The Rural Voice, 2001-01, Page 12SERVICE CENTRE INC.
- 479 NIacEwan Street. Goderich • N7A 4M1 -
YOUR LOCAL SUPPLIER ISO 9002 REGISTERED
FOR YOUR STEEL
REQUIREMENTS
Beams. Rounds, Hot & Cold
Finished Rounds & Bars,
Channel, Reinforcing Steel,
Square Tubing, Angles. Flat
Bar, Expanded Metal, Bar
Grating, Matt's for Concrete
Work, Primed Beams &
Lintels, Stainless Steel
and Aluminum
Please Call:
TOLL FREE: 1-888-871-7330
PHONE: (519) 524-8484
FAX: (519) 524-2749
A NEW CONCEPT
FOR
HANDLING
BALES
• two 5 1/2" augers
provide positive
gentle lift
• eliminates
troublesome chains
• space saving
vertical positioning
• reverse for loading
out of mow
• pow maintenance —
durable Delron
bearings
• all drive and controls
conveniently at
ground level
r
SEE USATTNE AUG -A -BALE
TORONTO FARM
SHOW also Mow systems—installation available
VALLA WEBER LANE MFG.
BOOTH 4243 (1990) CO.
R.R. 4, Listowel, ON NAW 3G9
For Sales & Service call:
Feb. 6.9, 2001 Webers Farm Service 5194641185
8 THE RURAL VOICE
Scrap Book
Inventer creates hovercraft sprayer
An inventor and former western
Canadian spray -plane flyer has
invented a hovercraft sprayer he
thinks will be safer and just as
efficient as spraying from the air.
"I won't ever say the hovercraft can
do all the spraying you need to do
with an airplane or a high clearance
sprayer, but it's safer than an airplane
and a lot less money to build and
operate than either an airplane or a
high clearance sprayer," said Charlie
Balmer.
Though the hovercraft moves more
slowly than an airplane, it has advan-
tages. "The spray plane wastes half its
time turning, plus more time landing
and taking off between loads," Balmer
says. "So it travels faster than a hover-
craft, but it also wastes time and fuel.
"The hovercraft stays in the field
all the time, just like a pull -type or
self-propelled sprayer. When the tanks
are empty, you fly straight to the truck
for refilling. We've tested it in fields
at 25 miles per hour. At that speed,
depending on the boom size, you can
spray 120 to 150 acres an hour."
In tests conducted this summer near
the Valmar factory at Elie, Manitoba,
Balmer flew his hovercraft in winter
wheat fields that were heading out.
There was no crop damage. He's con-
fident it can go into more mature
fields without damage and will test it
in 2001 on 400 acres he plans to rent
for experimental purposes.
"What we did see for sure (from
this summer's tests) was that the crop
just pushes in under the skirt at 25
miles per hour and then pops out at the
back again as if we hadn't been there,"
Balmer said. "There's no sign of
damage. Right now, 1 think it will be
good for post -emergent spraying up to
about knee high."
The prototype uses a 225 -hp
Cummins engine but Balmer's
calculations show it could run on 120
hp. The machine has wheels which are
used to drive and steer the sprayer but
these barely touch the ground when
the two large fans are operating,
causing no soil compaction. The
wheels at the front, taken from an
ATV, keep the hovercraft from
digging into a ditch or mound of soil.
Two 200 -gallon (U.S.) tanks used
in demonstrations last summer will be
replaced with two 600 -gallon tanks
this year.
So far Balmer, who logged 19
years flying spray planes in western
Canada, has -driven the hovercraft up
and down 13 per cent slopes and
across field drainage ditches with no
problems. That doesn't mean there
aren't problems, however.
"It puts a lot of dust in the air on a
dry field," he says. "It's terrible on a
bare, dry surface with no crop
cover."0
— Source: Western Producers
Farming magazine
Some hog barns use more water than needed
A western Canadian study showed that some hog barns use more washwater
than needed to clean their barns.
The study by the Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization Technical
Group found wash -water variations from 25 litres per pig to 250 litres.
"It's affecting the size of manure storages," said Gary Plohman of Elite Swine
Inc., one the study's participants. "The cost to apply manure can be a penny a
gallon. If it's an all -in, all-out facility, you're turning that 2.8 times per year.
That's a lot of washing."
Washing after each group of pigs is shipped uses more water than any other
process in the cycle, the study showed. There were wide variations in the use of
water for washing, said Lee Whittington of the Prairies Swine Centre. In some
barns the pens were initially wetted with water from sprinklers to soften the
manure. The cleaners came back with power nozzles to blast the manure down
the drain.
Other barns used power nozzles from the start, using force to wash away
rather than trying to save water. In two operations, barns were flooded to above
the floor slats, then the whole thing was washed out.
— Source: Western Producer