The Agronomists, Ep 4: Tom Wolf and Jason Deveau on adding productivity with the sprayer

If you’re not tracking your hours running vs. hours spraying, you might be losing out on a valuable productivity bump that requires only a few tweaks. As our guests for this episode of The Agronomists share below, gaining minutes at filling, or in turn arounds, or clean out, adds up to hours in productivity.

Join host Shaun Haney and Sprayers 101 founders Tom Wolf and Jason Deveau for this sprayer-focused episode of The Agronomists!

Don’t miss The Agronomists, Mondays at 8 pm Eastern on your favourite social media platform!

Summary

Tom Wolf uses an uber noun to kick things off
Jason is tired, because it’s 8 pm his time
OK, so what do we have to tackle, re: the status quo
Acres per hour means getting creative
Where can we gain some productivity?
When a customer has a problem, you can offer four or five options or changes, and then work with maybe the most palatable
Sometimes you have to first convince the operator they have a problem
Pit stop mentality for the sprayer fill up changed things
Incremental gains: one minute gained at a certain time in the process spread over an entire season equals productivity gains
Don’t zone out! Get a stop watch and a pen and paper
VIDEO TIME: Spray Myths! Faster is better…right?
Engine time vs. spraying time. Sometimes 50% of the time is idle or driving, but not spraying
There should be better basic standards on things like flushing, re: sprayer features
Can you “future proof” your sprayer? Recirculating booms, flushing, pulse width modulation
What do you take away? Two wheels and tow it?!
Tighten the belt on the production side
Amazone and Horsch are focusing on self-propelled but still offer pull types
You vote with your dollar, dollars per acre might pencil out on those bigger machines
Question about direct injection? Very specific system.
Let’s talk retrofitting! If you’ve got sound infrastructure, we can change plumbing, we can update and extend and expand a sprayer. It’s a valid way of increasing productivity.
Some aspects of the sprayer don’t evolve that quickly, i.e. nozzles.
Hort nozzles get worn out faster (more wettable powders)
Water quality and efficiency
VIDEO CLIP: Clean out!
What’s better: front or rear boom?
Who is Professor Frink?
The solution for one farm or region is not a solution for everyone
Back to the front vs. back boom — should you be swapping out nozzles? Maybe. Get these guys a PhD student.
Individual nozzle control or sectional control? Is it worth investing in the tech for individual nozzle rate control? Well, yes, but we’re not there yet
Does the perfect sprayer exist?