Once limited to the smaller-scale farmer, tractor-mounted or trailed sprayers are now becoming increasingly popular with the very large-scale farmer who traditionally has opted for self-propelled sprayers. The most obvious assumption is that these large operators are looking to reduce establishment costs and are becoming conscious of the great difference in price. But this may not be the only reason. Mounted or trailed sprayers have a number of other advantages for the modern farmer and allow much greater versatility in their operations.
The advances in technology, particularly in companies such as Amazone, have ensured that the capacity of mounted sprayers now match, or even exceed, that of self-propelled options. The light-weight design allows the use of smaller tractors, and being mounted, these models make it possible for the tractors to be used for other operations when not spraying. Many of the larger operators have replaced a self-propelled sprayer with two or sometimes three mounted sprayers. This enables several parts of the farm to be sprayed at one time and a shortening of time on the spraying process. This also suits the farmer who has land in a variety of locations and who can now have one tractor and mounted sprayer working at each site. A common concern for many of these large operators is the downtime experienced when there is a fault or repair to be made on the self-propelled machine. This time delay can be critical when the window for spraying is short.
Particularly popular over the last South African spraying season has been the Amazone UF 1801 Sprayer. With a standard capacity of 1 980 l it has the option of an extra 1 000 l front tank, which ensures that this mounted sprayer holds just short of 3 000 l. The UF series also comes with Super-S booms with wide working widths of 15 to 28 m; and for safe and fast road transport the Super-S-boom is folded directly behind the spray tank to give a transport width of only 2,4 m. The Amazone UF sprayers impress with their manoeuvrability, simple handling yet high acreage efficiency.
For more information on our full range of sprayers, please contact one of our authorised Amazone dealers.