Ag Lime Spreader

[Laminarman]

OK, I've just resigned myself to the fact I have to build a lime spreader. Conical granular spreaders won't spread bulk lime, and any that are available (like S&A mfg are over $7K).

I've seen the plans posted here for a wooden cart type spreader. But how about a manure spreader, will that work? Any suggestions? I'm itching for a welding project, and am thinking of "inventing" something. Any help is appreciated. I'm not quite sure of what is needed to keep the lime spreading and not clumping. I'm thinking of PTO driven agitator and wheel driven spreader blades.

 

[Soundguy]

Like you.. I found out that my pyrimidal style pto spreader didn't spread ag lime worth a hoot. i ended up putting down about 3 ac of it with a drom stule spreader like you pull behind a lawnmower. It didn't work super duper.. but i got it spread.

At work we have spread bentonite powdered clay which has the same consistancy as lime ( powdered clay silt ) with a spreader truck. It is an angled hopper, and there is an agitator on the bottom that is essentially two big chains ( chains for a sprocket ), and about every foot there is a bar attatched across between the chains. If you can imagine it.. think of it like a ladder with the chains as the edges and the bar as the rungs. This agitator runs on an 'axle' fore and aft of the bed, with sprockets at each end. A small hydraulic motor spins the agitator and draws the material to the end of the bed where there is an opening. Opening can be widened with a sliding door. there is another hydraulic motor and a large spinning distribution wheel with vanes on it. There are directional panels on each side to kind of roughly narrow or widen the spread.

Our new truck has two wheels in back.. both spin toward their own respective side, and can spread a 180' pattern behind the truck compaired to about a 60 to 90' pattern with the one wheel.

Maybee that will give you some ideas.

Alternately you can buy peletized lime.. spreads like fertalizer.. but I think there is trace amounts of gold in it as it's price per bag is outragous.

Another option is to use crushed limestone.. it has the texture and consistance of sand with a few nickel and quarter size chunks in it.. depending on if it was hammermilled.. or rollercrushed... rollercrushed produces more fines and less large solids.

That also spreads easilly in a conical spreader.. and is fairly cheap if you can get a dump truck load delivered and dumped on your property.. then spread it yourself..

We had a limerock mine and delivered small amounts to farmers for this purpose. Not as 'sweet' as hi-cal ag lime.. but you put a few tons of it down and it will sweeten the soil. Cactus hates it too...

Soundguy

 

[bobodu]

Life is sooo weird!!! Not thirty seconds ago I did a Google search for Bentonite and your post mentions it! Was looking for sources for some people that wanted to use it to split rocks.....the search yielded that bentonite is also used for "**** fissure". I didn't read the article....... /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Phred]

I kicked around the idea of adapting my dump trailer to do this task. The idea was to adapt the old V shapped hopper that you may have seen the old article about....
http://www.bright.net/~fwo/Lime.html

I was thinking that I could set it up so that the tilted dump bed on the trailer, as towed by my tractor, would feed a similar hopper. A hyrdo motor powered by the remotes on my tractor would take the place of the ground driven agitator.

But then I found a lime buggy at a local place. They rent it out for a small fee.
I tow it to my place with a pickup empty and have a dump truck or two of lime delivered. I load the buggy with my loader on the tractor and tow it around with the same tractor.

Works great and lime costs me ~$10/ton. And that price is mostly trucking cost since I live way out in the middle of no where.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[Junkman]

The type of truck that you have just described is known as a salt spreader truck in the North country... Many of them are manufactured in Yankee territory.... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif What would it take to get you Southerners to buy snow plows to complete the collection??? /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif
Around here the companies that sell the lime, will also spread it for you if you have enough land. Usually they want at least 3 acres minimum. It will look like it snowed when they are finished. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

 

[Taylortractornut]

We have a few here at the chicken farms near where I work at. We accaionally spread a few loads of chicken manure on the slopes during rainy weather to make them greener. Theevey now and again a nice 3/4 to 1 /4 rock will get fired out of the spreaders plates. The farmer also spreads it on hay feilds and yards for folks. Sometimes its funny how the home owner wants you to get real close to the house and they wont let you explain that it will cover and 80 foot swath. We've been directected as close as 10 feet from a house thats a nice sight a house with chicken manure and feathers in the window sills. The farmers use planer shavings and sawdust for their barn ground cover. They just fill up the spreader truck with sawdust put it in 2nd or 3rd gear and kick in the pto and are off it lays a nice even cover over the entire floor. I think this winter we will try sand from our landfill in the barns then remove it this spring and take it back to the landfill to mix in with the slopes.

 

[Phred]

We have companies that will do this too.
The cost is 2x-3x of the do it yourself route, and be carefull that the ground is very dry.

