Sprayer 3 point sprayer question

[RFB]

I need to spray herbicides; more than likely I will be doing my property as well as some neighbors. Could be 100 - 150 acres.

I will be using my Kubota 5030HSTC.

I have zero experience with sprayers, and so I am looking for knowledge on size (capacity) including how much weight I should safely expect to handle on a 3 pt sprayer, brand (good versus stay away from), and whatever other crumbs you can throw my way.

Thank you

 

[john_bud]

RFB,

Around here the local feed mills do the field spraying. It's really cheap The only reason I have a sprayer is do do small isolated fields. (deer food plots)

General rule of thumb is that you want to calibrate to dispense 15 gal of mix per acre. If you do 100 acres that 1500 gallons. At 8# a gallon that's 12,000# of solution.

I am no expert on this, but am wondering if you are in a spot where a small sprayer is far too small and you don't have enough use to justify buying a large one? There may be some regulations when you start spraying a decent amount of chemical too. May want to check on that.

Good luck with it.

jb

 

[RFB]

We are very rural, and there is no Co-op equipped to handle the type of hills we have. They use big float-wheeled trucks and large tanks which are good for the flatlanders but no go for mountain folk. Around here, if you can't do, it does not get done. (A smaller county, 1400 square miles, 3,000 pop, not even one traffic signal in the entire county)

I was tentatively looking at a 150 to 200 gallon sprayer. Do you think that too big/heavy for the 5030?

 

[LoneCowboy]

Water weighs 8lbs a gallon
Sprayers themselves are pretty light (usually two people can life them up)
yes, you should be able to handle 1600lbs
might want some weight on teh front, but the 3point shouldn't have a problem.

3000 people in the whole county?
man, I'm jealous.

 

[dweitzel]

I was tentatively looking at a 150 to 200 gallon sprayer. Do you think that too big/heavy for the 5030?

RFB or anyone else, do you have pictures or links to any site that may have something similar to this sprayer you are thinking about?

I'm also in a similar situation that is I had a boom sprayer that would do 15' - 20' at a time, I could also manage some small hilly pasture and fields that the co-op in my area would not be able to handle.

I would probably like a 3-point attachment, less than 200 gallons and booms that can be rotated in for transport.

Anyone have ideas, pictures or links to get us started?

Dave

 

[redlevel]

Are you talking about spraying pastures? Row crops? Brush on rough terrain?

I'm not real familiar, what is the 5030, about 50 hp, maybe 4500 lb.? If so, anything over 100 gallons, especially on hilly/rough/uneven terrain, would be iffy.

Even with a 100 gallon sprayer (50 gallon for that matter) you want everything lashed down tight on the three pt. hitch. I mean very little, if any, side-to-side play. Imagine 100 gallons of water in a 150 gallon tank suddenly shifting to one side on a slope. I have had that happen when there was six or so inches of lateral play in the 3 pt. hitch. It can shift your "compass heading" a good 45 degrees if you don't have a lot of weight on the front end. One hundred gallons would be my max for that tractor.

One hundred to one hundred fifty acres is a lot to spray. If you calibrate your rig to spray 10 gallons per acre, that is ten to fifteen tanks of mix.
The fewer gallons per acre, the more critical the preciseness of calibration and application is. I usually calibrated for 20 gpa, I knew what size my fields were, and I could calibrate by guesswork. You can't get by with that on unfamilar ground, especially if you are applying somebody else's expensive chemical.

"Hey, you know that Roundup that was supposed to cover your 20 acre pasture? Well, I got about half way with it. You better go buy some more so I can finish for you."

As far as brands to look for, I would just suggest that you look at the over-all sturdiness, ease of extending booms, securing and bracing of booms, type of regulator and pump, etc. Go see what some of the bigger farmers are using.

If you are going to spray for neighbors and charge them for it, you probably need a commercial applicator's permit.

 

[flINTLOCK]

If ground is very uneven, may even want to consider boomless variety of sprayer. Our hunting camp's fields are like that and the boomless works well. If I had booms, they'd be breakin away all the time. I got 55 gal sprayer to keep weight down since the sprayer has to be carried at least 2-2.5 feet off the ground for clearance and didn't want 1000 # shifting around.

 

[OldMcDonald]

I would be extremely wary of having a sprayer on the back of a small tractor on hilly ground. I have not done any work with a mounted sprayer for the best part of 30 years and none with a trailled one for more than 20 so I cannot help with any makes or models (they tend to be International so location is immaterial). However, when I did have my own sprayers - mounted in England and trailled in Australia, I also did contract work so have covered a lot of acres. I am probably going to make another mounted one for use here, but with olive trees at 6 metres spacing it will have a short boom, plus a lance for spraying the trees against fly and fungal diseases.

You already have some sound advice above, but I would also point out other problems. I am sure you know you should always face slopes, but weight on the back makes this dangerous when going uphill. Your other problem is keeping the height of the boom at the correct distance from the ground. The slightest deviation from level (along the boom length) makes enough difference even at 10 feet from the tractor centre to affect the spray pattern. If one end hits the ground you are likely to have at least some damage to the boom, and a worst case of it slewing the tractor around,so easy breakaways are essential.

I would be inclined to go with the suggestion of a boomless outfit and small tank. Watch out also for "foreign" weights and measures if marked on the tank. A pint weighs a pound only in the US. It is a pound and a quarter elsewhere (20 fl ozs) so a gallon weighs 10lbs. That is an extra 25% weight and volume. I know the small tank and no boom means more work and time to cover your ground, and I appreciate you have more than a backyard, but safety leading to a long life is more important. Old McDonald.

 

[Oleozz]

In this part of Pa many farmers use PB Zimmerman or Hardi sprayers. For your size tractor I would probably go with a 110 or a 150 gal sprayer with a minimum 30 ft boom or as Flinlock mentioned a boomless sprayer. The booms can be manual fold or hydraulic and you can buy an electric control that regulates which booms are spraying and the pressure.
I am using a Hypro roller pump that is suitable for spraying glyphosate and my nozzles are Turbo TeeJet.
Ground speed is critical when spraying. After some experimenting I've found that with my tractor to get the best coverage at the right rate I have to spray in 4th gear at 1700 rpm and my sprayer has to be at 22psi.
In this state if you are going to spray for other people you should have an applicators license and need the license to buy certain sprays. I passed up a lucrative spraying job on my neighbors 130 acres because I don't have a permit but will get one this year.