He Does Custom Work With Home-Built "Lawn Sprayer"

He Does Custom Work With Home-Built "Lawn Sprayer" 27-3-6 "It works like a big commercial farm sprayer," says Gene Cafourek, Stewartville, Minn., who made a state-of-the-art mini spray rig by mounting a 16 1/2-ft. boom on front of his 18 hp garden tractor. He uses the sprayer to control weeds at three local cemeteries and on a half dozen local farmsteads. A 25-gal. poly tank mounts on back of the tractor. A Hypro roller pump is belt-driven off a pulley mounted on the engine crankshaft. A Terra Tronics monitor, which mounts on a bracket in front of the steering wheel, is used to monitor field speeds and to measure acreage in order to get the proper application rate. The 3-section boom is made from 1-in. pipe and is equipped with five flood jet nozzles spaced 40 in. apart. Valves mounted on a manifold next to the tractor seat can be used to turn each valve on or off, allowing spraying width to vary from 40 to 120 in. Cafourek normally sprays in either a 10-ft. or 16 1/2-ft. swath. The boom mounts on a length of 1-in. tubing and can be raised or lowered by pulling a pin. A 12-volt air compressor pump is used to make marker foam in a 1-gal. aluminum tank. A hand gun equipped with 75 ft. of hose is used to spot spray weeds. It lets Cafourek get off the tractor and spray around obstacles. "It really works good and is a lot of fun to operate," says Cafourek. "My sprayer has so many accessories that it looks like a small airplane. It has a total of 13 different valves that can be used at different times. The manifold has six valves - five to operate each nozzle individually and one to operate the handgun. There's a main valve to shut the boom on and off, and there are two valves next to the steering wheel that control the left and right side of the foam marker. The boom has four valves to adjust swath width when using the foam marker. There's also a relief valve to adjust spray pressure. "A small mirror mounted on front of the tractor points down toward the nozzle in front of the tractor and let's me see if it's working properly. "I had been using a rear-mount boom, but I didn't like it because cemeteries have a lot of trees and grave stones so I got a sore neck from having to turn around all the time. Each outside section on the boom is connected to a rope. By pulling on either of the ropes I can draw the sections back against the sides of the tractor, allowing the rig to squeeze through narrow spaces." The boom rides only about 22 in. off the ground which minimizes drift. The nozzles can be set to spray either up or down. "By pointing the nozzles downward my shoes don't even get wet," says Cafourek. He generally runs the boom at about 18 psi. "I chose the Hypro pump because it's a high pressure, low volume pump. I crank the throttle on the tractor to adjust pressure. I plumbed the handgun so I can apply anywhere from 0 to 100 psi." According to Cafourek, the sprayer's only limitation is that the 25-gal. tank can only cover about one acre at a time. "At one cemetery I have to fill the tank 11 times. I plan to build a new sprayer on another tractor that will be equipped with a 75 to 100-gal. tank," he notes. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Gene Cafourek, 110 2nd Ave. SE, Stewartville, Minn. 55976 (ph 507 533-6283).

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