New Lift Mounted Sprayer.

Last spring I bougnt a small 50 gallon 3 Pt mounted sprayer for use with one of my small Kubota tractors.

I bought a small 50 gallon sprayer with a 12' boom so that I could use it in my irregular shaped and some places steep lawn as well as to spot spray in my small 20- acre hay field which has become infested with Canadian Thistles and, more recently, dogbane.

We had a severe drought last fall so I did not use my new sprayer because there was not much to spray. Of course, the warranty has now expired.

What a difference a year makes. Lots of rain this summer and things growing like crazy so bought (different) chemicals to spray both dogbane and Canadian thistles.

Today, I mounted the as yet unused sprayer onto the small Kubota tractor which I deemed most appropriate for my purposes so as to check things out before tackling the spraying jobs tomorrow.

Sprayer has a PTO pump. Seller and manufacturer's rep. both recommend about 28 PSI at PTO speed considering the nozzles on my sprayer and my purposes. Manufactures materials recommend about 4+ MPH at approximately 28 PSI for my purposes.

Never used a tractor mounted sprayer before so decided to fill tank with about 25 gallons of water today so as to check things out before spraying project tomorrow.

WTF? Cannot control pressure except by engine/PTO RPM. Makes no difference whether valve is in spray or agitate position. Also makes no difference how far I turn the handle on the pressure regulator.

Pumped 20+ gallons of water through this small sprayer this afternoon in about 15 minutes because pressure would skyrocket to 100 PSI at PTO RPM. Turning handle on pressure regulator makes no difference. Sounds like a bad regulator to me but, who knows.

Planned to spray various places for various weeds this long weekend but do not wish to waste expensive chemicals. T & I dealer will not again be open until Tuesday.

I have never before used a PTO mounted sprayer. Am I missing something?

Dean

pressure regulator is stuck. run tractor pto
fast enough to get about 40 lbs pressure and tap on the regulator with a soft face hammer or lightly with a small steel hammer. worked for me a couple times but don't pound too hard as those things are probably pot metal and break easily. if no joy, take regulator apart to find the problem. good luck, Gary.

Bad regulator valve

Dean,
Being a new sprayer, it could be a bad regulator, but it could also be that something is not connected correctly. Will your boom control shut off the nozzles? I would think you should still have agitation when spraying, all of my sprayers have. Should be a bypass for agitation. I'm different than most, I have always used tractor rpm to set my spray pressure that way if you hit an unusually rough spot in the field you can slow up some without having a big effect on total spray volume used, at least that is how it seems to work. Also if you get it working, you should calibrate your sprayer so you know how much it will put on with your pressure and speed. It is pretty simple to do and if you record your time driving the distance needed for calibration if you should change nozzles or any thing it makes it easy to find new application rate.

Paul

I just restrict the flow to the agitation for pressure control with a ball valve. With the nozzles on then drive away. Within reason the more pressure the better the penetration into the foliage to get coverage on the weeds. We spray with about 40PSI and flat fan nozzles. Flood jets would be closer to 20 PSI. This all depends on the size nozzles you're using.