"I'm not just an Ag aviator, I'm also a grain producer and I can completely attest to the fact that Ag Aviation has a net positive affect to my farm's bottom line," Mike Potoroka, Parkland Aerial Applicators, Dauphin Manitoba.
If you've ever wondered how much your trampled crop from ground spraying is costing you work through this calculator.
By the way, here is a brief video done by an Australian company showing air vs ground canopy penetration testing
Just enter in your specs and the calculator does the rest
Losses due to tramping $/Ac
The Trampler calculator takes your ground sprayer information:
- Tire Width
- Boom Width
- Number of Headlands
And it calculates, based on a full square quarter:
- The number of passes required per quarter
- The potential loss in corners of the field due to turn radius
- The area trampled by the wheels of your ground sprayer
To eventually conclude, based on intended yield and crop value:
- The % of crop loss due to tramping
- The $ value of the loss per acre
- The number of acres lost per quarter
Additional to the loss, but not calculated here are the costs associated with:
- Grade loss because acres were not covered in time
- Time and ruts associated with going around pot holes and obstacles
- Fuel cost
- Machinery wear and tear
- Labour cost
- Soil compaction
- Complications to other field operations thanks to sprayer ruts
- Timing, air covers more acres
- The cost of your ground sprayer - capital tie up and financial costs
Note: this calculator assumes 7-12" row spacing for small grain drilled crops.