BIGGAR, Sask. – Since Richard Elenko mounted a hose boom on his water trailer, filling his sprayer has become a simple and efficient job.
“Everybody has a water tender. Some guys use a truck, some guys use a trailer. And most guys mix their chemical through a handler,” said Elenko, who farms north of Biggar.
“But to fill any sprayer, you have to handle the hose from the tender truck to the tank. That means you’re fighting with a two-inch hose. Then you have to roll it up or do something with it. We used to have a reel, where we’d reel the hose off, then reel it back on. Instead of that, we said, ‘why don’t we have a boom to hold the hose for us?’ “
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Elenko has a 22-foot water trailer that carries 2,200 gallons of water, enough for five fills of his SpraCoupe. He and his hired man built a reinforced truss boom out of one-inch square tubing that mounts on the side of the trailer.
The boom swings out about 20 feet, with another 12 feet of hose at the end, to provide plenty of reach. It folds up along the side of the trailer when not in use.
“The hinge is a pipe in a pipe, with a couple of supports, so it doesn’t bend,” Elenko said.
“We needed a swivel joint in the hose so it can turn with the boom. On the end of the boom, there’s a couple of hooks to lay the end section of hose in.”
The hinge, support and boom are attached to a heavy rectangular frame made of steel pipe, the same size as the trailer.
“The whole thing is on a skid,” he said.
“We have four U bolt or J clamps, one on each corner. If we want to take that skid off and use the trailer for something else, it takes about 15 minutes to take the clamps off, grab it with a front-end loader and slide it onto your stands. You could even use a crowbar. And when you need it again, you back up under the end and slide it on.”
Because the sprayer operator is often in the field by himself, Elenko said the boom can be left extended so the operator can drive up to it for a fill.
“On a lot of our fields, we don’t have fence lines, so the truck and trailer never leave the road. You grab that hose off the hooks so you don’t have to be positioned too carefully with the sprayer,” he said.
“If a guy’s spraying by himself, the boom stays out, he whips up to the boom, jumps out, snaps the hose onto the fill line, jumps on the trailer, mixes the chemical and water on the go. Six minutes later, that little tank is done. You’re not fighting with getting on, finding the hose end, cleaning the dirt off it and so forth. It’s pure convenience.”
Keeping the fill hose out of the dirt makes plugged nozzles a rarity, which is important because Elenko makes sure his water is clean.
“We modified a tandem tanker to nurse the water trailer. We have the tanker full of water, so the water is warm and we’ve got 4,000 gallons of capacity sitting on a truck at a moment’s notice,” he said.
“We filter into the truck, out of the truck, into the trailer and out of the trailer. If I have two plugged nozzles a season, I’m starting to wonder. Plugged nozzles are a non-event.”
Elenko’s water trailer also serves as a refueling station for his sprayer.
“On our tractor unit for the trailer, we put an extra tank on it with an electric pump. When we’re in the field, if the sprayer needs diesel, it gets filled up from this extra tank. It carries enough capacity that we never have to worry about running out of fuel.”
The extra diesel tank is tucked in front of the rear wheel on the passenger side of the truck by the frame, so Elenko has no need for a slip tank. A 12-volt pump moves the diesel from the truck to the sprayer.
“Our sprayer doesn’t have a big fuel tank on it. We seldom fill the sprayer with fuel in the yard because it’s so much easier to do it in the field with the tender truck.”
