AgriSpread advice for a better spread pattern

AgriSpread importer, Waringa dealer service and customer support manager Josh Heal said granular fertiliser quality, particularly urea, was a big issue for farmers.

"Unfortunately fertiliser companies are not held to account, they just sell what they have and a farmer takes it," he said.

"Fertiliser is not getting any cheaper and we have seen some big differences in urea quality and it does have a massive effect on spread pattern distribution, especially when you are chasing that 36 metres."

Mr Heal said in an effort to combat this Waringa supplied a number of tools to help farmers test the product they wanted to spread.

"We supply sieves and hardness testers so they can actually check the product before it is used," he said.

Mr Heal said while testing wouldn't change how a product spread, it gave farmers the confidence to either go back to their supplier to discuss the issue, or find a new supplier.

"We also supply a full calibration kit with our machines, including the test trays and teach the farmer how to use them so they know how to set the trays up and how they should be looking at spread pattern and distribution,, so they can go out as often as they like and check it for themselves," he said.

"It provides piece of mind that the machine is doing what it is meant to do."

Mr Heal said Warniga was the Australian importer for the Irish build AgriSpread spreader range.

"The AgriSpread has been built in Ireland for about 15 years and we have been importing them into Australia for five years now. We have a dealer network set up across the country now with pretty good coverage."

Mr Heal said while the AgriSpread range included precision spreaders accredited for urea application at 36m, it also had spreaders designed for flexible use.

"We've also got a machine that can do everything, it can spread from one kilogram of mouse bait a hectare up to 15 tonne a hectare of manure," he said.

"A lot of people have almost three machines, a baiting machine, something for lime and gypsum and then another for granular products, we can do all three with our machine."

Mr Heal said farmers were also looking for high capacity spreaders along with precision placement.

"Everything is about timing and making the most of the time in the field and with our sized machines, we have a 15 cubic metre one, which is one of the bigger ones, it makes it a lot easier," he said.

"Our spreaders are all adjustable on the back, allowing you to fine tune your spread pattern, ours is done on angle vane adjustment, there are a few different ways to adjust spread pattern, linkage spreaders are different to trailing spreaders.

"It is really important to get that precision placement accurate."

Mr Heal said along with automatic scales, farmers wanted spreaders that were precision technology ready and simple to use.

"Ours are all ISOBUS controlled machines, fully automatic and variable rate ready, most people are wanting to go that way with variable rate," he said.

"They are mapping their farms, they want the controlled traffic as well, we are mainly on three metre wheel base for control traffic farming, but there is a two metre option if people prefer it."