Custom sprayers to be busy

Western Canada’s custom sprayer businesses expect to be extra busy this year, especially in the disease and insect control windows. With higher grain prices, farmers are more likely to see an economic benefit from disease and insect control measures. Brian Reinhart, manager of Ross Agri in Camrose, Alta., says that with high commodity prices, guys will be more willing to spray. He is anticipating a busier year. His advice: “Book early.”

But how do you book ahead for disease and insect control when you don’t know how bad it’s going to be or when they’ll strike. You can’t. The question then becomes whether to look at buying your own high clearance sprayer so you can do these jobs yourself when the time comes. A self-propelled sprayer does not make economic sense for many farms, but what about a pull-type high-clearance? You’ll find quite a few on the market. 

I talked to Don Henry, general manager of Brandt in Regina, about prices. They have a pull-type with a 100-foot suspended boom and 1,600 U.S. gallon tank. For around $60,000, you can get that sprayer along with a boom suspension package that lets you spray at higher speeds. For another $6,000 to $9,000, you can get automatic boom height control to keep your boom at a consistent height over the crop. This gives you a top end sprayer for much less than a self propelled. (Also see our article on Top Air sprayers in the May Grainews. These pull-type suspended-boom sprayers come with a boom up to 132 feet and a tank up to 2,400 U.S. gallons.)

The next big economic question is how much crop are you losing by driving over the crop with a low-clearance tractor? Don Henry and I did a quick calculation. You can adjust Brandt sprayer tires to follow in line with the tractor tires, so you’re trampling 18.4 inches times two per pass (based on the standard tractor tire width.) That works out to about three per cent of the crop for each pass. You might lose a little more in the headland turns. Don figures that you’re probably not losing much under the tractor itself. Even though these disease and insect applications are done later in the season, the crop is still green and will bend. “It bends over in the wind and bounces back,” he notes. “It should do the same under the body of the tractor.”

For a third party view, I raised the same issue with Brian Storozynsky who specializes in sprayer research with AgTech Centre in Lethbridge. The centre has not studied crop losses for a self-propelled high clearance sprayer versus a tractor pulled high-clearance sprayer, so he didn’t have specifics on that issue. But the centre has studied crop response to trampling. Brian says crops can usually bounce back from trampling under tires earlier in the season — before the plants reach seven to nine inches tall. But any crop driven over later in the season is lost, he says.

When it comes to losses under the wheel, Brian says a self-propelled sprayer with the same boom width would trample almost as much crop as a pull-type sprayer and tractor. He notes that many custom operators will switch to narrow profile tires once the ground dries out, but even those tires are 12 to 14 inches.

Brian could not estimate the losses caused by crop bent over under the tractor. As we’ve established, the crop gets bent over but not trampled. Does this translate into crop losses? Brian doesn’t know. By the end of our conversation, he was wondering whether it was time for the AgTech Centre to look into some of these questions. 

In the end, we might have prompted you to think about your sprayer situation for this year but we don’t have good data on losses under the tractor. Are you confident that you can get a custom high-clearance sprayer or plane when you need it to control fusarium or worms or midge? Or if you want your own high-clearance unit, will a pull-type suspended boom sprayer with low-clearance tractor be enough for your purposes? This option certainly has a lower ticket price than buying a self-propelled sprayer. You can get the same boom widths and in most cases a larger tank with a pull-type. You might not be able to cover a quarter section as quickly, but the boom suspension option that Brandt and others offer does narrow the groundspeed gap between pull type and self propelled.

Your input….

Do you have experience with high-clearance pull type sprayers? Do you use it late in the season for insect and disease control? If yes, do you modify your tractor to improve ground clearance and reduce crop losses? I’d like to hear from you. Please call me at 807-468-4006 or e-mail jay@fbcpublishing.com.