Daniel Sharps, who sprays 2400 hectares a year for Wilson and Selbourne, of Prebendal Farm near Swindon, is the 2008 West of England regional winner of the Farm Sprayer Operator of the Year competition. He was presented with his prize, an engraved glass vase, at the Cereals Show in Lincolnshire this week.
Mr Sharps, who is BASIS and FACTS-registered, uses a Knight ES3000 trailed sprayer fitted with gull-wing booms that allow 12-metre or 20-metre spray widths for applying chemicals to wheat, oats and oil seed rape. For the competition, he was judged on his knowledge of agro-chemicals and related legislation, equipment and application techniques.
The Knight sprayer has a 3000-litre main tank and a separate 300-litre auxiliary tank that holds clean water for washing the exterior of the sprayer. A Ponyflow digital flow-metre provides accurate calculation of tank contents, while an RDS Delta 34 controller automatically adjusts chemical output to match forward speed. The machine also has Knight’s patented LASER agitation and re-circulation system.
The boom design allows the machine to be extended easily to 24 metres in the future, if required, and bi-directional break-aways have been fitted for extra protection. Triple nozzles have been included to provide a wide variation in outputs and spray quality to suit different crops and weather conditions.