Since crop protection directly impacts on farmers’ profit margins, intelligent solutions are required to maximise the effectiveness and minimise the cost of spraying. In light of increasingly stringent environmental legislation, the timeliness of spray applications becomes even more critical as farm sizes grow.

John Deere’s ISO-Bus ready 800i Series trailed sprayers offer new levels of accuracy, productivity and operator convenience. Two models are available, the 832i and 840i, with 3200 and 4000 litre tank capacities respectively and spray booms from 18 to 39m.

As one of the pioneers of ISO-Bus technology on tractors and implements, John Deere has designed these new sprayers to take full advantage of the capabilities of the latest AMS GreenStar 2 displays. This means the operator has total control of the sprayer, can use the pre-installed guidance software and include field documentation data with the same display. All spraying applications are automatically recorded onto a compact flash card to generate the required reports and documents.

When the tractor is equipped with a StarFire position receiver, parallel tracking or AutoTrac can be used for guidance and assisted steering, and the operator will in future be able to use more advanced FieldDoc tools such as Spray to Map for variable rate spray applications. It is also possible to monitor exactly where chemicals have been applied on an aerial photo of the field on the display. This helps to minimise any risk of skips or overlaps, and allows improved control of the sprayer near buffer zones with spray restrictions.

To accurately spray at higher speeds with wider booms, particularly on smaller, more irregular fields, John Deere has developed the SprayerPro package, which includes automatic boom section control and an automatic master on/off control at the headland.

SprayerPro takes over control of the boom sections and automatically switches them on and off when entering an area that has already been sprayed or is located outside the field boundaries. Additionally, the master valve is automatically switched on and off at the headland. Even in large fields of more than 25ha, chemical savings of around two per cent can easily be achieved, while significantly higher savings are possible when spraying smaller fields.

In addition, the AutoTrac assisted steering system can help make chemical savings of up to 14 per cent during pre-emergence spray applications, compared to spraying without guidance. BoomTrac automatic height and tilt control also brings significant savings, by enabling the use of wider booms for increased productivity and reduced tramlines.

The combination of AutoTrac, BoomTrac and SprayerPro provides large arable farmers and contractors with a unique solution for working at night, when the conditions for spraying are often most favourable, and operations can be better timed to suit spray applications at critical crop growth stages.

The new 800i Series trailed sprayers are equipped as standard with a digital tank level control. This enables more accurate filling by using an audible alarm or automatic filling shut-off, which saves further on chemicals and prevents environmental damage through overflows during filling. Tank agitation will switch off automatically below a programmable tank level to avoid foaming and ensure complete tank emptying.

A new application rate control system automatically switches between pressure and flow based regulation to ensure the most accurate spray rate is being applied at all times. Flow based regulation will be active when spraying at normal flow rates, while fully compensating for any potential nozzle wear. As soon as lower flow rates are used, for example when spraying with a limited number of boom sections, the rate controller will automatically switch to pressure based regulation to exploit this system’s higher accuracy at lower rates.

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