How do you rate the handler ? something that has been on my shopping list for a while !
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Trailed vs Self Propelled Sprayer
- Thread starter ajd132
- Start date
How do you rate the handler ? something that has been on my shopping list for a while !
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Well that's a bit of a sore point. We've had it in the spray shed for a while and it hasn't been used much for various reasons. I think it could be good, and I do think it could save some time. There has been some resistance to using it though. I think our guys wanted a Vegcraft Pro-fill and didn't want the Handler. I wanted something that could hold a decent amount of liquid which would allow for true pre-mixing and could be used on a bowser as a pre-mix tank. The Pro-fill couldn't do that.
With small mounted sprayers without a separate person mixing chemical they are definitely less useful. Really it will only be properly useful if someone is mixing the chemical for the sprayer man.
Haven't really used the knife thing that much, but I am slightly concerned that it might not be as good as I think it is when used in anger. Problem is if you have to dispose of caps and foils separately then you end up having to take both off the cans anyway. Also, AWT, a big farming outfit near us, have one and they had taken the knife off and had used a second rinse nozzle. My worry is with things like Crystal that often has a lot of residue in the bottom of the can. If you put the knife through the bottom it isn't blasting a jet of water at the caked on residue. I worry then that it won't clean the cans properly.
- Location
- Cambridge
Norac UC5 running today. 1st sprayer pass on the wheat.
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- Location
- S.E
what are you spraying?!
Surely not a fungicide or muck and mystery trace element ;-)
Boom looks nice an stable Lee
- Location
- West Wales
If I had the work I'd take that 55 out of your hands Lee and that shows why! You got any land at Polesworth on those banks to show it working? Warton to sheepy is all flat!
First time the sprayer been in the wheat. Herbicide mix.
Used it on slopes we have to cross, combine one way etc and it's really good up to 12km/h. Anything over that and it's ok but not great.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Just looking at beaver-tail trailers to mount tanks on. Does anyone use twist-lock fastenings to fix water tanks down? Are they a lot easier than alternative fixing options?
michael N123
Member
Put round up in a few containers not marked as round up and leave them not very secureish once they get nicked they proberly wont want to nick out else of you
Nice. One night you'll have the rest tipped into your sprayer water tank supply without you knowing until your farm dies 3 weeks after you next use it.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
What would you rather have, Horsch's market leading (IMO) boom control system, or auto-turn compensation which adjusts flow across the boom when turning corners? AFAIK Horsch aren't going to offer anything like the Raven Hawkeye system, but other manufacturers are beginning to offer this system (or their equivalent).
Having done a bit of pre-em spraying this week, it's hardly surprising that black-grass creeps through as a result of unlevel booms and sub-optimal dosing round sweeping corners.
Try as I might by swapping down to finer nozzles and going slower (like less than 10k) I struggle to get the boom to stay level all of the time. The odd bump in ploughed ground (direct drilling generally much better for this) has the boom dipping down or rising up which will lead to areas with nowhere near the right dose. In order to stop the boom tanking into the ground, it was also very hard to keep it at 50cm off the ground. This effect is going to obviously translate across all products of course, I just happened to be thinking about it when putting the pre-em on.
Moreover, I was spraying a field at night in what I would call a moderate wind (10mph on BBC weather forecast). Going with the wind I could see all these fine droplets of spray in the lights floating around the cab drifting in the wind with me. Stopped after I saw that, but it really wasn't that windy. Every time the boom raised up a bit you could really see the drift increase.
Going round the headland you are even more acutely conscious of drift, and this is often where it's hardest to keep the boom level with ploughed headlands and turns.
My thinking is that boom stability is important over the entire field, whereas auto-turn compensation is only important on some headlands (assuming straight AB lines in the field). It would seem more important then to go for the best boom control system, but if you're reading this Mr Horsch, how about keeping up with the competition and working on getting auto-turn compensation on your sprayers.
Having done a bit of pre-em spraying this week, it's hardly surprising that black-grass creeps through as a result of unlevel booms and sub-optimal dosing round sweeping corners.
Try as I might by swapping down to finer nozzles and going slower (like less than 10k) I struggle to get the boom to stay level all of the time. The odd bump in ploughed ground (direct drilling generally much better for this) has the boom dipping down or rising up which will lead to areas with nowhere near the right dose. In order to stop the boom tanking into the ground, it was also very hard to keep it at 50cm off the ground. This effect is going to obviously translate across all products of course, I just happened to be thinking about it when putting the pre-em on.
Moreover, I was spraying a field at night in what I would call a moderate wind (10mph on BBC weather forecast). Going with the wind I could see all these fine droplets of spray in the lights floating around the cab drifting in the wind with me. Stopped after I saw that, but it really wasn't that windy. Every time the boom raised up a bit you could really see the drift increase.
Going round the headland you are even more acutely conscious of drift, and this is often where it's hardest to keep the boom level with ploughed headlands and turns.
My thinking is that boom stability is important over the entire field, whereas auto-turn compensation is only important on some headlands (assuming straight AB lines in the field). It would seem more important then to go for the best boom control system, but if you're reading this Mr Horsch, how about keeping up with the competition and working on getting auto-turn compensation on your sprayers.
- Location
- Cambridge
I was going to reply with what you said in your last paragraph. Now that you've said it, I won't bother.
We are doing a far more precise job at 36m, 8-10km/hr 90% of the time and with boom height control running at a constant 50-70cm depending on the job. We can stay on 710mm all year round without the need to change to narrows and including fill ups and travelling we are achieving 20ha per hour.
Feldspar
Member
- Location
- Essex, Cambs and Suffolk
Having been thinking about this issue over the last few weeks of spraying, I think going to 30cm off the floor is a big plus, especially with those shrouded booms. I think the number of extra spraying hours from the reduced drift is worth quite a lot. On the general boom stability front, the chap from Spraytrac sells a number of different sprayers, and he isn't our local dealer and so won't be selling us a machine, and he said he thought Horsch were in front of everyone else. It's one thing trying a sprayer on nice flat fields, it's another doing it on uneven ploughed seedbeds on heavier land. When I went to look at David's Horsch there was a big dip in the field where two old fields used to join. Watching the booms ride over that sizeable rut was quite impressive.
That said, I know that black-grass and brome is on our headlands where the boom is arcing round and under-dosing, so I'm quite concerned about that too. Having been out on the sprayer thinking about this issue, the idea that you can back round all corners is just not workable. For 90 degree corners, yes, but you'd be doing an infinite number of shunts to correctly dose the more sweeping corners.
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Snap.