In COMMAND with trail boomsprayers

In fact, it wasn’t that too many years ago when machinery dealers were reluctant to trade a trailed version in WA because of the rising popularity of SPs.

But that perceived change didn’t grow legs, with many farmers still preferring to use their versatile front-wheel-assist tractor to go spraying.

HARDI Australia obviously believes there remains a solid market for trailed sprayers, introducing a COMMANDER 8500 at a new product launch in Adelaide last week.

The new model is available with a choice of 6500, 8500 and 10,000 litre tanks to basically cover the major sector of the boomsprayer market in Australia and with a good nurse system, productivity shouldn’t be a problem, particularly with the optional. downtime-beating ActiveAir technology.

This system is a rapid nozzle on/off control system, that uses the COMMANDER’s on-board air supply to instantaneously open and close the non-drip nozzles during spraying.

Air pressure is reticulated along the boom through 8mm tubing to electrically activate solenoid valves and then through 4mm tubing to each non-drip valve.

ActivAir’s rapid nozzle control is fast and accurate, making it ideal for AutoSection control systems. The spray lines are divided into 14 sections to ensure minimal overspray when AutoSection control is in operation.

When a solenoid is activated to turn the nozzles on, air pressure opens the non-drip valves and the nozzles start spraying. When the solenoid is deactivated to turn the nozzles off, the non-drip valves are held closed under spring tension.

When the nozzles are off, the fluid system continuously recirculates the spray mix through the boom tubes at high volume to ensure the boom is primed before spraying starts.

The COMMANDER Series features hydraulic suspension, adjustable track width to three metres (10ft), a HARDI 464 pump (322 litres a minute) and also standard features such as a 700L rinse tank, pressure regulation system and solenoid-operated fence-line nozzles.