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"Sweet Corn" Sprayer Keeps Crop Insect-Free
Duane King farmed for 50 plus years, building a half dozen different pull-type sprayers over that time. But even though he's retired now, he hasn't stopped innovating. He recently sent FARM SHOW photos of a 3-pt. mounted "sweet corn" sprayer he built mostly from junk parts.
He used a big 28-in. dia. squirrel cag
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"Sweet Corn" Sprayer Keeps Crop Insect-Free SPRAYING Miscellaneous 33-3-19 Duane King farmed for 50 plus years, building a half dozen different pull-type sprayers over that time. But even though he's retired now, he hasn't stopped innovating. He recently sent FARM SHOW photos of a 3-pt. mounted "sweet corn" sprayer he built mostly from junk parts.
He used a big 28-in. dia. squirrel cage fan, pulleys and shafts from an old pull-type sprayer. The tractor pto belt drives both the fan and a spray pump.
"I use it to get rid of ear worms and stalk borers in my sweet corn. It sure beats spraying by hand, and it cost less than $500 to build," says King. "I plant sweet corn as a hobby to give away to family and friends. For the season I make 10 weekly plantings for a total of about one acre of corn. I won't stop planting until July 4, so I'll be able to harvest sweet corn until the first frost. I put drip tape between every two 16-in. rows.
"The spray comes out as a fog. I spray the corn every five days as it grows, starting at the flag leaf stage when the corn is about to tassel. I pull it with my Deere 1020 tractor, which has a 1,000 rpm pto."
The spray pump draws pesticide out of a 30-gal. plastic tank. Hoses lead from a pair of 12-volt electric valves to six nozzles mounted on a metal shroud just outside the fan. A bypass valve mounted above the pump adjusts spray pressure.
"The fan has a lot of power. I can set it to blow pesticide out to about 80 ft.," says King. "My sweet corn patch is narrow enough that even late in the season I can spray across all of it in one pass."
He paid $120 for the squirrel cage fan, which had originally been used on a grain dryer. The 2-in. Flow Max spray pump came off another pull-type sprayer that King had built 15 years ago. The pulleys and jackshaft and hoses came off a wet kit that was originally mounted on a Big A pull-type floater spray rig.
"My little Deere 1020 tractor is powered by a 3-cyl., 35 hp engine. It has all it can handle powering this sprayer," notes King.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Duane E. King, 3025 West State Route 18, Tiffin, Ohio 44883 (ph 419 937-1943 or 419 618-2183; romaking@bright.net).
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