Cost effectiveness of spraying your own fields?

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At what point as a farmer does it become more cost effective to spray/ fertilize your own field as apposed to having a local Co-op do it for you? And this would include buying a used sprayer, and chemicals.

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Anyone here considered the cost benefits of spraying with a drone? Would love to get some feeback. *****************

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165 acres irrigated.  Anything on 30 inch row spacing I am spraying with a side by side mounted sprayer.  22 inches - hire out.  Fence lines, internal roads, general all around weed control - do it yourself.

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You or at least I can not afford to not have my own sprayer.

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I cannot imagine hiring someone to spray. The only custom sprayer I know of is 90 km away. My sprayer is wide,  40.5 metres ( 133.3 ft) covers 70 to 120 acres per hour depending on what I am doing.  Cost me $22,000 to buy. Costs about  1.30 per acre for fuel. $0.85 per acre in maintenance and repair.

I have to haul my own water which  isn't a big deal. I have never calculated how much that costs, not a lot I  am sure, some fuel.  I would like to buy a tanker to cut down on the number of trips for water.

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Thank you for the information on the monitor and precision setup up too. We have a 4020( not good for spraying) and a 4860 that have no form of precision to them. Yet agai one of the hurdles with a pull behind sprayer unless the monitors and setup come with it.

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Not sure what you looking to spend but there are several self propelled units on big iron under 10k that close tomorrow, there is a nice looking John Deere 6700 at $4400 that might suit your needs without breaking the bank, on the other hand we did all of our own spraying across several thousand acres with bowman 16 rows and saddle tanks mounted on the tractors. It was tedious but with a water trailer we could do 200 acres per day per tractor.

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Purchasing a sprayer was an easy decision for us.  Timeliness is critical for spraying, and custom operators are rarely here when you need them to be. It doesn't have to be an expensive self propelled either.  We cover about 25000 acres a year with a pull type.

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I really appreciate everyone’s responses here!!! It’s making me look at options for us that I thought were just simply out of my reach. I will continue to look into purchasing one for our operations and see if I can keep a little more money in our farms pocket!

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Was close to the same position. We found a TOP AIR 550 gallon pull behind with 60 foot booms, first year pulled it with a 4020, had to hook the Ravens 440 and the electronics  to the right battery only. Spent 4500 on the sprayer then another 1000 for the repair and spray tips we needed. Local co op charges 6 00 dollars an acre, 500 acres twice, not to difficult to figure out that we are money ahead

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Timing is everything. If the coop can’t get to you in a reasonable time frame, then you are better off with your own sprayer. I had this exact problem and purchased my own sprayer about 3 years ago. I now have no issue with getting the spraying done

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spraying hands down is more cost effective if you have to do several trips in a season. you'll be able to do it on your time instead when they get to you. I hope I never have to rely on someone else to do my spraying ever again.

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I use our local co-op for dry myself,  the equipment is out of reach for me too. on 200 acres you may could get by with a good 3point type sprayer on a tractor. that way you could get it done when you want it done and it would pay for itself in a year or 2.

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Corn and soybeans mainly.  I  also burn down hayfields prior to planting.

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How many times are they spraying for you in a year? Take that number times the rate they charge you and see if you can afford buying a spray coupe or pull type machine. If you’re doing hay, wheat, etc you don’t need a tall clearance machine. Maybe you have a neighbor in the same boat and you can go in on a machine together.

As for support equipment, depending on where your field is from your farm, you will need a bulk water source to load the sprayer from, a pump, and induction cone. If it’s not too big of a deal to road back and forth between loads that will save you on a tender trailer setup of some kind. Again that wouldn’t have to be fancy.

Chemical costs can vary depending on who you buy it from.

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Also are you farming only 200 acres or is 200 acres the farm land but you also have pasture?

Just wondering because if you have cattle and are hauling water, you’ve got a water setup covered. If you’ve got a baling or planting tractor, you’re also more than halfway there. On 200ac the highest volume of product will be something along the lines of roundup or atrazine. Even at that, you could get everything in 2.5 jugs (not ideal) and bypass the induction cone. Load your pull type, dump chemical in up top, agitate for awhile and go spray.

Lots of variables, no real wrong answer or way to start. There’s plenty of us on here that can talk to you one on one if you need us to do so.

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I have enjoyed reading all the responses, I too agree that water can be the bottle neck, garden hose doesn’t do it, I bought 3 blemished storage tank from local dealer, 7000 gallon storage, I have a semi flatbed with 2 1600 gallon tanks, our town has water dispenser for quick fill, 10 dollars for 1600 gallons, I keep my storage tanks topped off all summer so I can quickly load my 1200 gallon sprayer and be gone!! Also water quality from town is really good water, hardness, rust etc, important to be aware  of this when using different chemistry!  Don’t skimp on water when spraying, get that plant covered and then enjoy watching them die!!!! Nothing like toasting a mares tail or thistle!!!! 😀

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I don’t think there a number that justifies owning a sprayer but it determines the kind you buy.  I have that farms 120 acres owns a pull type.

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With the amount of small pull type sprayers available for less than $2000, you could probably almost double your money in one year from saving the application cost, cheaper chemical and higher yields from better timing.  I bought my first sprayer when I only farmed 40 acres for $1300 and it more than paid for itself immediately.

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We’ve found that owning a sprayer and doing the job when you want it done has been the most profitable piece of equipment on the farm. With the local fertilizer company’s where we are charging 11 to 14 dollars an ac to spray it doesn’t take long to make up the payment on the machine over 700 acres. The sprayer actually makes money over the payment each year. We didn’t buy a new one but is a good used self propelled

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Each chemical you want to apply will have a recommended gallons per acre somewhere on the label maybe its back a few pages... We do alot of 15 gallon an acre... more water and feel its better coverage... could probably get by with 10 gallon an acre but it amounts to maybe 1 more load.

if you spray your own field. id assume having them spray it is atleast $5-7/A
Once you buy your own sprayer you have the flexibility to find the lowest cost chemicals you can. either locally or FBN or wholesaler... right now you are likely stuck buying from the coop/applicator so your likely not getting the best deal on chemical either. Which would be hard to put a value on.

Alot goes into it. Do you have the time to spray it when the crop needs to be sprayed when the wind isnt blowing.

In the long run it would be cheaper owning your own sprayer depending what your time is worth.

Spraying is pretty easy. We make due with a pull behind 1100 gallon sprayer 60ft booms. 
Make sure nozzels dont plug. after awhile you learn your sprayer and how it reacts to the chemicals you put in it. some stuff really plugs the screens and gives ya trouble.

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Very similar to *****'s comment.  I run a 1000 gallon 60ft pull type sprayer on 250 acres averaging 2 trips per year.  Typically spraying 15-20 gallon/acre.  Picked the sprayer up a few years back for $5100 (have to watch the auctions).  I would recommend something that at least has automatic rate control (Raven 440 is hard to beat at this price point).   I figure $7.25/acre with 1/3 of that going to the tractor (so $4.79/acre to the sprayer).

Just on dollars the sprayer paid for itself in year 4, but the value in getting fields sprayed when the field conditions and weather are ideal has made a huge difference as well.  No more sprayer ruts in our field and no more terraces getting killed with overspray.

Don't underestimate the amount of time needed to properly setup and clean out a sprayer.  Actually spraying the field is the easy part.

Hauling water is usually the next bottle neck.  An average hydrant will do somewhere in the range of 10 gpm.  Not sure what your field sizes are, but to do a 40 acre load at 20 gal/acre, your going to be waiting 80 minutes/load.

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Cost effectiveness of spraying your own fields?

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