Mitch McCoy farms near Logan Center, North Dakota. Mitch says: “We’re roughly 45 minutes west of Grand Forks in the rocky ridge.” Steven Winter farms in Oriska, North Dakota, “about an hour straight west of Fargo.” Jim Robins farms a hop, skip and a jump—about 25 miles—from Calgary, Alberta.
Newground: How many acres of chemical application do you expect to need in 2010?
MITCH MCCOY: I can count on spraying all of the acres at least twice, so we’re probably looking at about 3,200 acres. We’ll probably spray the wheat three times, so that’s another 800. I’d guess we’ll be at about 4,000 acres total application. We do 95 percent the spraying ourselves with a pull-type sprayer with a suspended boom that we’ve had for about a year.
STEVE WINTER: We own two big sprayers ourselves and treat everything at least once, probably two to three times. We do a fair amount of the spraying, but not all of it.
JIM ROBINS: We spray everything three times and sometimes that’s not enough. We burn it all off, so that’s 2,000 acres, then we in-crop spray once so that’s 5,000. We pre-harvest half of that, so that’s 6,500. Now we have 1,000 acres of canola, and depending on disease, we’ll probably spray between 7,500 and 10,000 acres. I do my own spraying now with a high clearance sprayer we bought last year.
Newground: That’s heavy-duty spray economics.Tell me about your sprayer choices.
MCCOY: The suspended boom on the pull-type sprayer we bought last year makes a big difference. We had a pull-type before, but it didn’t have a suspended boom, which meant that I couldn’t put fungicide on my wheat and couldn’t do the second application of Roundup® on my soybeans. Each boom had two wheels so if we were going to put fungicide down on the wheat after it was established, we’d run a lot of it down. Custom applications run anywhere between $5 and $6 an acre. If you’re rolling over 4,000 acres a year, probably half of that was a second application so we were looking at $10,000 a year.
WINTER: We bought our first high clearance sprayer in 2003 or 2004. We’re working with a 50-foot RoGator™ and a Miller Nitro™. We like the timeliness, and they give us the ability to work in some adverse conditions like wetter ground.
ROBINS: The cost of custom applications is our number one reason for owning a high clearance sprayer. My bill was getting pretty big; we were in that $30,000-a-year range for custom work. The second reason is timing. When the sprayer is sitting right there, you can spray when you want instead of waiting for someone to come. I think, personally, at our size, we’re kind of borderline whether we need it or not.
MCCOY: I can get the crops sprayed when I need them sprayed. I purchased my sprayer for just under $30,000 so we’re looking at less than a three-year payback. When we considered the cost of custom work, and put the pencil to the economics, it made financial sense.
Newground: Sounds like correct timing of an application is a big factor.
MCCOY: Custom applicators do a really good job, but they can get booked up and might have a 1,000 acres on the books, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got to hit some crops at a certain time of the day when the wind is down, you just don’t want to lose that window of opportunity.
WINTER: Owning a high clearance makes sense for us just in timeliness. We feel more empowered to get things done when we need to get them done. We have a half interest in the RoGator™, and it does a lot of work on our ground. The other half-owners put a man in it and supply a water truck, too.
ROBINS: I know that I can pay for my sprayer over five years just based on custom application costs, but I have to sacrifice my time in order to do that. It’s a tough call, but it’s nice to spray when you want, and it does save time. And if you’re questioning putting on a $4 fungicide when your application cost is $6, it’s pretty easy to spend the $4, fill up your sprayer and drive out. I can improve my timing for fungicide, for my in-crop, for pre-harvest and maybe for spring burn. Sometimes the custom applicators are busy and they just can’t get to you.
WINTER: If all of a sudden the weather changes, the work gets compressed. When we get a window of opportunity to go, we can nail it hard and fast.
Newground: By doing your own spraying do you hit your problem weeds better or harder?
MCCOY: That’s it. When you’re out there and you see a spot of kochia or other tough weeds, with the variable rate you can crank it up and hit it a little harder. Or you can make a second pass. I wouldn’t expect a custom applicator to do that. They travel at a little higher speed. Their business is to get over acres. The custom operators around here do a good job, but I don’t expect them to scout my fields while they’re spraying. I’m hiring them to go out and spray and do it in a timely manner.
WINTER: It’s easier for me to do spot spraying because I know the land better. But if we ask custom applicators for specific things, they’d get done. We’ve been very fortunate.
ROBINS: We may go back and re-spray some of the problem weed areas, but I don’t think we’re doing a better job now than before we got the high clearance.
Newground: Thanks for your time and sharing your sprayer experience.
