Canola School: Tom Wolf's top tips for winterizing the sprayer

by

New sprayer operators — or seasoned sprayer operators who just need a refresher — might be wondering what to winterize their sprayer with, and how to do it.

In this episode of Canola School, Tom Wolf of AgriMetrix and Sprayers 101, joins Kara Oosterhuis to talk about sprayer winterization — the technical side, and the somewhat more philosophical side.

As to what to winterize a sprayer with, Wolf says automobile antifreeze certainly works, but he warns that it’s toxic, so spraying it on the ground isn’t allowed and disposal can be an issue. Twenty-eight percent N fertilizer doesn’t freeze, but it’s corrosive and can crystallize in the spring, causing a mess later. These two products aren’t recommended.

“The best thing to use is really an RV-style antifreeze, and many of the equipment dealers actually have that in stock,” says Wolf. “[It’s] friendly to plastic, friendly to rubber, and environmentally friendly — you can spray it out or if you spill some on the ground, it’s not a problem.”

Step number one is to clean the sprayer and drain the excess water out, advises Wolf. Then, put the anti-freeze into the rinse tank and initiate a rinse cycle.

Different sprayers have different kinds of systems, but the more modern sprayers have an automatic rinse cycle. But if there isn’t one, you need to manually flush that antifreeze throughout the sprayer system.

Check out the video in full for more detailed clean-out and winterizing instructions. Story continues below video:

But there’s more than just the technical side to winterizing — now is a good time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t during the past season.

“It is a time to think back, you might go into your cab and change your carbon filter, and you might notice a few things scribbled on the window, notes to yourself,” says Wolf. “It’s always a time to reminisce and to say alright, what went well, and what was I frustrated with?”

How is your filling and cleaning time? Maybe you got stuck and need different tires. These are just some examples of what to reflect on, but also, if you missed a lot of days because of wind perhaps looking in to a different spray set up might help, Wolf says.

Other Episodes

Canola School (view all)Season 12 (2020) Episode 6
Episodes:

Please register to read and comment.

Privacy Preference Center

Necessary

Necessary cookies help make a website usable by enabling basic functions like page navigation and access to secure areas of the website. The website cannot function properly without these cookies.

gdpr, __cfduid, PHPSESSID, wordpress_test_cookie, woocommerce_items_in_cart, woocommerce_cart_hash, wp_woocommerce_session, wordpress_logged_in, wordpress_sec, wp-settings, wp-settings-time, __cf_mob_redir, wordpress_cache, realag
__cfduid

Marketing

Measuring interactions with the ads on the domain.

__gads,fsk_ut_2317
IDE

Statistics

These are used to track user interaction and detect potential problems. These help us improve our services by providing analytical data on how users use this site.

_ga,_gid,_gat,_cb,_chartbeat2,_chartbeat4
_ga,_gid
metrics_token

Preferences

Preference cookies enable the website to remember information that changes the way the website behaves or looks, like your preferred language or the region that you are in.

chartdefaults, comment_author, comment_author_email, comment_author_url
JSESSIONID, _os_session,anonymous_votes,csrf-param,csrf-token,user,user-id,user-platform,intercom-session,intercom-lou,intercom-session
personalization_id, tfw_exp

 

Register for a RealAgriculture account to manage your Shortcut menu instead of the default.

Register