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| I made a side dresser from a 400 and a squeeze pump from a JD 7000. With new pump hoses I got within 3/4% of my planned coverage per truck load of 32%. It does need new hoses regularly and it needs to be set so the hoses are squeezed fully closed by the rollers either by tension or by hitting the backing plate. My pump didn't come with a backing plate so I made my own. The scheme needs orifices at the ends of the hoses so they don't empty while turning and then take 20 or 30 feet to refill. There is minimal speed sensitivity, some have seen pulsing from the pump causing the fertilizer spread to be spotty.
A pressure pump with manifold and individual orifices can do well also, though its dependent on ground speed. I've done perfectly with such a scheme on my planter or for side dressing using my home made three point sprayer. Its important to take the calculations of orifices and ground speed with you to the field, one year I misremembered and planted at 4.2 when it should have been 4.7 mph so put down 60# of N instead of the planned 50#. No problem except that my tank held exactly the right amount for 50 so I had to go get more and then some of that sat in the tank until it was time to haul the rest that I had contracted to do the side dressing and I had to plan a lower rate for side dressing.
Then a Raven controller that varies pressure according to ground speed can make the pressure/orifice scheme be precise despite varying ground speeds. Just like a sprayer, just injecting or dribbling fertilizer instead of spraying herbicide going to the ground instead of the leaf. Any pump that will hold pressure, diaphragm electric or ground driven, or roller, or centrifugal, they all work if they survive handling the fertilizer.
Gerald J. | |
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fertilzer pumps
