Silvan Australia has developed a special air assist spray solution for prominent Western Australian strawberry grower T & L Produce Marketing.
With a farm on the sandy country at Gingin, north of Perth, the grower farms 40 hectares, or 100 acres of strawberries, concentrating on the local fresh fruit market.
Silvan’s WA account manager Nick Dicembre says that the challenges were to come up with a design that gives multi-row spray coverage and could achieve close coverage of the strawberry plants by getting under the plastic row tunnels that are lifted up for spraying purposes.
“The Silvan research & development team at our head office in Melbourne came up with the solution that meets the growers needs” Nick says.
The sprayer features a twelve-metre boom that covers seven rows of strawberries with the pto sprayer operated at a tractor ground speed of four to five kilometres an hour.
Nick says this gives a quicker coverage as the original sprayer boom that was in use could only cover five rows.
The pto sprayer has a 1100 litre Polytuff tank and is powered by a Nobili Airboom spray unit as an air assist sprayer.
“Silvan had earlier developed a similar width boom sprayer for a Queensland strawberry grower so this one is the second of its build type and the first application of this technology in a row cop situation in Western Australia”.
Silvan also worked with local dealer Wanneroo Agricultural Machinery to make some adjustments after the first in-field experiences.
For instance, the clearance of the boom above the ground is easily adjusted and in this application the grower can adjust; depending on the growth stage of the plants, from an application height from about 65 to 80 centres above the crop.
“in short we also extended the length of the delivery tubes to increase the effective reach into the plants and especially beneath the plastic growing tunnels” Nick says.
Silvan Australia has a unique facility where it works with growers Australia-wide to create specific spraying solutions that reflect the wishes of individual growers and especially their preferences or ideas which often come from many years of practical experience.
For more information on Silvan sprayer research and product development capacity to create specific product solutions call 1300 SILVAN (1300 745 826)