Spray Equipment Calibration

Nebraska Extension PSEP Author

12/18/2019 Added

13 Plays

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Proper calibration, nozzle tips and tools for boom sprayer, boomless sprayer and pump-up sprayer.

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[00:00:01.236](upbeat music)
[00:00:07.870]I'm Rob Schultz from the Hall County Weed Control,
[00:00:10.100]and we're here today to talk about calibration
[00:00:12.510]of spray equipment, and why it's important,
[00:00:15.530]and some steps we can go through
[00:00:17.380]to calibrate our equipment properly
[00:00:20.040]to get the right amount of pesticide
[00:00:23.497]out on the ground, out on your target.
[00:00:27.139]We're gonna be looking at three different rigs today,
[00:00:30.790]spray equipment rigs today.
[00:00:32.659]One is a boom sprayer with tips, spray tips, on it,
[00:00:37.780]and another is a boomless nozzle spray equipment,
[00:00:40.909]and the next one is a pump-up sprayer.
[00:00:45.559]So we'll be looking at these three different types
[00:00:48.910]of spray equipment and calibrating them.
[00:00:52.110]Okay, now I've changed into my PPE,
[00:00:54.940]personal protective equipment, to do some calibration
[00:00:58.243]out here on a piece of spray equipment,
[00:01:01.200]and so some of the tools that you need
[00:01:03.840]to calibrate spray equipment are a measuring device,
[00:01:08.003]some paint or marking flags, a spray tip tester, a bucket,
[00:01:15.260]ounce container that measures in ounces, a stopwatch,
[00:01:21.660]you know, a calculator, and even a manufacturer's guide
[00:01:26.440]that tells you a little about the tips
[00:01:28.330]that you might be using or tips that may be needed
[00:01:32.500]for the output that you might wanna run,
[00:01:34.370]because you might wanna run 10 gallons per acre
[00:01:37.080]in some applications, or in other applications,
[00:01:40.530]you might need to run 40 or 50 gallons per acre.
[00:01:43.440]So in that case, just increasing pressure
[00:01:46.970]will not get you that output.
[00:01:49.064]If you need to increase your output that much,
[00:01:52.163]then you need to change spray tips
[00:01:55.103]or go to a bigger boomless nozzle or something on that sort.
[00:02:00.130]Just pressure alone will not increase your output that much.
[00:02:03.900]One of the first things you need to do is figuring speed,
[00:02:07.210]and so the formula that I like to use
[00:02:09.683]is speed equals distance in feet times 60
[00:02:16.310]divided by the time in seconds times 88,
[00:02:21.370]and so I just measure out 88 feet,
[00:02:25.560]and then I calculate in seconds the time it takes me
[00:02:29.970]to go 88 feet, and that'll figure out
[00:02:33.650]your miles per hour on that.
[00:02:35.860]There are many calibration formulas out there to use,
[00:02:40.560]and so the one that I kinda like to use
[00:02:43.300]is gallons per acre equals the gallons per minute
[00:02:50.083]times 5940 divided by miles per hour
[00:02:56.150]times the width of your spray operation.
[00:03:02.340]So first thing's first, you know, like we said before,
[00:03:06.580]was figuring out the speed in miles per hour
[00:03:10.130]and the width of your spray booms,
[00:03:13.880]how many inches you're taking in a spray width,
[00:03:18.210]and then we're figuring out the gallons per minute,
[00:03:20.600]and you can plug all those in,
[00:03:22.260]and then you know exactly how many gallons per acre
[00:03:26.040]you are doing with the particular load,
[00:03:29.120]and so you know how many acres you're doing
[00:03:32.920]and then how many, how much product
[00:03:36.810]to put in the tank for the application.
[00:03:40.700]So now, we will start up the motor
[00:03:44.540]and we will do some calibration on the tips here
[00:03:48.320]and do some testing.
[00:03:50.950]At this rate here, it's gonna give you gallons per minute
[00:03:56.290]on this McKenzie Spray Tip Tester,
[00:03:59.630]and so we're gonna be measuring the gallons per minute
[00:04:02.840]on some of these tips to see that.
[00:04:06.790]Okay, now we moved over to our right-of-way application.
[00:04:10.736]Boomless nozzles, there's three different size nozzles
[00:04:14.930]on this particular piece of spray equipment,
[00:04:18.420]and this is a very popular piece
[00:04:22.150]of equipment with these nozzles.
[00:04:23.420]So we'll be calibrating probably the bottom one there.
[00:04:26.640]It's a Boom Buster 110, and so we still need the
[00:04:34.830]bucket to catch the product in, the water.
[00:04:38.447]We're gonna measure it out in ounces.
[00:04:41.100]We're gonna need a stopwatch to calculate it.
[00:04:45.140]I think we should be able to go
[00:04:46.270]for about 30 seconds on that,
[00:04:48.690]and we need our calculator, and we will be,
[00:04:51.790]again, using the gallons per acre formula,
[00:04:56.270]but we're gonna figure gallons per minute,
[00:04:58.330]and so, you know, the gallons per acre is
[00:05:02.300]the gallons per minute times 5940 divided
[00:05:06.670]by your miles per hour times your width,
[00:05:11.940]and so we'll be starting this machine up
[00:05:14.869]and doing a little calibration on it.
[00:05:18.740]Now we have caught the spray mixture, or the water,
[00:05:22.750]in this particular instance for 20 seconds,
