Posted by Bill VA on March 14, 2016 at 14:56:30 from (67.130.51.170):
Me and the boys have been putting down some fertilizer of late and the old Lely spreader has suffered mightily over the past some 40 years at the hands of every family member. I thought it was scrap metal when I pulled it out from under the barn last year - but after pricing a new spreader, I found the Lely a diamond in the rough....
So much lost metal from rust over the years makes this spreader want to let out more, maybe much more fertilizer than desired.
Soooooooo - to save $$$'s on a new spreader, $$$'s on using to much fertilizer or to little fertilizer - costing us $$$'s on the yield, we broke out the math to calibrate it.
Here is some, not all that we did:
Knowing the PTO speed, we knew the throttle speed and with that the ground speed for a given gear. Measuring the width of the spread - and how to interpret that (based on the Lely manual). Measured how long it took to dispense an specific quantity of fertilizer, i.e. 50 lbs - we knew the distance traveled. From the length and width we knew the area covered, we knew the pounds we put down (in bulk) and could correlate that with an acre. Then we could multiply the percentage of actual fertilizer content, say for nitrogen and calculate that back to how much fertilizer would go down on an acre (hopper would be full vs a sample of fertilizer).
Being as I spearheaded the effort, it took us 8 our of 10 settings to the one that match or was close enough to the ground speed I wanted to travel - but we have 80% of the settings on this #%&@ spreader mapped out!
The good news is - all of this info applies to any bulk fertilizer. If the percentage of N or P or K changes, we can now choose the right setting to put down that amount. If the ground speed needs to change, we can adjust that too.
Couple all the above with calibrating sprayers, seed rates, etc.
IMHO - farmers must be mathematical minded.
We had a great day showing my boys that there is a useful place for math on the farm and the Lely spreader is now a precise fertilizer spreading instrument - kind of sort of.....
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