FARGO, N.D. – With a bit of planting planning, Land Skid can eliminate one truck from your seeding operation. Your semi spots the 2,500-gallon tank in the field, then returns to other tasks.
Key to the Land Skid efficiency is the way your semi-tractor picks up and drops off the tank in 20 minutes. The only delay Land Skid cannot solve is the time it takes for the truck to drive to and from the water source.
Landing the tank is simply a matter of cranking down the 8,000 pound jack stands, which lifts the tank platform clear of the semi’s fifth wheel. The semi drives away to do other work. When the water is gone, the semi returns and backs under the platform again. Crank the jacks up to set the tank back on the semi, and it drives off to the water source again.
“With 2,500 gallons, Land Skid should be able to fill just about any sprayer,” says Ross Johnson of Agassiz Drain Tile in Buxton, North Dakota.
Agassiz has been building the tanks for five years.
“Most farmers buy them mainly for spring planting. There’s a hitch on the back. Most planters now have fertilizer, so guys pull along a seed tender for fertilizer behind the Land Skid. It’s a pretty efficient system. And when you’ve finished one field, you move the tank and tender to the next field.
“Some farmers use it for spraying, simply to keep their tender truck full. To send the tender truck for water might take an hour, and the sprayer empties out in a half-hour. So now you have that expensive sprayer just sitting idle and you’re getting further behind on spraying. The Land Skid gives you one extra vessel for water.”
The wood bed is 1.5-inch white oak. Power comes from a 6.5 horsepower gas engine, with either two-inch or three-inch hoses. The inductor is 15 gallons or 30 gallons.
Johnson says there’s room on the deck for a full palette of chemical. Because most units are custom built to buyers’ needs, the price can range from US$12,000 to $30,000.
“I can honestly say it wasn’t an original idea of mine. I saw some other guys with portable tanks like this, and it looked like a pretty good idea. But nobody was manufacturing them on any sort of commercial scale, so we decided that’s what we should do.”
For more information, visit www.agassizsales.com.
