WAPELLA, Sask. – In the late 1990s, Dwayne Wolf from Wapella, Sask., was using a Flexi-Coil air seeder with a tow-behind tank for seed and dry fertilizer. He wanted to add more seeding capacity by using the air tank just for seed and switching to a liquid fertilizer program, so he built his own tow-between liquid cart.
The initial cart was built with six-by-eight inch by 3/8 inch steel tubing for the main frame. The rear axle and hubs came from a Case IH 1482 combine and dual 20.8 x 38 tires from an IH 4568 four-wheel drive tractor, which fit the combine axle hubs.
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It was initially a tow-between cart, so it began with just the rear axle. The front of the cart attached directly to the tractor drawbar.
“What happened after a couple of years of using the cart, the inside of the wheels started to break out where they were bolted to the hubs. Someone told me if you go to the 4786, it’s an eighth of an inch heavier steel in the wheel, so I switched both (inside duals) to the heavier plating,” said Wolf.
The cart has a twin-piston John Blue pump to deliver liquid fertilizer to the drill. It’s ground-driven off a sprocket bolted to the inside of the right rear hub. Wolf lacks a clutch system, so for fast transportation, he must remove the chain. But for short trips, he leaves it and it bypasses back into the tank.
The tank is attached to the cart using bent tubing over top, with ready rod welded to the tubing and bolted to the frame.
“When I built the cart, I made it so the tank is fully detachable. It can be removed and my future plans are to build a grain tank for it that you could slide on and off. Then you’d have a grain cart for the fall. I would think we’d probably make it 750 bushels. The combine had a 250-bu. hopper on it, plus the weight of the combine, so (the axle) should easily hold 750 bu.,” he said.
When Wolf sold the Flexi-Coil drill and bought his current 60-foot Seedhawk, he didn’t need the tow-between liquid tank, but he did want a four-wheeled tank to dribble band liquid fertilizer on his winter wheat. So in 2003, he extended the frame forward and added a ball and socket hitch, an axle and two more 20.8 x 38 tires.
“There’s a beam that ran straight through, from the hitch on the tractor to the hitch on the air seeder, which is why it’s built fairly beefy. When I decided to change it, we kept the six-inch by eight-inch tubing, but added the two wheels,” said Wolf.
When he added the front axle, Wolf also moved the tank forward two feet, to distribute the weight off the back axle and onto the front wheels.
The cart has a 6.5 horsepower gas engine on a three-inch pump, mounted on the rear of the frame, to load and unload the tank in a hurry. Once seeding is complete, Wolf can use the cart to haul water for spraying.
“We run two high-clearance sprayers and we haven’t set up a second trailer with water yet, so we’re getting by with this cart,” he said.
“Another situation where we can use that cart in season is, we can pull it to the field we’re seeding in with a half-ton. Because it’s the same size as the liquid tank we have on our seeding tool, we can fill it, then it’s parked there ready to be filled when we go to the next field.
“The guy that’s bringing the liquid and seed out doesn’t have to be there right at the right time. As long as he maintains that liquid cart, he can keep the seeding operation going. It’s like a surge tank, but it’s portable, too. If you need to move it full, you can still do that.”
Before building the cart, Wolf was getting 30 or 35 acres out of a fill with the granular fertilizer and seed.
“When we went to the liquid cart between, we were getting 80 to 90 acres out of a fill. It doubled to tripled it, depending on the circumstances,” he said.
“(With the Seedhawk) because we have the 450-bu. dry cart and 2,100 imperial gallon tank on the seeding tool, we’re trying to get to that point where we can do a quarter with a fill. Most of our land is more 135 to 150 acres per quarter, so we’re getting pretty close.”
Wolf admits he’s not a professional welder, so building the cart probably took him longer than it would for some people.
“But I would think a month in the shop would build it. We paid $500 for the hubs and each of the wheels, so that’s $2,000, plus $3,000 for the tank. It was probably $6,000 for materials, without the new pumps on the back. A new one, with pumps, is probably worth $20,000 to $24,000, I would think.”
