Heavy Duty 46 Ft Wide Hydraulic Fold Sprayer

Heavy duty 46 Ft wide hydraulic fold sprayer SPRAYING Miscellaneous 13-6-36 "I use it for everything from banding and broadcasting herbicides to applying liquid fertilizer. Because it's built strong and is fitted with gauge wheels, it applies chemicals as uniformly and as fast as a Terragator," says Russ Day, Grimes, Iowa, who built a heavy-duty 46-ft. wide, 3-pt. mounted sprayer equipped with gauge wheels that folds hydraulically from the tractor seat. Day built the spray boom from 3/16-in. wall 7 by 7 in. sq. stainless steel tubing. Each side of the boom is double-hinged and equipped with 3 by 18-in. hydraulic cylinders that fold the 8-ft. long boom sections 120? into a "double triangle" for transport. The boom, which weighs 1,000 lbs., is supported by a pair of 8.25 by 15 gauge wheels. Day pulls the sprayer, as well as a 1,100 gal. drawbar-mounted stainless steel tank, behind a Deere 5020 tractor repowered with a 318-hp Detroit V-8 naturally aspirated truck engine. "It has features you won't find on any commercial sprayer," says Day. "The boom folds hydraulically so I don't have to get out of the tractor to fold it for transport. The time saved is important because we farm 80 small fields and apply postemergent soy-bean herbicides which have a narrow window for application. The boom is built from one solid, heavy bar. Booms on commercial sprayers are trussed, making them subject to fatigue, and are built so light that they dance and shake and flop around causing uneven herbicide application. On my sprayer all of the sprayer components are protected on the back side of the boom where they won't get torn off if the boom hits a tree or fence post. On commercial sprayers the nozzles are often in front of the boom." The boom can be operated from 18 in. to 4 ft. off the ground by raising the 3-pt. "As far as I know, this is the first 3-pt. mounted spray boom equipped with gauge wheels," says Day. "It offers the ultimate in boom height control because I can raise or lower the boom from the 3-pt. hitch and use the gauge wheels to let the boom flex on uneven ground. Some pull-type commercial sprayers are equipped with gauge wheels, but you can't adjust boom height on-the-go because they're not 3-pt. mounted." Spray nozzles mount on a 1 1/4-in. dia. stainless steel pipe that's fed by a high volume 2-in. dia. inlet line that allows Day to spray up to 100 gal. per acre at high speeds. "Going 10 mph I can spray as many acres per hour as a Terragator," says Day. When the 46-ft. wide sprayer iS completely unfolded, it'll cover 18 30-in. rows. When he folds up the 8-ft. long wings on each side he can spray 12 rows. Sprayer nozzles are spaced 20 in. apart. "I can spray on 20, 40, or 60-in. spacings, or use 30-in. drop nozzles, or band over the row on 30-in. spacings," notes Day, who says he spent about $2,000 to build the sprayer. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Russ Day, Rt. 2, Grimes, Iowa 50111 (ph 515 270-8188).

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