Trailed vs Self Propelled Sprayer

[Flat 10]

Now that there must a few older Horsch sprayers on farms now, how are they holding up reliability wise?

On the spec front, is having air suspension worth it over the rubber dampers?

Having used a lot of air suspension on hgvs, l would say it’s bound to be worth it. But hopefully a user will confirm it.

 

[Feldspar]

Also, does either the GS or the LT have a fast fill line which is actually 3". IIRC at one point the direct fill was only 2". And then there was some comment about the filling of the water tank being a pain. Which model was this and has it been sorted?

 

[Db880]

A GS has a 3 inch fast fill line. An LT has a 2 inch fast fill line.

All fresh water tanks are filled via pressurised hose. There is no pump on the machine to fill the fresh water tanks. What is often done is to have a small adaptor from the 1 inch camlock to go onto your big suction pipe. If you’ve a decent sized tank it will fill the clean water pretty quick. More quickly than you can get chemical out of the store normally.

 

[Feldspar]

A GS has a 3 inch fast fill line. An LT has a 2 inch fast fill line.

All fresh water tanks are filled via pressurised hose. There is no pump on the machine to fill the fresh water tanks. What is often done is to have a small adaptor from the 1 inch camlock to go onto your big suction pipe. If you’ve a decent sized tank it will fill the clean water pretty quick. More quickly than you can get chemical out of the store normally.

Thanks. Annoying it's that way round. GS would probably just use the sprayer pump, but with the LT would like to use Honda pump to fill at 1000 l/min but through a 2" the on board pump through 3" might be faster.

 

[Db880]

Thanks. Annoying it's that way round. GS would probably just use the sprayer pump, but with the LT would like to use Honda pump to fill at 1000 l/min but through a 2" the on board pump through 3" might be faster.

The Lt only has a 600l per min fill speed, whereas the GS has 1000lpm so still filling with the Honda pump will be quicker slightly on the Lt.

 

[Tom H]

Our GS is coming into its 6th season. Has been very reliable. On our previous make of sprayer we would of had 3/4 of a new boom before 5 years. Have had the odd niggle. Most issues have been Muller. No Muller on the new ones. We had a mod, meaning we can fill the clean water up with the main pump if we need. SP will have done 5 seasons by summer. Again no real issues.

 

[Feldspar]

Our GS is coming into its 6th season. Has been very reliable. On our previous make of sprayer we would of had 3/4 of a new boom before 5 years. Have had the odd niggle. Most issues have been Muller. No Muller on the new ones. We had a mod, meaning we can fill the clean water up with the main pump if we need. SP will have done 5 seasons by summer. Again no real issues.

Thanks, Tom. Had a very good chat with Andrew Harker the other day about combines and sprayers which was extremely useful. Thanks for his contact details.

 

[Tom H]

Thanks, Tom. Had a very good chat with Andrew Harker the other day about combines and sprayers which was extremely useful. Thanks for his contact details.

No problem, I was sat next to him when he got your e-mail

 

[Feldspar]

A lot of it can be to do with how the load sense signal is used in the tractor. On the Jd it goes in a pretty direct route back to compensator valve on the pump. On others like the Massey it has the chance to leak off through areas like the hyd block for front suspension. This can cause issues. If the sprayer like the Horsch has got has the possibility of upping the load sense return it’s fine. The Horsch can do this. If you run out of adjustment on this valve the boys from Horsch can make a change in the hydraulic block to give it more. If anotone needs more info please send me a private message

I had a chat with Ian Griffin at LAMMA about this hydraulic oil flow. He said Massey 110 l/min pump is OK if the tractor has air on it, but if you're having to power the air compressor on the sprayer he said that begins to get in the territory of the unknown. To be honest, that has worried me quite a lot because we made the mistake once with an Amazone Hydro spreader thinking we'd get enough oil flow and we couldn't and it was very annoying. Apparently there are no 110 l/min MFs also running a compressor on the sprayer that Ian knows of so there's no practical way of testing (because their demo machine has no compressor).

 

[Feldspar]

Also, @Clive, did you notice that Bateman now have a PWFM nozzle system on their machines now that will vary the rate across the boom? Can't remember the name of the system, but I'm sure @Nametab will know.

 

[Flat 10]

I had a chat with Ian Griffin at LAMMA about this hydraulic oil flow. He said Massey 110 l/min pump is OK if the tractor has air on it, but if you're having to power the air compressor on the sprayer he said that begins to get in the territory of the unknown. To be honest, that has worried me quite a lot because we made the mistake once with an Amazone Hydro spreader thinking we'd get enough oil flow and we couldn't and it was very annoying. Apparently there are no 110 l/min MFs also running a compressor on the sprayer that Ian knows of so there's no practical way of testing (because their demo machine has no compressor).

