2009: Farmer Josh Gets His Field Sprayed

Tools

By Josh Baynes

Story Created: Jul 1, 2009 at 4:27 PM CST

Story Updated: Apr 18, 2010 at 2:47 PM CST

After a month of the corn being planted, many weeds showed up along with the corn. Rod Peyton from R & R Spraying says weeds (especially grass) are competition for the corn and will reduce corn yield by as much as 20 to 25 percent.

To get rid of the weeds, Rod sprayed a herbicide, Round Up, with a row-crop sprayer that can spray as wide as 100 feet. By having a wide boom, spraying is more efficient in time and covering ground and it also cuts down on the trips across the field which reduces compaction of the soil and corn plants.

The weather plays a factor as to when a field can by sprayed. Ideally, you want winds to be light so the herbicide does not drift away from the field. When winds are 12-15 m.p.h. or higher, usually that means the field can’t be sprayed.

The Round Up will not kill the corn by the way. Rod checked with Golden Harvest and the seed corn I planted is tolerant to Round Up and will not die when applied.

Technology plays a big part of spraying with the use of Global Positioning System to determine where a field has been sprayed and where it has not. The onboard computer can control each individual spray nozzle on the boom and turn off spray on parts of the field that have already been sprayed. This is done to reduce herbicide waste.

This is it for spraying this year says Peyton. This should mean no more weeds the rest of the growing season which will help maximize the corn yield.

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