Producer avoids losses of R$702 thousand with sprayer transformation

On average, the useful life of a self-propelled sprayer varies from five to eight years of use or from 4 to 7 thousand hours of work, depending on some variables such as brand, working conditions, preventive maintenance, among others. The products used in these equipment directly harm your spraying system, causing corrosion and wear on the tank, bars and nozzles. Over time, maintenance and replacement of parts becomes financially unfeasible, compared to the investment in purchasing new equipment for that operation, considering the guarantee and modernity of the functions.

Despite the wear and tear of the spray system, it is very common to find the equipment's motor system in good condition. A solution to this, which has been sought after by producers for some time now, is the transformation of the equipment from a sprayer to a fertilizer distributor. The process is simple and just remove the spray system, keeping only the chassis to receive the distributor. This is what farmer Cassiane Baratto did, who grows soy and corn on her farm in Querência/MT.

Firstly, she sought out MP Agro Máquinas Agrícolas, from Ibaté/SP, a specialist in fertilizer distributors and a pioneer in this type of transformation that developed the Z line. In addition to taking advantage of existing equipment, the solution has eternal durability due to being completely stainless steel and also high precision technology and saves on inputs, once again saving even more natural resources. The producer was very satisfied with what they saw and the results, especially with the reduction in losses. One of its main bottlenecks, as on most farms, is crushing in the crop lines. This often occurs due to the trail of machines spraying and fertilizing.

Until then, the property used a chemical application range of 30 meters, both in corn and soybeans, but the old distributor could only reach 25 to 28 meters depending on the product, so it was necessary to create an extra trail in the middle of the one that already existed. . As a result, in addition to the kneading from the chemical application, there was also the kneading from the product application. “Now we no longer have this problem, this distributor has a free range of 30 meters which is the same range that the spraying has, so I use the same spray trail to spread the fertilizer”, says Cassiane.

Before this change, the calculation was three sacks per hectare lost due to crushing for each line, as it was necessary to make two trails, totaling 6 sc/ha lost. With a planted area of ​​approximately 600 ha, and the price of a bag of grain around R$ 195,00, according to the Cepea index, nowadays, the producer is no longer losing something close to R$702 thousand per harvest through crushing alone. . “In addition to these enormous savings, which we can reinvest in improvements to our property, the machine provided much more agility in the fertilization processes”, added the farmer.

Another advantage she highlighted was fuel economy. “As the new distributor structure is mounted on top of a self-propelled vehicle, it already has very good embedded technology on top of it, and we were able to greatly reduce this fuel issue,” she said. “In addition, the new equipment, which has a capacity for 6.000kg of product, can be distributed to the desired number of hectares in less than an hour”, concludes Cassiane.