Why is the Amazone UX4200 the sprayer of choice for farming and contracting?

Farmhand has been the exclusive Irish importer for Amazone machinery since 1968.

“Amazone has always been a leading manufacturer of tillage machinery. The brand is synonymous with quality and precision,” claimed Stephen Scrivener, sales director for Farmhand.

David Kelly is a tillage farmer from Athy, Co. Kildare, who recently bought the Amazone UX4200 Special sprayer for use on his own farm as well as contract spraying work.

The UX Special is available in tank capacities of 3,200 and 4,200L and is characterised by its robust and operator-friendly design. The Super-S2 or Super-L2 booms offer working widths of 15-36m.

“It is a high spec machine that has auto steering, section control, distance control,” explains David. “There are a good few settings on the AMATRON 3, the computer [control box] inside the tractor, and your GPS settings for the sprayer so that it won’t overlap – it’s very accurate.

It makes the job very simple.

“There was a bit of tweaking on the settings on the computer for that. Also the distance of your tractor from your sprayer boom, all that has to be calibrated properly into the computer and for me learning to know how to set-up the rate applications, once you get used to the setup, it makes the job very simple and definitely takes the stress out of the job.

“When you’ve a day ahead of you with 300ac to spray, you know you’re going to get it done no problem and there’ll be no rushing or panicking about the job.”

The AMATRON 3, which has since been succeeded by AMATRON 4, is compatible with all AMATRON and ISOBUS machines, forming a bridge between non-isobus and isobus machines without you having to swap the terminal.

The AMATRON 3 is particularly user-friendly thanks to its clear, simple and logical layout as well as its illuminated buttons.

The functions GPS-Switch, GPS-Track and GPS-Maps are already pre-installed, so that no additional software is required. You can try out these applications free of charge for over 50 hours. Only then do you decide whether you want permanent activation.

David explains: “I’ve sprayed 100,000L through the sprayer already and I would say it’s up and running perfectly.

“Your crop will be getting the same rates all across it, you know exactly when you’re going out to a field how much chemical you have in your tank and that it’s going to do that certain field, you won’t have to be dropping or upping your rate.”

Increase precision, even at night or higher speeds

When the terminal is equipped with Section Control functionality, the part-width sections can be switched on completely automatically depending on the GPS position.

Once a field has been created, the driver can concentrate fully on operating the tractor. In automatic mode, the sprayer part-width sections are switched automatically in wedge-shaped fields and on headlands which adds to accuracy and makes it easy on the operator too.

“There is no overlap with the sprayer with the section control, when it comes along to a headland it’s automatically shutting off with the aid of the section control and the GPS in the tractor and the same for the short-ground it automatically shuts off so there is no overlap,” explains David.

Nozzle selection / boom flushing

Interchange between nozzles before you go into a different crop, you can actually do it in the yard while you’re filling the sprayer by simply turning around the nozzle body to a different nozzle size – if the sprayer line is fitted with triplet or quad nozzle holders.

“The sprayer has large, clean water tanks which hold 550L in total which I would find a big advantage.

“Let’s say when you’re finishing up in the evening and you don’t want chemicals sitting in your boom, you can flush out your boom using your clean water tank by just adjusting handles and in a matter of seconds you have your boom flushed out – so you have no residue sitting in your spray lines overnight and it won’t block your nozzles.”