[00:05:32.760]and we're measuring it out in fluid ounces,
[00:05:36.500]and it is 64 ounces per 20 seconds,
[00:05:41.500]and so if you take that times three,
[00:05:44.191]you come up with 192 ounces,
[00:05:50.350]and if you divide that by 128,
[00:05:53.230]you come up with 1.5 gallons per minute,
[00:05:57.690]and so that's when we are needing that for our formula,
[00:06:02.210]our gallons per acre formula,
[00:06:05.330]and then the other part of our formula is the spray width,
[00:06:11.660]and so we measured that out and we are taking a 12 foot
[00:06:15.730]spray width there, which is 12 times 12 is 144 inches,
[00:06:21.180]and you need that in inches
[00:06:22.750]in your gallons per acre formula,
[00:06:25.188]and so gallons per minute figured up to be 1.5,
[00:06:30.804]and so on the bottom side of your formula,
[00:06:33.560]you went five miles an hour, which we figured that out
[00:06:37.500]by our speed formula, and your 144 inches in width,
[00:06:44.100]and so when we divide that 8910 by 720,
[00:06:48.670]that gives us a 12.37 gallons per acre
[00:06:54.810]we are putting down with this particular boom.
[00:06:57.990]So we know that this 300 gallon tank
[00:07:03.040]will do 24.25 acres along the roadside
[00:07:09.730]spraying with this particular nozzle.
[00:07:12.810]And so now you know how to do it on the one.
[00:07:17.510]You go back and you do it on the other two nozzles
[00:07:20.330]and continue on calibrating those
[00:07:23.146]and get your appropriate gallons per acre
[00:07:27.710]for those particular nozzles.
[00:07:30.230]So the next tool we're gonna calibrate here
[00:07:32.830]is a hand sprayer, and this can be a backpack sprayer,
[00:07:37.490]this formula can be used for a hand sprayer off of a truck,
[00:07:43.487]many different things it can be used for.
[00:07:46.350]And so one of the first things we're going to do
[00:07:49.490]is measure off an 18 and a half feet
[00:07:53.920]by 18 and a half feet square,
[00:07:56.870]and then we will be spraying that out
[00:08:01.279]and recording our time, and then we will come back
[00:08:05.698]and catch that amount in time in the ounce container,
[00:08:15.014]and that will tell us gallons per acre
[00:08:18.560]that we are putting down with our hand sprayer.
[00:08:23.090]So it took me 55 seconds to spray
[00:08:27.250]this 18 and a half by 18 and a half square.
[00:08:30.390]So now we'll catch this water for 55 seconds
[00:08:35.150]and see what we come up with for gallons per acre
[00:08:38.740]out of this hand sprayer.
[00:08:40.990]This methodology works because the test area,
[00:08:43.810]18.5 square feet, is 1/128 of an acre.
[00:08:50.490]A US gallon is 128 fluid ounces.
[00:08:54.540]So the fluid ounces of spray required
[00:08:56.630]to test the treat area, therefore,
[00:08:58.140]is equivalent to the gallons of spray output
[00:09:01.040]that would be applied to a full acre,
[00:09:04.570]provided the operator maintains a consistent pattern
[00:09:08.030]of spray output and spray coverage.
[00:09:11.180]So figuring up, we did 24 ounces out of that 55 seconds.
[00:09:16.057]That means I'm putting on 24 gallons per acre.
[00:09:20.130]Then you would know that and go back
[00:09:23.310]and figure how many acres or tenths of an acre
[00:09:28.070]that you're gonna do with this particular hand sprayer.
[00:09:31.400]Then you'll be able to figure out how many ounces
[00:09:34.350]of herbicide or insecticide to put
[00:09:37.590]in this particular hand sprayer.
[00:09:40.110]So in conclusion here today, we have calibrated
[00:09:43.280]these three pieces of equipment to do some spraying with,
[00:09:46.880]and in the long run, you know, calibration is very important
[00:09:49.955]just to get the proper amount of herbicide out there
[00:09:54.070]or insecticide, whatever product you might be using.
[00:09:57.574]You know, if you under-apply, you could be creating
[00:10:01.830]a resistance in a weed or something like that,
[00:10:05.660]and if you over-apply herbicide,
[00:10:07.534]you're putting out too many dollars per acre out there.
[00:10:10.570]And so, you know, just creating equipment
[00:10:16.600]that works properly and puts out
[00:10:18.820]the proper amount of herbicide, or insecticide,
[00:10:21.160]or whatever product you might be using is very beneficial,
[00:10:26.073]and so calibration is a great thing to do.
[00:10:30.915]If not every year, if not maybe even two
[00:10:35.840]or three times a year, depending on if you do repairs
[00:10:39.520]on your equipment and that type of thing, new tips,
[00:10:42.992]new pumps, you know, various things,
[00:10:46.814]recalibration would be a great thing to do to make sure
[00:10:50.240]you're still putting out the proper gallons per acre
[00:10:53.350]that you would like to put out,
[00:10:54.950]and then you would know exactly how many gallons per acre
[00:10:59.040]you're putting out and how many acres
[00:11:02.020]that tank fill will do so you know exactly
[00:11:05.433]how much herbicide, insecticide, whatever
[00:11:09.492]to put into that tank to get it to get that rate you need
[00:11:15.550]out on the targeted area that you would like to cover.
[00:11:18.915](upbeat music)

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Spray Equipment Calibration

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