"Chariot" Slashes Spraying Time For Tree Growers

"Chariot" Slashes Spraying Time For Tree Growers SPRAYING Miscellaneous 25-4-12 Don and Craig Winship, South Dayton, N.Y., used to hand-spray most of the Christmas trees and nursery plants they grow on about 60 acres. "When the trees are young, machine spraying them is easy," Don tells. "But by they time they're three or four years old, they've grown enough that applying insecticides and fungicides must be done by hand." To make the job easier, they bought a small spray tank with a wand that they could mount on their Suzuki 4 by 4 ATV. It was better than a backpack sprayer, but the job was still quite time consuming. "We have about 70 miles of rows, and the best we could do with the 4-wheeler and the wand was about 1 mile per hour," Craig says. And to do it that quickly required one person on the 4-wheeler and another walking behind, operating the wand. They took turns riding and walking, but it was still strenuous. It took 70 hours to spray one time, and they had to spray 4 or 5 times a year. They felt they were spending too much time. They decided if they could devise a cart to pull behind the 4-wheeler, they could save time and maybe even do a better job of covering the trees. "We took our idea to a local welder, who built us a small cart," Don says. "It's just big enough for a person to stand on, measuring about 20 by 24 in. We put an axle under it, with 8-in. lawn mower wheels. The floor is made of expanded steel mesh, which helps keep your footing. And we built a guard to help us stay on it. It looks like a chariot, so we call it our Spray Chariot." The Winships still take turns running the spray wand, but Craig says, "We can now spray at 2.5 to 3 miles per hour, which means the Chariot has cut our spraying time by about 2/3. That gives us a lot more time to do other chores." They spent less than $200 to build the Spray Chariot, including all materials and the welder's time, too. The sprayer they bought came with a light plastic wand. They replaced that with a gun-type wand with a 3-ft. pipe and an adjustable nozzle on it. A plastic cone with an 8-in. outside end diameter was added over the end of the nozzle, too. Don says the Chariot goes anywhere the 4-wheeler can go. In addition to using it for insecticides and fungicides for the trees, they also use it to spray Roundup and other herbicides where needed in the nursery, around fences and buildings, etc. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Don and Craig Winship, Pine Top Plantation, Box 271, South Dayton, N.Y. 14138 (ph 716 988-5050; E-mail: ptp@utec.net).

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