New tractor sprayer boom

[Tom M King]

I know some of you have tractors and places to keep up with them.

For years, I've had a "boomless ATV sprayer boom" mounted on the back of a 7' rotary cutter. It's always been aggravating to keep three nozzles working well together, so this year I decided to do something different.

https://wlhamiltonco.com/product/ham...omless-nozzle/

The brackets are sold to weld onto offroad vehicles for tow points. They came ready to weld on, and the 1" holes were the right size for 3/4" copper fittings.

The nozzle: https://wlhamiltonco.com/product/ham...omless-nozzle/

Instructions saw to mount it horizontally, which I expect is to limit drift, but I wanted to be able to back up to a fence and spray outside the fence. I won't be spraying on windy days anyway. It does cover 50 feet, but only 40 is well covered, so I went with 40 foot wide runs. I'm not using the pump that came with the Chapin tank though, and the pump I did use is pretty old, so it may be a little weak.

There is a switch box right at hand. The front switch powers the pump to the wand, and the back to the boom. The middle two switches turn night into day.

The boom folds forward to keep it out of harms way when not in use. I'm going to cut the old boom off when I get around to it, but tried the new one for the first time today. It works Beautifully, so I went ahead and sprayed the pastures.

The Chapin external mix tank replaced the old 40 gallon rig that had to be mixed in the tank. The advantages should be obvious, and they are. I keep a number of different concentrate tanks, with one having dish detergent to clean the rig out when switching concentrates.

One of the pictures is the old rig, but it shows the two pumps. The wand pump is 150psi at low gpm, and the other 60 psi higher flow. I didn't have the right color red spray paint, but at least the mount won't rust.

[Bill Dufour]

I do not think that will last. 25' of pipe needs some added support structure or it will break off from gravity going over bumps.
Bill D

[Tom M King]

I will just change it if it breaks to stainless. It's 5' long of some type L 3/4 copper, and fittings I already had here. I needed to spray, and didn't want to wait for something else to get here, or go get anything else. It will have two resting points in the stowed position, and I have a couple of stainless steel clips to hold it. Otherwise, it won't get used that much anyway, and will stay in the stowed position most of the time. It it lasts a few years, I'm good with it. Right now, it's just resting on the old spray boom with a rolled up sock around the old boom, and zip tie holding it. It's maybe 3' past the back support, and type L is a lot stronger than regular copper pipe. In any case, it worked great for what I needed it to do this morning.

[Allan Dozier]

Nice job. I'll have to search for photos of a tree puller attachment and a cable plowing attachment I made. I guess you are spraying herbicide mostly?
As an aside: I went to Agrisupply to buy some more glyphosate. I usually buy 2 or 3 of the 2.5 gallon jugs at a time and was used to paying around 50 bucks each. I was stunned, the price has basically tripled.

[Bill Dufour]

Only five feet long? It will be fine. I read it was 25 feet each side
Bill D.

I was thinking it needed support more like this one.

[Tom M King]

The spray pattern covers 50 feet.

[Ronald Blue]

We always had a pressure gauge and a pressure regulator on our sprayers. The pump was PTO driven on the field sprayers. Looks like you need at least 50 PSI. As for your plumbing arrangement it looks fine to me. You must be ahead of us. Grass hasn't even needed mowed yet here. Frost this morning. Late spring for us.

[Tom M King]

Cut the yard grass the first time this morning. Bermuda is starting to put out green shoots. Rye grass is still green and growing, but I don't expect it to last long. Leaves are about 1/4 out on hardwood trees. Azaleas have been blooming for about a week.

The pump that runs that nozzle is supposed to be 60 psi, but I forget the gpm. It works fine for what I need it for. We only have a little over 10 acres of pasture, and several miles of trails, but the trails aren't fifty feet wide in many places, so I don't really need anything like you're using. I'm really pleased with how it worked.