Greg Simpson has seen the big mistakes and speaks from experience when offering advice to no-tillers considering buying a sprayer. “The main thing is to ask yourself what your needs are. If you see a sprayer you like, ask yourself if the wheel spacings are right. Are the nozzle spacings right? Is the clearance what you need? Those are the kinds of things that should determine which sprayer you buy,” he says.

“Don’t assume that that machine is going to have the right wheel spacing for your fields,” he says. “I’ve seen guys buy machines to use on 30-inch rows; they’re going to spread them out to 120 inches to straddle 4 rows. But they get home and find out it’s a 72-inch machine that won’t go out to 120 inches. You’ve got to look hard at what that machine will do and won’t do before you take it home.”

Simpson no-tills 2,500 acres near Ransom, Kan., and has also sold and serviced spray equipment for more than 20 years through his business, Simpson Farm Enterprises. He warns no-tillers shopping for a sprayer to avoid one of the most common mistakes, believing that bigger is always better.

Smaller Might Work.

For example, he says, tank size might not be important. “I’ve been a Spra-Coupe dealer for years, and the first Spra-Coupes that we sold had tanks holding less than 200 gallons. Now, they’re up to 400 and 700 gallons. But we learned to deal with low volumes, and low volumes…