Eoghan Dunphy of Dunphy’s of Annestown was checking his potato crop last week and decided that action needed to be taken. He grows around 80 acres of potatoes each year and this year he said that around 20ac of his crop were suffering from a lack of water.

The folding system on the spreader allows it to fold up for transport.

Thinking about the options, he quickly ruled out an irrigation system as the acreage would not allow for that sort of investment. Looking around the market he thought about a simple splash plate system but the damage to the crop from both the volume of water falling and the narrow tracking that would be required to cover the whole crop would be unacceptable.

Designed for the Irish market

Talking to fellow farmers, he heard of the Moscha swivel spout system and the fact that there was a new double spout version which had the ability to spread water to 24m.

This machine was specially designed for the Irish market and has the ability to spread slurry on tillage crops while driving in the tramlines.

He contacted Castle Agri, the importer of the Moscha into Ireland and the UK. The dual 24m spreader was designed in conjunction with Castle Agri.

Eoghan managed to hire the dual spreader for a period to try it on his crop. When we were in the field, Eoghan was putting water out at a rate of approximately 3,500gals per acre.

He was using a hired 2,500-gallon tanker on a Massey Ferguson 6480 and the spread width seemed to be very close to the required 24m.

Walking through the crop after he had passed showed that all of the canopy and bare ground had been well soaked but there was still very little run-off. This is because of the way that the Moscha creates smaller droplets which can penetrate the canopy and get the water to where it is needed.

Eoghan had spent four days spreading. Each acre had been passed over four or five times. This means that all of the crop has received the equivalent of 2in of rain over the four days and seemed to be showing the signs of its newly found moisture.

He also spread a few tanks on a small field of cabbage, carrots and broccoli. There was a near instant improvement in the crop.

The folding system on the spreader allows it to fold up for transport.

Having seen the spreader working from above, the spread pattern and distance travelled is very impressive. The only problem with this system for irrigation is the speed at which the tank empties at this sort of rate and the time taken to get water if the supply is any distance from the field.

As a slurry system it will work very well and give tillage farmers the opportunity to spread slurry on crops to improve yields but currently it is saving a vegetable grower’s crop during this unprecedented dry period.