How hard would it be to retro fit air to the tractor? Quite hard probably to integrate it fully with the tractors braking system but to simply fit a compressor and air tank not that hard maybe?

 

[General-Lee]

that has worried me quite a lot because we made the mistake once with an Amazone Hydro spreader thinking we'd get enough oil flow

Surprised at that we’ve only a 150hp McCormick and runs one fine.

 

[General-Lee]

How hard would it be to retro fit air to the tractor? Quite hard probably to integrate it fully with the tractors braking system but to simply fit a compressor and air tank not that hard maybe?

Not too bad I don’t think, can get it done for around £1.5-2k I believe.

 

[Feldspar]

Not too bad I don’t think, can get it done for around £1.5-2k I believe.

That's encouraging. Was going to ask how hard it is to retrofit because all our new trailers have air brakes and we can't use them!

 

[Feldspar]

Surprised at that we’ve only a 150hp McCormick and runs one fine.

We tried first on a MF6455! Even with the 6613 and 110 l/min pump the discs are still very lazy at getting back up to speed (at least according to the Amatron box) when they slow down for narrower widths. Particularly bad if you come out of a nearly square but not quite headland and they momentarily shut the width down. Have never been quite sure if the box reading actually reflects what the discs are doing.

 

[Wheatseeker]

we don't tend to get ruts and the current sprayer does tread very lightly.
We probably stay with what we've got as they are a great company but Its hard to detract from the fact they have been massively overtaken by the likes of horsch which I think is just an incredible machine.

The biggest plus with a Horsch trailed over a Bateman is the boom height control. You can spray at 40cm with a Horsch, but I don’t think a Bateman VG will even go down below 60cm, and even then it will be bottoming out. They are robust and well backed up but I agree that they are getting left behind in terms of spray quality which is where the real payback is.

 

[Nametab]

Also, @Clive, did you notice that Bateman now have a PWFM nozzle system on their machines now that will vary the rate across the boom? Can't remember the name of the system, but I'm sure @Nametab will know.

We have now fitted 4 of the Capstan Pulse Width Modulation systems to machines 3 x 40 & 1 x 36m currently on the demo RB35 - I was sceptical, but when you see it working, it's a bit of wow. If you go back not that many years everyone questioned the need for the likes of GPS auto-section control, now theres not really a machine that goes out without it, and I can see PWM taking off in the same way in the near future......and.... its best run at 50cm+ boom height believe it or not, but the £20-27K price will put many off (for now) I expect.

 

[Clive]

We have now fitted 4 of the Capstan Pulse Width Modulation systems to machines 3 x 40 & 1 x 36m currently on the demo RB35 - I was sceptical, but when you see it working, it's a bit of wow. If you go back not that many years everyone questioned the need for the likes of GPS auto-section control, now theres not really a machine that goes out without it, and I can see PWM taking off in the same way in the near future......and.... its best run at 50cm+ boom height believe it or not, but the £20-27K price will put many off (for now) I expect.

its without doubt the future and lack of it on currently available machines is one of the things that has been holding back my decision to change

would love to see it on the demo machine - is it working near us anytime soon ?

 

[Nametab]

its without doubt the future and lack of it on currently available machines is one of the things that has been holding back my decision to change

would love to see it on the demo machine - is it working near us anytime soon ?

No problem Clive. Will contact you when nearby.. wet weather hindering demoing at present.

 

[Feldspar]

We have now fitted 4 of the Capstan Pulse Width Modulation systems to machines 3 x 40 & 1 x 36m currently on the demo RB35 - I was sceptical, but when you see it working, it's a bit of wow. If you go back not that many years everyone questioned the need for the likes of GPS auto-section control, now theres not really a machine that goes out without it, and I can see PWM taking off in the same way in the near future......and.... its best run at 50cm+ boom height believe it or not, but the £20-27K price will put many off (for now) I expect.

Thanks for the explanation and I agree with your assessment about the likely uptake in future.

I have confused myself slightly thinking about this, but is a PWM system a pre-requisite for scanning systems that will allow targeted spraying of weeds? I think this will take considerable strides forward in the not-too-distant future, and will be a welcome improvement to technology in an era which will no doubt face increased pressure for less pesticide usage.

When you say it works better at 50cm plus, why is this?

The price tag will be justified by increased weed control and yields on farms with small non-square fields I would have thought.