A full lime truck will weigh a lot and is only 2 wheel drive.
Do not ask how I know this for a fact.... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Fred

 

[Laminarman]

Having lime delivered to where I need it spread will be difficult to say the least. Also, they won't deliver around here and spread for less than 20 tons, which is much more than I need.

Thanks for all your help, I'll keep looking for a solution. It seems to me a manure spreader has chains and bar arrangement on the bottom of it, I think and actual spreader mechanism at the end is needed, with some sort of gate to keep all the lime from dumping out.

 

[MarkV]

Same problem here and I don’t have the fabrication skills you guys have. I have about 3 acres that is more estate lawn with trees and obstacles that need lime. Not enough acreage or clearance for the spreader trucks and the trailers/buggies that the lime place have are huge without brakes and require at least a 1 ton truck to haul. The palletized lime is expensive in the quantities that would do me any good. You would think that someone would build a small spreader for small acreage owners. It doesn’t seem like it would be much more involved than some of the small manure spreaders you see.

MarkV

 

[Taylortractornut]

Last night I was thinking of the cheapes way to make on a of these spreaders for a CUT. The bottom chain and cross bar agitator could come out of a Combine. The feeder chain that goes from the back of the header up to the cylinder on some of the IH and JD combines had a chain like a lime truck in the about 2 feet wide on 8 inch wheels and the center to center distance on the sprockets were something like 3 to five feet long. That unit could be found pretty cheap and then you would have the chains, sprockets, and bearings for the feeder. Then ou could get one ore 2 hydraulic motors off the combine and make you spreader wheels for the back. And even drive the feedar chands with one. An old man that taught me alot of what I know about building things showed me a cart he built with 2 of these feeder chains and a hydraulic motor. He had a low roofed stable he always kept horse and goats in and needed to spread sawdust down the hallways. His dump wagon would be able to raise high enough and his blade on his tractor was his only hope but the planer shavings and sw dust wouldnt spread very smooth. He built a cart hook to his tractor and hooked the 2 feeder chains together and he had a hydraulic motor running it. Hed go out and load his cart wit h the loader tractor and then go into his ban with the stalls removed and turn on the motor. It spread the heck out of the the sawdust and chips. Later when they would get dirty he would bax blade them out into piles and and get them with the loader tractor and reload them into his cart and go out to the pasture in a higher gear and turn on the motor. Id dint cover as wide an area as a lime spreader but worked a 3 foot path. He discussed building a widerone for manure by using the chains off a wider wooden forage box but he past away after he had started. Ill talk to his family the nextime I see on of his sons to see if they still have te spreader cart. It may have a few ideas.

 

[Phred]

Mark,

Actually empty those buggys are pretty light sense they are mostly aluminum. With my pickup I hardly even notice it is attached when its empty. You could easily get it home empty with any 1/2 ton pickup or large SUV.

But a tractor is the best tool for spreading the lime with one. Traction might be a problem with a truck, but maybe a 4x4 would be ok on firm ground.
If you loaded it light a large CUT might get the job done on level ground.
You may have a problem with loader height. The side walls are very tall.

On hills with a full load my 70hp utility tractor is not really enough to do the job right.
I get by with partial loads on the hilly areas

One thing that I did find had some potential is a 3 point spreader like the cosmo. Its a pain to load by hand, and the ag lime needs to be dry, but for small areas it can be done.
It must be very dry and not setup hard from exposure to weather. Even then it will still stick to the sides some.
I have used the three point to lift to shake the spreader, by moving it up and down, and break it free. Even then keep a shovel handy.
Again not a lot of fun, but it's possible.
This job is easier on rough pastures sense all the bumps will shake the lime off the side walls.

I think you will break that manure spreader unless you load it very light. Those lime buggys are very robust since lime is heavy stuff.

Fred

 

[stephan]

Check out page 40 in this link. I'm not suggesting that this spreader speads anything other than granulated lime but it does spread lime and it is cheap, well AUD$600 is not much in your money.

Would 9 bags be bulk (is that a metric bulk or imperial)?

 

[dixiedrifter]

Actually they make a special agitator bar with a wheel on the end for conical spreader for about $25.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~jareds/bar.jpg

Its pretty wild to watch it run because it actually spins along the side of the spreader.

Still doesn't work worth a hoot, but it makes it where it won't completely clog up. Ya just gotta drive with one hand, and poke a broom handle in the spreader.

Really for such an agitator to be effective it needs to be about a foot or so longer.

I have a working prototype of something similar in principle to the agitator above but much more effective.

I'd post it on here but the patent is pending.

 

[R_Gator]

If you're looking for ideas... visit www.highwayequipment.com , as they've been building commercial spinner boxes for years... Just an thought, but you may want to check with your local box/hoist manufacturing facility. I know the guys we have local do alot of work outfitting the county and state salt trucks... All the old stuff (trades) are put on auction once a year, and you might be able to find one you could retrofit to your application. Most likely its going to have a good deal of corrosion, but the bones of the project would be there..