MOOSE JAW, Sask. – When Jeff and Merv Bunnell went looking for a dedicated truck to haul water for their CaseIH 3185 sprayer, they wanted a reliable truck at a reasonable price.
After shopping around, the Bunnells, who farm near Moose Jaw, picked up a 1978 International with a tandem axle and a diesel engine.
“It came from Moose Jaw Sash and Door. They used it for delivering doors and windows. The original truck had a roof and sides, but that wasn’t a big drawing card. All we wanted was something we could get a couple of tanks and a pump on – a reliable truck to haul water,” said Jeff Bunnell.
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After removing the side curtains, the Bunnells mounted two 1,000 gallon clean water tanks above the rear axles. Then they added a 400-gallon surge tank in front of that for holding water mixed with chemical, if they had to. Between the tanks, they mounted a pump and a chemical mixer.
“(The 400 gallon tank) is a plastic tank. We can either use clean water in it, or if we need to unload what was in the sprayer, we could pump into that and keep it separate from the rest of the system. That would be using it as a holding tank,” said Bunnell.
If rain started to fall, “or if you wanted to change chemicals, if you weren’t finished, you could unload some unused and switch to something else. We’ve always just used the pump on the sprayer to unload (into) it.”
The two large tanks, plus the smaller surge tank, will provide three fills for the 750 gallon tank on the sprayer. There is a compartment behind the truck cab that the Bunnells use to store cases of chemical.
“That was part of the roof apparatus. It’s about 2.5 feet wide and we can lock it up,” said Bunnell.
It keeps cases of pesticide out of the weather and provides security. There’s room to carry enough product for a couple of days of spraying. A two-inch gas pump delivers product from the truck to the sprayer through a Handler 3 chemical mixer.
The Bunnells use a 30 foot hose to fill the sprayer. A box under the deck stores nozzles, tools and gas for the pump.
Because the truck deck is fairly long, there was room left behind the end of the large tanks and the rear wall of the deck. The Bunnells use a removable ramp at the back of the deck to load and unload their all-terrain vehicle.
“We carry an ATV for checking fields or running back to another truck, that type of thing. You can run the water truck out, put it in the field where you need it and use the ATV to get home. Or you can park the truck where the sprayer will need it and go off on the ATV, checking the next field,” said Bunnell.
While the truck was originally bought to supply water to the sprayer, Bunnell said it is also used during harvest as a fire truck. A nozzle on the outlet hose handles grass or stubble fires.
“It’s just for safety. Since we have a water truck, we started having it handy at harvest time. With everything else there, all you have to do is add a nozzle and you have your own fire truck,” he said.
“There was a prairie fire one day. The City of Moose Jaw fire department was out. I didn’t use the nozzle then. They just used my water. But we have had grass fires and stubble fires, plus a minor combine fire.”
He said it’s possible to run the hose up to the window of the driver’s side and operate the truck and the fire hose at the same time.
“We’ve never done that, because any time we’ve used it, there’s always been two people. So one just stands on the back.”
Bunnell said the fire hose is now separate from the regular hose used to fill the sprayer.
“The 30 foot, two inch line was a little heavy. It was tough to keep it on the deck. It would move around or you could pull too much off. We have a separate one now, a smaller inch and a half, about 15 feet long. It’s more manageable.
“Any time we’ve been using it for a fire, you have enough distance with the nozzle that you don’t need the extra hose. The smaller one is quicker to pull off, spray and load back up if you have to move.”
