Cheers Darran! It’s a brilliant concept and tried and tested since 2010ish in New Zealand. Going to set up some trials and see what we can grow with it.
Dr James, the mad scientist farmer, love it mate, it will be good to see the results in a week or two, got to be good if it works, less land more grass what’s not to like 👍🏻
😂 thanks Stephen! It’s a proper good bit of kit. Noticed this morning you could see where I hadn’t backed into one corner so it will be interesting to see what that looks like in a week or two. Gonna try and set some trials up too. 👍
Yeh there’s a couple of wet bits that’s need avoiding but it’s surprising at the time of year how quickly it does dry. It’s a great concept, gonna set up some trials and see how it goes before getting my wallet out. 😂
@@gerryoconnor8751 can't remember exactly but I believe the 500 is about £10k ish but that doesn't have the weigh cells and is just a single nozzle, but would be pullable with a quad. I think the 1000 like in the video is somewhere in the region of £26k but when you see it in person you can really see where that's been spent. One of the biggest contributors to the cost is the shipping and its currently costing £20k per container full of kit to bring them over and that soon sticks a hefty chunk onto the price!
So it would be the same as far as efficiency goes but would be a lot harder to dissolve in the tank. Boom sprayers just don’t have the agitation needed to dissolve the urea and then the nozzles may also block if not dissolved correctly.
Loved this video James. Now this looks some serious piece of kit. Is it something you’re looking at getting in the future if results are successful. Keep up the great work.
Hey Richard, yes I’ll definitely share the result. There a lot of potential with a machine like this. There’s a lot of science coming out of New Zealand with it but I do want to see it all in person too. Watch this space. 👍
We put in 200-300kg urea 46% N to about 850L water and spread that over about 8Ha. But wouldn’t put more unless I was spreading it over larger area, especially if there is clover in the grass as it will scorch it out.
Very interesting piece of kit ! Is there any reason why you can't put urea through a normal sprayer to do the same job ? In the manual for our sprayer they actually refer to the induction hopper as being for mixing urea . Obviously there are lots of other possibilities with this Tow and Fert but just thinking of the options of making better use of urea without the extra spend.
The circulation of water in a normal sprayer would be a lot slower so realistically it would take a long time to dissolve the quantity of urea. Also I don’t think the pumps on crop sprayers would cope with the nitrogen. In New Zealand farmers often have dedicated mixing stations to dissolve the urea and then spray on with a normal sprayer but they tend to move to a tow and fert concept as the sprayer start giving them trouble after time. I get what your saying though. 👍
Hey Philip, they long and the short of it is YES it has worked. Could go into a lot of detail about different things and this message would be like an essay, but yes, it has worked. 👍
Seen one work down this way. I'm not convinced as the figures seem dubious and why not just use liquid N you can add fermented molasses to that as well and apply with a sprayer. Some Arable farmers have seen leaf scorch and gone back to granular. Using granular at the right time and getting a shower to wash it in definitely doesn't see 50% volatisatation. A carbon source works with any fertiliser and small seeds need soil contact just spraying onto leaves won't make them grow. I want to see side by side trials with all the above against tow and fert before making my mind up, yes sou ds good but a aerobic open soil that's in balance bith ph and micro nutrients, cycling properly with good grazing and fert management and adding 3 herbs and 3 legumes to give diversity still out performs every competitive idea in every trial I've seen even the 250kg/ha N
So, liquid N is not foliar fed, it is actually taken up through the roots in the same way that granular does. Plants will only utilise amount of N that they need at any one time so the even if the granular N is applied perfectly in the perfect conditions, unless very small quantities are applied, a lot will go un utilised. The other thing to consider is the speed at which the plant takes up the N in a foliar application. Also, this would allow for a multiple lower N doses to increase utilisation over the year, even in dry weather when your granular fert would be pretty useless. Scorch wise you wouldn’t want to be applying the in the middle of a hot day as it will scorch. Ideally it would be applied in the evening or morning when there was a dew if the weather was hot. I’m gonna set up some trials to see growth and measure the differences and then share the info and try and get an open day set up for later in the year so everyone can see it and make their own minds up. 👍
@@baldysfarm but liquid fertiliser is Urea or AN dissolved in water so how is this different to tow and fert? Apart from dilution rate? Any N applied in dry conditions won't be as effective as in wet. The stomata may take in some but the bulk is surely taken up by the root nodules? I'm not saying tow and fert doesn't work but some of the claims are yet to be proven. As I said before I want to see side by side trials so watching your experience will be great. So many other factors such as leaf area on residuals following a grazing.
