Lately I've been spraying herbicides on the summer fallow fields. A summer fallow field is when farmers don't plant any crops on the field over the summer. This allows moisture and nutrients to build up over the course of a season, in this case summer, and give the next crop in the rotation the best conditions for production. The only way to maintain the moisture and nutrients in the fields is to stop any weeds that starts to grow.
Spraying is probably the most fun and stressful thing I've done since I started on the farm. When you spray you have to determine which chemicals are needed in order to kill the species of weeds that are growing, then calculate how much of each type of herbicide is needed. If you mess up your calculations you can cause serious issues that can affect crops for seasons and even years.
Once you have all the chemicals needed you have to load the tank in a very specific order. Some herbicides don't play well with others and can gel in your tank. If that happens you get the wonderful job of trying to clean those out. Yikes.
The sprayer I have been using has a 90 foot boom on it that sits about 30 feet back from the tractor. Here is were some of the stress comes in; imagine trying to get a boom right next to a fence when its 75 feet away from you and not hit the fence.
The fun part comes with the spray boom controls. There are 9 switches and 1 hydraulic lever that I use to control the boom. These switches control the how the boom moves. The boom can move up and down, it can tilt on the right and left side, and it can swing open and closed. The boom needs to be about 3 to 5 feet off the ground depending on the weather conditions and the topology of the field. There are also 5 switches that allow you to toggle the 5 different spray sections on and off. This allows you to select only certain parts of the boom to spray at any given time.
On the spray tractor there is an Autosteer GPS Guidance system. This system drives the tractor while I control the spray boom. It also keeps track of where the tractor has been so that you don't over spray or miss any areas on the field.
The end goal of summer fallow fields is the below picture. Nothing is growing and all the moisture and nutrients are being conserved.
A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that I have been the one that is spraying the fields. I've just been telling them that I've been training my whole life for this. I would like to thank Nintendo, Sony Playstation, and Xbox for the countless hours of training.
-Weed Death Engineer Ryan
Spraying is probably the most fun and stressful thing I've done since I started on the farm. When you spray you have to determine which chemicals are needed in order to kill the species of weeds that are growing, then calculate how much of each type of herbicide is needed. If you mess up your calculations you can cause serious issues that can affect crops for seasons and even years.
Once you have all the chemicals needed you have to load the tank in a very specific order. Some herbicides don't play well with others and can gel in your tank. If that happens you get the wonderful job of trying to clean those out. Yikes.
The sprayer I have been using has a 90 foot boom on it that sits about 30 feet back from the tractor. Here is were some of the stress comes in; imagine trying to get a boom right next to a fence when its 75 feet away from you and not hit the fence.
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| SWITCHES! |
The end goal of summer fallow fields is the below picture. Nothing is growing and all the moisture and nutrients are being conserved.
A lot of people are surprised when I tell them that I have been the one that is spraying the fields. I've just been telling them that I've been training my whole life for this. I would like to thank Nintendo, Sony Playstation, and Xbox for the countless hours of training.
-Weed Death Engineer Ryan
I just want to say that all the information you have given here is awesome...great and nice blog thanks sharing..Thank you very much for this one. And i hope this will be useful for many people.. and i am waiting for your next post keep on updating these kinds of knowledgeable things.
ReplyDeleteTractor Mounted Sprayers