Syngenta Crop Protection UK Ltd - Tom's Blog

Avoiding Waste

27/08/2010

There are several things you can do when spraying to avoid wasting time and wasting product. This starts with the accurate monitoring of field sprayed areas to calculate the load size, and accurate measurement of liquid into the sprayer so that there is no product left over. Sight gauges are often...

Tank mixing – what are the benefits and risks?

06/07/2010

A tank mix can be one of two things; a convenience tank mix, or as a positive tank mix. Positive tank mixes combine two products to enhance the overall effect of the pesticide, but we are going to look a bit closer at the benefits vs. risks of convenience tank mixes. Convenience tank m...

How to calibrate a waved spray head

18/05/2010

1. Measure and mark out an area of crop to be sprayed for the calibration. 2. Fill the sprayer to the brim with water. 3. Spray the measured area exactly as one would normally 4. Measure the amount of water required to refill the sprayer to the brim. &nbs...

Ben Magri’s Crop Update

23/04/2010

After the worst winter to hit the UK for some time, crops grew at phenomenal rate. Around work in Cambridge and home in Norfolk, the winter barley shot forward and hit T1 in no time. Oil seed rape pushed quickly through its growth stages with many fields flowering early, some complete w...

Rinsing spray tanks more effectively

01/04/2010

Sprayer Operator Steve Lake from Burgate Farm, Hambledon, Surrey, has an innovative system for getting the best rinse from the water in the rinse tank. Steve measured the time taken for the full rinse tank (400l) on his Bateman sprayer to empty into the main spray tank, in his case 90 seconds. ...

Fast fill sprayer system

22/03/2010

I’ve been really pleased with the sprayer filling system that we’ve created here at Stowell Park. I originally converted an old 1000-litre IBC container into a tank to collect the drips from rinsed containers, left to drain whilst out spraying which could then be incorporated into the next load. How...

Light footprint

15/03/2010

The light weight of our Bateman RB16 has been a real benefit with this year’s spraying, when ground conditions have been less than ideal for travelling after heavy rain and snow melt. I also find it helps that if we have a relatively wet field only to put in the required spray volume to complete the...

Clean pass

08/03/2010

Available spray days are often in short supply during the winter and early spring, with reduced hours of daylight and weather conditions. If we need to make the best of what we’ve got, and application timing is clearly such an important element of achieving good results, I find it can help to use lo...

Recycling clean up

01/03/2010

We have now bagged up all the used cans from the spray shed, and taken them for recycling. After a busy autumn programme we filled and delivered around 20 1-tonne seed bags with the clean plastic bottles and separated cardboard boxes. With the storage area clear, we are ready for the spring campaign...

Application Club shows innovation

22/02/2010

I recently went to the Cotswolds area Syngenta Application Club meeting, held at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. It’s always a highly enjoyable day to meet up with like minded people and catch up with their trials. We also get the chance to put forward ideas with applicatio...

Snow days

15/02/2010

It’s been frustrating being holed up by the snowy weather and not been able to get on with the spraying. But it has given me the chance to give the sprayer a really good service and check over; time spent on maintenance is never wasted, if it means we can keep going longer without breakdowns or stop...

Herbicide applications ahead of deadline

08/02/2010

I’m Andrew Myatt, farm foreman and sprayer operator on the Stowell Park Estate, Yanworth, near Cheltenham. I’m taking over Tom’s blog for a week or so! We managed to finish off some black grass and wild oat herbicide applications in the oilseed rape, just in time for the 31 January dead...

Top tips for winter spraying

17/12/2009

I’m getting lots of questions at the moment as to how deal with winter spraying. So much has been delayed with the wet soil conditions this autumn that some sprays will inevitably go on late in the season and into the winter. Be aware that driving over plants with frozen leaves will cau...

Watch out in the wet

11/12/2009

You will hopefully have heeded the warnings over recent weeks with regards to the risks of spraying autumn herbicides in the wet conditions. It’s always a tough dilemma when you need to get on at any available opportunity, with moist conditions and cooling soils ideal for some herbicides. But any pr...

Application Club Results

25/11/2009

Getting together with over 50 of the world’s best sprayer operators at one time makes the annual results meeting of the Syngenta Application Club one of my favourite days of the year. It never ceases to amaze me just how innovative sprayer operators are, how keen they are to try out new ideas and th...

035 Defy nozzles

24/11/2009

Suffolk sprayer operator, Tim Cawston of Hawkedon Hall, contacted me last week - through my Blog pages - to say he'd just purchased a set of 035 Defy nozzles, with the plan to use these for post-emergence applications on blackgrass at 1-2 ...

Boom wobble

19/10/2009

Having just watched a sprayer wobble its way across a field earlier this week it was a timely reminder of the importance of checking boom suspension systems. Even on a relatively flat field in good conditions, booms can start to oscillate wildly which makes it impossible to get a consistent spray pa...

Clods cast shadow on herbicide application

13/10/2009

Cloddy seedbeds created during the exceptional dry September pose a real problem for pre-emergence herbicide applications. Whilst carrying out a recent on-farm demonstration for sprayer operators in Lincolnshire, held at Cholmeley Farms near Grantham, we did a...

New courses from NRoSO on target

08/10/2009

Spent today with NRoSO going through this year’s new training pack, with some of the guys who will be delivering the instruction. The subject of ‘Targets and Timing’ looks really good and packed with practical ideas that I am confident operators will find extremely valuable. For the fir...

Sprout sprays on the button

25/09/2009

We’ve just been trying out an exciting prototype drop leg sprayer in a big, leafy Brussels sprout crop at Marshalls of Butterwick in Lincolnshire. Currently being developed by some Syngenta colleagues in Europe, the initial results with the novel sprayer look really exciting. The idea o...

Passing wind

21/09/2009

I have spent some fascinating time with Paul Miller in the TAG Spray Application Unit wind tunnel at Silsoe, testing out how drifty different nozzles are at a range of air speeds - to simulate windy field conditions and the effects of operating at today’s faster sprayer speeds. Using th...

NEW DEFY nozzle launched

14/09/2009

Usain Bolt has blitzed the world of athletics with his incredible speed. Everything is getting faster and faster, and that includes spraying operations. When we first launched the Hawk nozzle in 2003 it was designed to operate at up to 12 km/hr which, at the time, was viewed as incredible. Now it’s ...

Leafy spuds

14/09/2009

Reports from Scotland and the north of England are that after the slow, wet season potato growers now desiccating crops are having to deal with some huge leafy crops, particularly some of the Pipers and Markies. For all these applications I’ve seen great results with the