BRANDON Ñ Redfern Farm Services rents out a number of PolyWest Bandits, along with a lineup of liquid caddy carts from other manufacturers, in its chain of fertilizer outlets in southwestern Manitoba.
The company has seven of the 3,400-gallon US caddies and five of the 1,700-gallon caddies. The most recent purchase was a 5,100 in 2004 that now has 5,800 acres on the books.
“Most people would like to think that compaction is a problem with that much liquid, but our experience so far with these high capacity caddies is that it’s not significant,” said Ray Redfern.
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“The standard size tires they put on seem to be big enough.
“I know farmers always want bigger tires, but so far, the compaction has been very limited in nearly all fields.”
Redfern operations manager Randy Tully agreed.
“We’ve found that the diamond tread tire causes more compaction than the open lug, tractor style tire. The diamond tread is fine on the lighter weight carts, but with the higher loads they build up the mud and become like a slick tire. The mud keeps growing. With the open lug style tires, the mud peels off.
“But the main advantage of the tractor style tire is that, as each lug rolls forward and pulls up out of the field, it pulls up a clump of soil. That has the effect of loosening the soil and breaking up some of the compaction you caused when the tire rolled onto that patch of ground. Tire selection can have a lot to do with compaction.”
Tully had expected the 5,100 would be a problem in the field, but “it was very stable. It trailed well. It was very easy to handle in the field. It was actually a pleasant surprise.”
One customer rented the twin-cart 5,100 for the entire spring season. Tully said he got stuck only once in 5,800 acres of seeding.
“My only concern is the ball size on the fifth wheel steering pivot. I’m not convinced that three inches is big enough for this size of load. We have a lot of liquid carts here, and different brands. Some of them came with a two-inch ball. We have to replace the two-inch balls about every second year. I guess time will tell if three inches is adequate.”
Redfern said horsepower requirements have proven acceptable for most of his customers.
“Of course on hilly land, the power requirements go up. At the very most, you have to drop down a gear or a half gear.
“Even with that big train (5,100 gallon) the farmer does not go out and buy the extra hp to pull the extra weight. It’s either surplus hp he wasn’t using yet or he just drops down a gear. I have yet to have one customer tell me that he went out and bought a bigger tractor to handle these big liquid carts.”
Most of Redfern’s customers who rent the big caddies have already switched to liquid fertilizer to speed up their seeding time. They are going from a conventional 1,250 or 1,500-gallon cart to a 3,400 or even the big 5,100-gallon capacity.
Although he rents liquid caddies, Redfern said the trend is toward farmers buying their own.
“In our area, I’d say 25 percent of the liquid customers have now bought their own caddies. Personally, I’d like to see that number up to 80 percent or 100 percent. And I think that’s the way it’s heading as producers understand how much more ground they can cover in a day.”
But it’s a misconception that liquid alone speeds up the seeding operation, Redfern said. Logistically, all the liquid does is remove some granular from the dry product cart, so it frees up another compartment for seed.
“Before, we were stopping every 40 acres or 60 acres or 80 acres at the most. By pulling a liquid cart and making better use of the dry compartments, we see folks up at 120 acres between fills. In some situations, they get a quarter section per fill. Your operational efficiency is so much better. You make better use of your time and your equipment.”
He adds that the twin and triple tank setups have potential for farmers who want to do variable rate and blend on-the-go, although at this point, none of his customers has tried it.
“We have a few customers now doing variable rate manually with liquid. We have one customer last year who did prescription maps with predetermined variable rate. He bought the Raven kit to control the liquid.”
Redfern said so far all the big caddies in his inventory have been rented out for seeding, but not for in-crop top dressing.
“We probably do more top dressing than other dealers, but customers are still reluctant to pull that much weight around after seeding is done. The top dressing is usually done with the smaller carts.”
