This is the first of a series of short, educational and irreverent videos made with Real Agriculture to bring a little levity to sprayer education. Let’s face it – ironically, nozzles can be pretty dry.
This first video discusses what a rate controller can be expected to do, and what it cannot do. Plus, we got to blow up a sprayer in the intro… so there’s that.
During post-harvest down-time, it’s important to take a much needed breather.
Then, before you know it’ll be time to start the shop projects and equipment maintenance for next year, if you haven’t started already. Before you get started, though, Tom Wolf has a handy list of things to evaluate, clean up, fix or replace on the sprayer.
In this final installment of Tips with Tom, Wolf runs through key areas of the sprayer that could potentially use upgrading or just maintenance, plus lists some quality parameters that could be improved for next year that may take some footwork through the busy winter season.
The questions surrounding these aspects of spraying come up very often.
Tom Wolf recaps some key aspects of water volume and water quality you may not have considered, plus we get that answer on when a stainless steel tank might be the right choice.
Moving on to nozzles and overall spray operation tweaks, Wolf summarizes the reasons for moving to double (or twin-fan) nozzles in some scenarios, plus offers some insight into where your time may be best spent on improving your fill transfer set up.
Hiring an aerial applicator means fewer tracks in the crop and often a quicker spray application, but spray planes are not miraculous, says Tom Wolf. In fact, they deal with a lot of the same challenges as their well-grounded counterparts.
In this last installment of his 10 part series, Tom answers some of the most common questions around aerial applications, including:
In addressing these questions, Tom corrects a few agricultural myths, provides tips for determining which method is better for your operation and emphasizes the importance of communication.
The importance of good spray coverage is emphasized in all kinds of agricultural publications, including product labels. But, according to Tom Wolf, “the labels are remarkably silent on what good coverage actually is and how you can actually measure it.”
Tom goes on to explain that spray coverage can be defined using three main criteria: droplet density, area covered and dose administered. In order to measure and assess spray coverage, we recommend using water sensitive paper, a rigid, specially-coated, yellow paper which is stained dark blue/purple by aqueous solutions. The paper can be positioned at the targeted levels of the crop canopy with a paper clip or other handy instrument and the coverage received in the field then compared to recommended levels produced in the lab to give an indication of whether or not coverage needs to be adjusted through increasing water volumes or altering droplet size.
Learn to integrate spray coverage evaluation into your spray operation, and how doing so can help you fine-tune applications.