraying sheep dip over a pen of sheep!

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

My question, the OP of this thread is still unanswered.

What am I legally doing wrong using an un MOT'd sprayer?

No it's answered. I told you back in post 9. Technically you would be in contravention of the 2012 PPP Reg's.

Now what the penalty is and how it's detected /found out is not certain. Has anyone been prosecuted or through the courts for it??

 

[Selectamatic]

No it's answered. I told you back in post 9. Technically you would be in contravention of the 2012 PPP Reg's.

Now what the penalty is and how it's detected /found out is not certain. Has anyone been prosecuted or through the courts for it??

What are PPP regs, should they mean anything to me?

 

[Kidds]

I don't make any money out of these rules but I can see why they are needed.
Some of the sprayers I see are just terrible, and I mean just the ones I see over the hedge or down the road. Some of the operators are just as terrible too.
Many folk using these sprayers have not got the faintest idea how to calibrate them nor have any appreciation of why they should. There's a thread on here saying how a farmer sprays his whole field with water first to work out how much to put in his tank! At least he makes an effort to get it right I guess.

I don't want to have to MOT my sprayer or pay for the privilege, and although I do have various PA tickets it was no more than box ticking and paying at the time. The reason we get these rules (particularly in these cases IMO) is there are so many out there without a clue of how to do the job properly. And around here it is very noticeable that dairy folk are the worst culprits.

 

[Pheasant Surprise]

What are PPP regs, should they mean anything to me?

Have you got a ticket?

 

[Cowabunga]

But the different nozzles and no pressure gauge is pretty normal.

Really? Most grass farmers just have the single set of cambridge blue nozzles fitted to the sprayer and that's it. OK, they may have one or two spares, but they wouldn't use the sprayer much anyhow. I wouldn't be surprised if it had the same nozzles that were fitted at the factory 15 years ago, but I wouldn't be surprised if they were still as good as new either.

 

[Selectamatic]

Have you got a ticket?

PA 1 and 2, yes.

 

[Cowabunga]

Re competence.
I don't know if they have passed any test. From what i hear the grandfather rights test is so easy that you can't fail. It was made this way as (and we've heared it on here many times) they had been spraying for years and know everything there is too know and why should they have too go through the full training and test ritual.

That just goes to show how much you [don't] know. There is no "grandfather's rights test". Never has been. However, everyone, and I do mean everyone, who uses a sprayer from now on has to pass at leat two tickets and will be inspected at their farm assurance.

I'm not against training, because there really are some muppets out there and the tests are hard enough to both frighten the worse muppets from doing it, and educating the rest, and failing the incompetent.

However, we got this far without poisoning either hoards of small scale operators or customers. The only large scale chemical poisoning that I am aware of was due to compulsory sheep dipping with very toxic insecticide, which the Government still denies. So much for accountability! It apparently only works one way.