Sprayer giant Hardi Australia has launched its new turn-compensation technology H-Select for wide spray booms
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H-Select technology is designed to integrate with the existing systems on the Hardi Rubicon sprayers
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The company says H-Select can save farmers between 5 to 7 per cent in chemical usage.
H-Select uses four head nozzle bodies arrayed in individual or selected boom sections. An autonomous controller manages each section’s speed against the set spray rate, and then switches the nozzle heads on and off rapidly in order to achieve consistent spray delivery across the turning boom.
Hardi says that switching between nozzle heads means the flow rate can be continually adjusted without ever compromising the size or speed of the droplets produced.
By using H-Select’s in-cab monitor, operators can set and change the nozzle droplet size on the go. This means the farmer can adjust their target droplet size to suit the day’s crop, coverage rate and spraying conditions.
Hardi says that unlike similar switching technologies seen with two- or three-nozzle heads, the four-nozzle solution is crucial for covering the full range of delivery rates while turning wide booms around obstacles or in headland.
“If you’re making a 50-metre radius turn at 20km/h, the inner end of a 48.5m boom will slow down to just 10.3km/h while the outer tip will accelerate to 29.7km/h,” Hardi product manager for self-propelled sprayers Steven Lancaster says.
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“In other words, the tip-to-tip speed range of 19.4km/h is almost equal to the forward speed of the sprayer, and the flow rate will need to double across the boom.”
The H-Select technology is designed to integrate with the existing systems on the Hardi Rubicon sprayers. The controller also operates on the same electronics platform as the Rubicon’s existing ISOBUS, which conveniently avoids compatibility issues or conflicts.
Hardi dealer Belle Vue Trading (Warracknabeal) has been testing the new H-Select technology on two Rubicon 9000s with the support of Hardi technical staff as well as trained dealer staff.
Lancaster says Hardi is proud of the support it provides for its technology.
“We not only bring the world’s leading sprayer technologies to Australia,” Lancaster says, “but we adapt, test and support it here too.
“For the farmer with paddocks to prepare and a season’s valuable crop to protect, that’s a big advantage over simply offloading technology from a ship and hoping you don’t need to call a support team on the other side of the world.”
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