Today we have two very important Italian customers that experience the Spra Coupe system for the last year and a half. Our first customer is Mr. Andrea Zorzi. He lives in Brescia, central north part of Italy. He works for 3 farms for a total of 600 ha. He has a Spra Coupe 4650 manual machine 24 meter boom.
He covers a total surface of 1200 ha/year. He works especially on seed corn, wheat and grass. He uses the no tillage technique not only for the better agronomical results but also because he says that he can distribute pesticides only twice instead of 3 times a year. He says that Spra Coupe is ideal to reduce working costs and at the same time for excellent result of distribution because working with the nozzle system is the best way to have a much better control on all of the distribution instead of using other distributional systems.
The nozzles that he uses the most are the turbo teejet TT11004, beccause they are the best that can do a good versatile distribution on all of his cultures. These nozzles have the characteristics that have a large internal passage in order to avoid glogging, they have large droplets for less drift and so he can also use them on windy days, and finally he works normally from 1 to 1.5 bars using very low quantity of pesticide. He normally works from 80 to 100 liters/ha. His working speed goes from 16 to 23 km/hr because he has big surfaces, works on low cultures, and also he doesn't plough, so the soil is in perfect conditions in order to work on this speed. Using this speed he covers a surface of 25 to 30 ha/hr. This doesn't mean that everybody has to have the same conditions that Mr. Zorzi has, because the Spra Coupe is so versitile that it can work also on difficult conditions giving execellent results. The spray coupe sprayers work all over the world, so they normally work on all different types of weather and soil conditions.
Spra Coupe spraying quality is the best that a machine can give today, because if for an average machine we have normally from 70 to 75 droplets/cm2, with spra coupe we can arrive up to 90 droplets/cm2 according to the type of noozles used. Also, spra coupe works on high speed so droplets are diagonal instead of horizontal as seen on other systems. Mr. Zorzi says that with this technique, crop results are excellent and he has very little losses on harvest. Also he can harvest much faster because all of his cultures and stages are more homogeneous.
Another Italian customer that uses the spra coupe system is Mr. Gianguido Dalla Valle. He lives 100 kms away from Mr. Zorzi. He works on the fertil lands of the po valley, exactly in the region of Piacenza. He has a Spra Coupe 4450 automatic 24 meter boom.
His main cultures are tomatoes, onions, corn and wheat. He covers a total area of distribution of 700ha/year. He works on more clayish soil, so when the soil is wet, there is risk of slipery or drowness. Mr. Dalla Valle works without fear on this, because being spra coupe a very light machine, 40000 kg, and having a rear mechanic transmission, the machines escapes from danger. The time of being on surface is very low because it is light and fast. Tomatoes and onions are cultures that need lots of water.
In Italy it is common to use 300 to 500 liters/ha for these cultures. Mr. Dalla Valle uses instead maximum 150 to 200 liters/hr at 1.5 to 3 bars. Having spra coupe a centrifugal pump of 250 lt/min, it can work on a big range of distribution: from 20 to 250-300 liters/ha. Using less water, he reduces costs, distribution is more homogeneous and so it facilitates harvest on the quality side. Mr. Dalla Valle uses two main types of noozles: for tomatoes he works with twinjet teejet nozzles to improve penetration because tomatoes have dense foliage, so droplets/cm2 are higher. For onions instead he uses the classical XR teejet noozles and in windy days he uses the AI air induction spraying teejet nozzles. In his conditions, his spra coupe has a performance of 16 to 20 km/hr, covering a surface of 18 to 20 ha/hr.
Mr. Dalla Valle works on very low cultures such as onios, so he can keep his bar very low without any risk of rocking and damaging of the bar. Spra coupe bar is the most stable bar in the market because it is controlled by several horizontal, vertical and diagonal pistons and shock absorbers that permit to work with maximum security and at the same time giving an excellent distribution because the distance of the bar to the culture is the same and at the same time more near to the crop in order to reduce distance from bar to plant and so consequently to reduce drift and pesticide in the air.
Mr. Andrea Zorzi, Quinzano d'Oglio, Italy and Mr. Gianguido Dalla Valle, Pontenure, Italy
