The agricultural sector contributes over $1 trillion to the US GDP every year. They do this by harnessing the power of a wide range of technology, equipment, and machinery to assist them with maximizing yields and efficiency.
We all know about tractors and harvesters, but do you know what farm sprayers are? These are among the lesser-known pieces of equipment in agriculture.
Find out more about farm sprayers and their role in this important industry here.
What Are Farm Sprayers?
Farm sprayers play an important role on the farm, by helping farmers broadcast substances like fertilizer, herbicides, and pesticides over their crops.
Without these essential elements, crops could not grow and thrive. In a home gardening scenario, you could do this by hand, but that’s not the case when it comes to large tracts of land.
Types of Farm Sprayers
While looking for farm sprayers for sale, you can choose from either handheld or tractor-mounted sprayers. These are the main types of agricultural sprayers you’ll encounter in your search:
Agriculture Spray Pumps
Handheld sprayers come in stand-alone and backpack versions. These types of sprayers are portable, cheap, low maintenance, and easy to use.
They’re great for spraying crops like cotton, rhubarb, and tomatoes when they’re still young and low-growing. These are low-pressure sprayers, and you operate them by hand, so they’re too slow and inefficient to use on extremely large areas of land.
You can also use these types of spray pumps to treat your cattle and horses with pesticides targeting ticks and other external parasites.
Trailer, Tractor, or Truck Mounted Sprayers
These types of farm sprayers are more expensive, but they’re also more efficient than hand-held versions.
Tractor sprayers attach directly to your tractor and can hold around 500 gallons of liquid.
You can attach large 1000-gallon trailer sprayers to a trailer that’s coupled to your tractor. Like tractor-mounted sprayers, they’re driven by a hydraulic motor linked to the power take-off shaft of the tractor.
Truck-mounted varieties are even larger, with a 2,500-gallon tank. They’re powered by a separate engine place on the bed of a truck.
Boom Sprayers
These kinds of agricultural sprayers mount to your tractor and are most often used to spray herbicides. They broadcast these liquids over a wide area, using long booms with multiple nozzles.
The most important parts of these sprayers are the agricultural spray nozzles which break the liquid up into small droplets and determine how efficiently they operate. All other components of these large sprayers only contribute to its positioning above the field.
You can get these kinds of sprayers in varieties like Guardian, Patriot, and Apache sprayers.
More Innovations That Affect Your Life
Farm sprayers are only one of the common innovations that you’ve probably never thought about much in your daily life. Yet, they play a vital role in ensuring you have food on the table every day.
Are you curious to find out more about things you don’t usually ponder on? Browse our website for more interesting snippets and useful advice.
