Anybody Have Tips For Spraying Without Foam Markers?

[Oleozz]

I have a 110 gal sprayer with 30 ft booms, was spraying Roundup today on some weedy fields and know I am overlapping with the spray. I try to watch close where I'm going but you almost need another set of eyes to watch the sprayer controls and the booms. Anybody have any good ideas so I don't get any overlap? I know they sell a dye that can be put in your tank and have thought of the foam markers but the foam system is quite expensive. Thanks for any ideas.

 

[jimg]

Perhaps a handheld gps?

 

[rvaitor]

I know they sell a dye that can be put in your tank and have thought of the foam markers but the foam system is quite expensive. Thanks for any ideas.

There was a thread on homemade foam system - quite interesting and affordable - you might do a search for that - fellow with a NH.

 

[madpogue]

Don't bother with dyeing the pesticide solution; you won't see it from the seat. We ended up buying a foam marker, 'cuz our boom is only 10 ft, and that means room for more overlap, more waste. We dyed the last tankful of solution, just so we'd know when we got it all cleared out of the sprayer on the clean-up cycles.

 

[Loogie]

I'm cheap. I bough a couple of cans of cheap shaving cream and I'd just squirt a dollop every 20ft or so. Of course, my tractor is small so I could reach over the side to do it. My boom is 10ft so I just had to judge the distance but it worked well and I didn't have any green stripes after the Roundup kicked in . I wouldn't be too concerned about overlapping with Roundup, more can't hurt much. Now some selective herbicides would be a different story.

 

[kossetx]

toilet paper and a can of water. wad it, dip it, throw it.

 

[Mike120]

My sprayer is like yours. If I'm spraying something like Roundup (try Eraiser, it's half the cost), I just watch my tire tracks to maintain distance and come back a week later to hit any strips that I missed. I can usually use my smaller one with a boomless nozzle for the cleanup.

If I'm spraying Grazon, I'll usually use dye and follow up a few days later with the small sprayer on the back to catch any areas I might have missed and a weed wiper on the front to get stuff like Johnson Grass that the Grazon doesn't kill.

I've used a friends rig with foam marker and it's nice but I never thought the cost of the generator and foam solution was worth the investment. If I was spraying real large fields, I'd probably feel different. A lot depends on how often you do it and how big the fields are.

 

[D7E]

I have a 110 gal sprayer with 30 ft booms, was spraying Roundup today on some weedy fields and know I am overlapping with the spray. I try to watch close where I'm going but you almost need another set of eyes to watch the sprayer controls and the booms. Anybody have any good ideas so I don't get any overlap? I know they sell a dye that can be put in your tank and have thought of the foam markers but the foam system is quite expensive. Thanks for any ideas.

If you're only spraying roundup what is the problem with overlapping ?
I have seen a lot of farmers spraying crops used to drag a car tyre on the end of the boom so the damaged foliage gives you something to aim for .
Damage is minimal and recovers fine ?

 

[Oleozz]

The problem with the overlap is I'm wasting a lot of spray. Even the generic brand is not real cheap, don't know about you but I don't have a lot of money to spare so want to make the spray go as far as possible.

 

[D7E]

The problem with the overlap is I'm wasting a lot of spray. Even the generic brand is not real cheap, don't know about you but I don't have a lot of money to spare so want to make the spray go as far as possible.

Where do you live ....Roundup is the cheapest i can remember it right now glyphosates are only about $3 an acre , **** some chemicals cost us $40 an acre ....Spread that over 2000 acres ,If a little over-lap was a big cost issue i would be the first to complain , We use tram-lines now but even so we are still overlapping about 2 feet on either side ,I've had custom rogators with GPS do worse than that and you pay these guys to do it .Theres electronic substitute for a "DRIVER".

 

[Renovator]

Put flags at the ends of the field.
Renovator

 

[diyDave]

Drag a chain harrow behind your sprayer- kind of gives you what is known as a visual clue as to where you have been!

 

[J_J]

I have a 110 gal sprayer with 30 ft booms, was spraying Roundup today on some weedy fields and know I am overlapping with the spray. I try to watch close where I'm going but you almost need another set of eyes to watch the sprayer controls and the booms. Anybody have any good ideas so I don't get any overlap? I know they sell a dye that can be put in your tank and have thought of the foam markers but the foam system is quite expensive. Thanks for any ideas.

I don't know how large an area you are spraying, but have you thought about PVC pipe with a marker of some kind to guide you down the center of the spray line. How about a string with markers.

I have read about those tractors with all electronics, that use GPS and other devices to plow, etc, with an operator just sitting there to monitor the equipment. The GPS makes all the turns and operates the spray rigs, etc. Even tells him when the job is finished and logs him out.

 

[elkun1]

use small piece of electrical tape on both sides of windshield. place them on your tracks from the last pass. I would probably set at 29' if your 30 wide. done thousands of acres that way when I use to run spinner trucks, now it's all gps. have made foamers out of propane tanks but you need an air supply.
good luck and drive straight, Ron ps, if you think rndup is expensive you haven't priced fertilizer yet this year.

 

[madpogue]

Well, aside the fact that our 790 doesn't have a windshield, the problem with any of these kinds of methods, including flagging the ends of the rows, is that they only work on relatively straight, flat plots. We have a four-acre area infested with crown vetch (BTW, the only thing that works on it is Transline, at over $50 / acre ), and it's not only trapezoidal in shape, with one very sharp angle, it's on the top of a ridge with 12-ish degree slopes on either side. It's about impossible to do simple, straight rows on it, because from one side of the ridge, you can't see the rest of the row over the ridge. We ran the sprayer pump at about the lowest pressure possible without making it "dribble" (about 16-18 psi), and at that rate, we still could barely maintain a low enough ground speed to make decent turns, and keep the tractor going in any semblance of straight rows.

 

[AndyMA]

My sprayer is like yours. If I'm spraying something like Roundup (try Eraiser, it's half the cost), .

I'm assumin "Eraiser" is a generic form of Roundup. I'm not familiar with it. Do you have a link or source?

Thanks

Andy

 

[madpogue]

The generic form of RoundUp is Glyphosate. There are now oodles of generic brands. Our Farm & Fleet carries a brand called CropSmart. Just google "glyphosate" or "cropsmart" and you find all the 411 you need.

 

[elkun1]

Sounds to me like you answered your own question. If I was spending 50 plus/acre i think i'd be putting a foamer on it. payback won't take to long. especially if theres any damage from overlap. for me, if all i was doing was approx. 4 acres and i could see my tracks i'd rig up something to give a reference from my last pass. I haven't been around crown vetch for years since we moved from the midwest but i seem to remember using banvel/2,4,d and dinging it pretty hard. it's a nasty one.