What is your ideal spray rig for general PHC

[Knotts]

What do y'all like to use for for your rigs and what capacities is preferred? I have a couple sweet versatile 3 tank, 350 gallon units carried by 1 ton trucks. They work great but I was thinking of building a larger unit but wasn't settled on what to go with.

 

[ATH]

Wait...you have a "couple" of 350 gallon units carried by a "1 ton" (3500 or F 350...right)? So, that is 5800 lbs of water, plus the weight of the sprayer (700lbs???). Aren't most "one tons" rated for around 4500lbs total payload capacity?

If you want to go bigger, I think you need to start with a bigger truck!

There is a company around here that has their units in an enclosed trailer. That is a nice option as it allows for more capacity than a truck could take and it is easy to drop the trailer at the shop and be on to the next task with the same truck.

I am not sure I could spray through 700 gallons a day with most of what I am doing. For the rare day I would, refilling would be a better option for me.

What are most of your treatments?

 

[Jed1124]

I think a 600 split into 3 two hundreds would be ideal. I like the idea of having one tank devoted to fert/bio stimulant. I wonder how much beneficial fungal activity is lost in my fert when I fill after being loaded with fungicide. I'm running a little 200 gal now and having trouble keeping up. I'm hoping to have a larger sprayer and truck next year and devote the little guy for tick sprays.

 

[Knotts]

ATH, my 350 gallon units are separate units carried by a single truck that is a class 3 gvw vihical. The beds are aluminum and so are the frames. These truck were wildland fire fighter trucks rated to carry 350 gallons. I have taken my trucks fully loaded across the scales to check their weights and we are good. I was more interested in the capacities people used in their PHC programs than vehicle gvw, but that would also be an interesting conversation.

Jed, that is an interesting thought about the fert being affected by the fungicide. Multi tank set ups just allow for so many options. We organinze our spray routes by zip code and go through with one treatment across several properties. It saves time on mixing and filling. But our technicians always run into that one odd treatment that would be simple to handle with a third tank (a small fifty gallon works well for me). So long as one of the tanks is kept as bulk water.
Is anyone using any large capacity two tank systems that they like? And how well do they help in your routes? Out here when mountain pine beetle came through some companies where using 800 and 1000 gal. units. Because water was hard to get to in most areas and a crew could go all day on a truck. Now that MPB has dropped off they use them for fertilizer and other big spray routs like Zimmerman moth or fall transfilm.

 

[ATH]

OK...I thought you were saying you had both 350 gallons tanks on the truck at the same time... That makes a lot more sense.

 

[ATH]

Well, since we are talking "ideal": The ideal to me would be a single water tank with multiple smaller product tanks that would inject the product into the stream after the tank...similar to foam injection systems on the firefighting trucks. I looked at the possibility several years ago. The foam injection systems were not able to be calibrated precisely enough. Didn't find anything else to fit that. Gregson Clark has this: injection system but still not quite right.

I am no pump expert, but I don't think it would be 'that' complicated. My brother and I talked about designing something (he is (was) an aerospace engineer focusing on flow). But he is out of state, and I, frankly, don't have enough experience with a wide variety of spray equipment to provide that knowledge and don't have extra time. Put on the back burner. Maybe it is something we should revisit...when I get the time.

 

[Urban Forester]

300/300/100 gals w/mechanical agitation. Front pump 800 psi @ 23 gals. per minute. Middle pump 600 psi @ 13 gals per minute, same for back pump. All hose 1/2" ID. Front hose spiral 2-pass (800 psi) other 2 - 600 psi. Mounted on flatbed Ford F550.

 

[Jed1124]

View attachment 439686
300/300/100 gals w/mechanical agitation. Front pump 800 psi @ 23 gals. per minute. Middle pump 600 psi @ 13 gals per minute, same for back pump. All hose 1/2" ID. Front hose spiral 2-pass (800 psi) other 2 - 600 psi. Mounted on flatbed Ford F550.

That's a sweet rig! Who have build it for you? How was it working with them? You have to be well over 7k fully loaded. Does the truck handle it well?

 

[Urban Forester]

That's a sweet rig! Who have build it for you? How was it working with them? You have to be well over 7k fully loaded. Does the truck handle it well?

We have 9 of those trucks. We build them ourselves. The sprayers come from SDI ( Spraying Devices Inc.) in California. Yes, it is over 7K, closer 8.5. They handle real well. They all have 6.0 or 6.3 turbo diesels. However don't EVER buy a ford w/a 6.0 diesel made by international. They leak oil, have had MORE than our share of issues with the 2 that have the 6.0's.