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Mitch McCoy farms near Logan Center, North Dakota. Mitch says: “We’re roughly 45 minutes west of Grand Forks in the rocky ridge.” Steven Winter farms in Oriska, North Dakota, “about an hour straight west of Fargo.” Jim Robins farms a hop, skip and a jump—about 25 miles—from Calgary, Alberta.
Newground: How many acres of chemical application do you expect to need in 2010?
MITCH MCCOY: I can count on spraying all of the acres at least twice, so we’re probably looking at about 3,200 acres. We’ll probably spray the wheat three times, so that’s another 800. I’d guess we’ll be at about 4,000 acres total application. We do 95 percent the spraying ourselves with a pull-type sprayer with a suspended boom that we’ve had for about a year.
STEVE WINTER: We own two big sprayers ourselves and treat everything at least once, probably two to three times. We do a fair amount of the spraying, but not all of it.
JIM ROBINS: We spray everything three times and sometimes that’s not enough. We burn it all off, so that’s 2,000 acres, then we in-crop spray once so that’s 5,000. We pre-harvest half of that, so that’s 6,500. Now we have 1,000 acres of canola, and depending on disease, we’ll probably spray between 7,500 and 10,000 acres. I do my own spraying now with a high clearance sprayer we bought last year.
Newground: That’s heavy-duty spray economics.Tell me about your sprayer choices.
MCCOY: The suspended boom on the pull-type sprayer we bought last year makes a big difference. We had a pull-type before, but it didn’t have a suspended boom, which meant that I couldn’t put fungicide on my wheat and couldn’t do the second application of Roundup® on my soybeans. Each boom had two wheels so if we were going to put fungicide down on the wheat after it was established, we’d run a lot of it down. Custom applications run anywhere between $5 and $6 an acre. If you’re rolling over 4,000 acres a year, probably half of that was a second application so we were looking at $10,000 a year.
WINTER: We bought our first high clearance sprayer in 2003 or 2004. We’re working with a 50-foot RoGator™ and a Miller Nitro™. We like the timeliness, and they give us the ability to work in some adverse conditions like wetter ground.
ROBINS: The cost of custom applications is our number one reason for owning a high clearance sprayer. My bill was getting pretty big; we were in that $30,000-a-year range for custom work. The second reason is timing. When the sprayer is sitting right there, you can spray when you want instead of waiting for someone to come. I think, personally, at our size, we’re kind of borderline whether we need it or not.
MCCOY: I can get the crops sprayed when I need them sprayed. I purchased my sprayer for just under $30,000 so we’re looking at less than a three-year payback. When we considered the cost of custom work, and put the pencil to the economics, it made financial sense.
Newground: Sounds like correct timing of an application is a big factor.
MCCOY: Custom applicators do a really good job, but they can get booked up and might have a 1,000 acres on the books, which doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve got to hit some crops at a certain time of the day when the wind is down, you just don’t want to lose that window of opportunity.
WINTER: Owning a high clearance makes sense for us just in timeliness. We feel more empowered to get things done when we need to get them done. We have a half interest in the RoGator™, and it does a lot of work on our ground. The other half-owners put a man in it and supply a water truck, too.
ROBINS: I know that I can pay for my sprayer over five years just based on custom application costs, but I have to sacrifice my time in order to do that. It’s a tough call, but it’s nice to spray when you want, and it does save time. And if you’re questioning putting on a $4 fungicide when your application cost is $6, it’s pretty easy to spend the $4, fill up your sprayer and drive out. I can improve my timing for fungicide, for my in-crop, for pre-harvest and maybe for spring burn. Sometimes the custom applicators are busy and they just can’t get to you.
WINTER: If all of a sudden the weather changes, the work gets compressed. When we get a window of opportunity to go, we can nail it hard and fast.
Newground: By doing your own spraying do you hit your problem weeds better or harder?
MCCOY: That’s it. When you’re out there and you see a spot of kochia or other tough weeds, with the variable rate you can crank it up and hit it a little harder. Or you can make a second pass. I wouldn’t expect a custom applicator to do that. They travel at a little higher speed. Their business is to get over acres. The custom operators around here do a good job, but I don’t expect them to scout my fields while they’re spraying. I’m hiring them to go out and spray and do it in a timely manner.
WINTER: It’s easier for me to do spot spraying because I know the land better. But if we ask custom applicators for specific things, they’d get done. We’ve been very fortunate.
ROBINS: We may go back and re-spray some of the problem weed areas, but I don’t think we’re doing a better job now than before we got the high clearance.
Newground: Thanks for your time and sharing your sprayer experience.
Back to Top Back to Table of Contents
Write a comment
- Required fields are marked with *.