Chemical batching made easy with QuickDraw

AN automated chemical batching station that claims to improve sprayer productivity by 30 per cent won the 2019 Agribusiness Innovation of the Year Award at the Wimmera Machinery Field Days last week.

Perfect mix: The QuickDraw is an automated chemical batching station for the mixing and loading of chemicals from a bulk container into a solution.

AN AUTOMATED chemical batching station that claims to improve sprayer productivity by 30 per cent won the 2019 Agribusiness Innovation of the Year Award at the Wimmera Machinery Field Days last week.

The QuickDraw Spray Tender System automates the mixing and loading of chemicals from a bulk container into a solution that allows sprayers to save time normally lost calculating batches during refills.

Oliver Smith, chief technical officer at AJS Machinery, which is the Australian dealer of the US-manufactured station, said the QuickDraw removed the time and stress of accurately measuring chemicals.

“An agronomist will give a recommendation of what products, at what rates, need to be applied in the paddock,” Mr Smith said.

“This machine essentially takes that information and it does all the thinking and calculation for you so that you don’t have to work out how much volume you need of each product to meter it.

“Because it’s measuring kilos per second it knows what an accurate measure of volume is, because one product that is 1000 litres could weigh one and a half tonne, and another product that is 1000 litres could weigh 900kg.

“Because it’s measuring the mass it knows within half a per cent how accurate the volume needs to be to apply at that volume.

“It thinks ahead, it’s pre-empting there’s not going to be enough chemical and warns you if things are going to run out. If there’s any problems it’s able to shut itself down and controls the pump as well and shuts the pump off also.”

Mr Smith said that the automation improved sprayer productivity because operators no longer had to be at the batching station, or guess manually prepared batches by eyesight, because the QuickDraw would prepare the chemicals.

“Some customers have said they have improved the productivity of their sprayer by 30 per cent,” Mr Smith said.

“Which means for the same lifetime of the sprayer — they only cover 1000ha they do in 30 per cent less time on the sprayer.

“Hours on the machine is money too, so depreciation of a machine that’s got 1000 less hours on it is nearly $100,000 on those big self-propelled sprayers.

“There’s a lot of money to be saved in reducing your engine hours on your machine.”

Operators do not have to handle chemicals because the QuickDraw does the mixing and, when using the top-of-the-range QuickDraw Max model, it remembers every batch and exports the information so to keep “a highly accurate record of what you’ve dispensed”.

The QuickDraw is available in six models ranging from the QuickDraw Lite, which sells for $25,000 (+GST) up to $45,000 (+GST) for QuickDraw Max.

For more details, visit:
ajsmachinery.com.au