Amazone’s display of power with Pantera 7004

Predominantly focused on winter cereal, oilseed rape, and beans on a min-til system, James owns one third of the land and leases the rest. To reach all parcels of land, he could be travelling up to 30km in any direction from the far side of Tullow in Co. Carlow to Cashel in Co. Tipperary.

Before moving to the Pantera, James’s operation included two trailed sprayers and two Fendt 240hp tractors. He explains: “There were two 30m sprayers, 6,000L tanks, and they were a fine outfit. But quite often the second trailed sprayer wasn't being utilised for various reasons. Farming in a min-til system, it is important to keep land sprayed in front of the drills and then pre-emerge spray afterwards, James explains: “We’re not ploughing here; this land hasn't seen a plough in 25 or 26 years. So if we don’t keep on top of our herbicide programmes, we’re going to run into difficulty with grass weeds and, to a lesser extent, broadleaf weeds.”

But, why switch from a 30m to 45m boom? James explains: “A lot of people have probably scratched their heads at this. We’re cruising near 27km here on a headland because I’m confident I’m not going to hit the ditch with my boom, obviously because I have my tramlines in now. Now, headland will be the roughest part of the field. I have better forward speed at 45m than I had with a 30m trailed sprayer. There is exceptionally good boom control in this machine. It is like it’s on air, all four wheels are independent on a kind of a bogey system, but the level of comfort, the level of ride the booms are getting to start with is phenomenal.”

Economics

Reclaiming tramlines has paid off, James says: “Tramlines comprise two 700mm tracks on which the tyres drive and no crops grow. Getting corn into those tracks and having one third fewer tracks across the field gave us an increase in yield somewhere north of €20k a year. So that was a massive subsidy to help pay for a machine like this. If you look at the cost of a modern 240hp tractor, you’re probably looking at north of €200k. Put a trailed sprayer on it, and you’re looking at another €140k. We were faced with having to change tractors here because I had two 240hp tractors and to upgrade either one of those was going to cost north of €100k, or thereabouts. So, believe it or not, the cheaper option was to go to one self-propelled unit.”

Before James made this investment, Farmhand put him in contact with a farmer in Holland who had one of these machines. "We flew out to look at the machine, and they gave us a demo. I saw them driving across harvested potato drills at 20km/hr and then bringing the sprayer to a standing stop. I was expecting the booms to come in around the cab, but they didn’t. And once I saw that, I said that’s fine, that, that’s it for me,” James explains. “We got on really well with Farmhand whose commitment to the product meant a lot as well, to be fair. They made a commitment to stock various parts and they have.”

Features

“Another thing I liked about this sprayer is that I have a variable track width. This doesn’t really concern me much other than when I put on the wider wheels, I can let out my track width a small bit to accommodate those wider wheels. If I want when I’m on cultivated land before we sow, I can run the front track widths slightly narrower than the back ones to try spread out the risk of compaction.

“There is also no drift out of the sprayer. We’re still spraying at 100L/ha here. We’re at 2.6 bar, but we have two nozzles, 02 and 04, which is 06. The other thing this sprayer has is curve compensation. So, when your sprayer goes around the bend, the outer sprayer, the outer boom is travelling far faster and the inside is nearly doubling back. So, with the GPS, the machine is switching off nozzles on one side, but putting out a higher rate on the nozzle furthest out. So as your sprayer is whipping around, the out boom that’s traveling at a lot more speed is covering more ground than the inner one.”

What about tyre size? James says: “Kevin Burke tyres in Galway made the rims and tyres and put on a set of Alliance 710 6042s – like a VF tyre – so they can run on quite low ground pressure which is ideal for me being able to reduce compaction and rutting when I'm out in the back end or even this time of year.”

Timing is everything with crops,” says James. “I was once told the difference between a good tillage farmer and a bad tillage farmer is a week. I’d say it’s a day. I suppose, my average field size is about 27 or 28 acres. I have some fields at 100 acres and some fields at five acres and I can go into those five-acre fields with a 45m sprayer. You drive around it and you go down the middle of it and maybe back up again, and out the gate. I’m in those fields even less than I was before,” James explains “This machine has four-wheel steer and crab steer. So I’m going to get myself in and out of most tight spots as needed.”

Advice

“Would I advise anybody to put themselves under pressure to buy a Pantera? No. Not unless it stacks up. But if you’re looking at a self-propelled sprayer, well then you’re already in that market and that’s a different scenario,” James explains. “If you are in the market for a sprayer, whether it’s a really high-spec trailed sprayer, mounted sprayer, or self-propelled, my advice would be to have a chat with the very knowledgeable team at Farmhand and their dealer network around the country. Get in contact with somebody who has one of these machines and get up with them for a day because seeing is believing. I had to go see a 45m one in Holland because there was no 45m in Ireland or the UK at the time.” James explains. “Farmhand has a wealth of knowledge and experience on the technology side from selecting nozzles, to what will work and won’t work on your system because maybe what I want in my system is not what you want in your system. They’re not just trying to sell a machine. They actually understand how it works. My dad always said you can’t stand still. You’re either going forwards or you’re going backwards.”