You'll like the view from this new rig that turns any pickup into a high-rise sprayer with 6 ft. of ground clearance.

Invented by Elmo Meiners, 76-year-old retired president of M&W Gear Co., the high-boy frame is powered directly off the rear wheels of the pickup. Steering, braking and other functions of the pickup still work normally with the truck on top of the frame, which is about 10 ft. wide but adjusts to row spacing of 30 or 48 in. The high-rise pickup has a road speed of 30 mph.

Meiners, who now farms near Anchor, Ill., built the high-clearance rig after pricing self-propelled high-boy sprayers. "Most farmers already own pickup sprayers, or can buy them at a reasonable cost. With this rig you can use your pickup sprayer all season long," he says.

Meiners worked with a local machine shop to build the spray-rig, using standard high-boy components when possible and fabricating whatever else he needed. He plans to bring the sprayer on the market next spring. He's negotiating with manufacturers to build it.

It takes about an hour to mount a pickup on the rig. You drive it up a ramp onto the frame and anchor it with clamps over the axles. Then all four wheels are removed. A splined pto drive shaft on an adaptor plate bolts to each of the rear hubs. They direct-drive pto shafts that chain-drive the rig's large 38-in. rear tractor wheels. The steering system up front fastens with one bolt to tie rods on the high-rise frame. No modification to the pickup is necessary.

Meiners says any 1/2, 3/4 or 1-ton pickup can be used to power the rig. Although it has a high center of gravity, he says the unique pickup high-boy is stable because of the 10-ft. width, which is nearly double the standard width of a pickup. It has plenty of traction, too, with the large rear wheels. The up-front steering wheels are 20 in. in dia. Meiners uses the spray rig with a 60-ft. boom.

In addition to spraying, Meiners has also had a lot of interest in the high-rise frame for detasseling and is working on special attachments for that use.