Sprayer Operator Training

Apparently there are a load of untested sprayers out there too. Not sure how that is being policed.
I know if a dairy/ very small tillage guy locally good operator would have everything in order has done the course but is not testing sprayer as it is quite old with an odd drip here and there but he says the penalty is 250 for non compliance... it's 150 to test the sprayer and probably quite a bit to eliminate the few drips. Not sure if he's right but could explain the lack of urgency in testing.
 
I know if a dairy/ very small tillage guy locally good operator would have everything in order has done the course but is not testing sprayer as it is quite old with an odd drip here and there but he says the penalty is 250 for non compliance... it's 150 to test the sprayer and probably quite a bit to eliminate the few drips. Not sure if he's right but could explain the lack of urgency in testing.
Yea a couple of farmers with older small 12m sprayers have said the same to me.
 
I know if a dairy/ very small tillage guy locally good operator would have everything in order has done the course but is not testing sprayer as it is quite old with an odd drip here and there but he says the penalty is 250 for non compliance... it's 150 to test the sprayer and probably quite a bit to eliminate the few drips. Not sure if he's right but could explain the lack of urgency in testing.
But is the product hes applying not pricey enough without putting it on in a chance fashion with the hope it works away, if it was -250 every year it wouldn't be long till it was missed
a few filters and nozzles might well get him over the line and tested
 
We only have a small sprayer but both myself and Dad would say the sprayer test was money well spent. We got plenty of helpful tips from the tester and I'd honestly think if going compared a non tested sprayer with ours, both similar spec, it would be at least worth the test more.

Our sprayer is 1986 but with only minor changes and new nozzles passed with flying colours.
 
But is the product hes applying not pricey enough without putting it on in a chance fashion with the hope it works away, if it was -250 every year it wouldn't be long till it was missed
a few filters and nozzles might well get him over the line and tested
new nozzles and all in sprayer it's more things like very small drips from section valves that can be troublesome enough to sort. Don't get me wrong I agree the test is worth doing but I would have thought if your going to enforce a penalty of 250 seems low and maybe explains why uptake in test is low.
 
We only have a small sprayer but both myself and Dad would say the sprayer test was money well spent. We got plenty of helpful tips from the tester and I'd honestly think if going compared a non tested sprayer with ours, both similar spec, it would be at least worth the test more.

Our sprayer is 1986 but with only minor changes and new nozzles passed with flying colours.

plus add the fact that having a properly operational sprayer might actually save the farmer money in terms of correct rates of chemical applied uniformly to the crop - less waste and less chance of over/under dosing a crop (grass is a crop). There's operator safety at play also.

it seems like some farmers need to be threatened with a stick to get them to take a carrot.
 
There's a spate of inspections going on across the country due to MCPA being found in water course samples. I was at a meeting last night and it was discussed. Without getting into the legalities and morals of spraying, I know that there are a lot of you guys on here who do a good bit of spraying as part of your farm enterprise - but there's a cohort of smaller lads like myself who might only use 20 litres of MCPA in the year or a gallon of roundup and it's negligence from the smaller lads that's doing the most damage. (I'm not saying that I'm negligent, I have the course done and the sprayer tested, but judging by the responses last night, a lot of people would be in bother if they were inspected. it was pointed out to us that there are still a lot unlicensed sprayers operating in our area. There are also people applying pestacides without a PU number. There's a 1% SFP fine for either. There's a 1% fine for using mcpa products in a licker or in a knapsack sprayer as it is licensed for neither. As a person with a PU number, I can lick my own rushes. But I cannot go out on hire with my licker, nor can I lick for a bunch of different farmers voluntarily. I'm guessing that this is to stop a bunch of farmers using the one PU number by saying that a neighbour did it for them. I don't know how they will police it - I lick rushes for a couple of us in the family. They can't really stop me from doing that if I have the training course done.

Licker testing will be mandatory by 2022 but licence for glyphosate is being reviewed around that time too - if there is no glyphosate then there won't be any licker because no other product is licensed for it.

Finally, from 01/01/19, it has been mandatory for seller of spray to record PU numbers of herd numbers.
 
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