# Does fertilizer fly 25'?



## Bishop (Apr 6, 2015)

Usually rent a 40' spreader from the local fertilizer depot, this year ended up with a 50' spreader, and didn't have enough time for split passes. I gps my fertilizer on. This year I noticed in my new seeding that the oats nurse crop is much greener for about 45' and drops off in colour for a few feet.

I am 100% certain I gps'd to 50' and had my rpm's at 540.

Does fertilizer not fly 25'?

It was a mix of Urea, MAP, AMS, and Potash.

I'm thinking the urea is too light to fly that far.


----------



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

I have the same thing. In my experience, urea and AMS fly maybe 40' at 540 RPM; potash and DAP about 45'.

Ralph


----------



## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

We used to spread urea with a Wilmar 500 spreader, has the single cupped spinner on it and spreads 65'. Have never really noticed what you describe.


----------



## slowzuki (Mar 8, 2011)

If you look at spreading tables for a given model urea has the shortest throw usually.


----------



## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

Normally, I have ammonium nitrate (BD ~56 lb/ft3) applied to my Coastal bermudagrass hay meadow. This year for the second regrowth I wanted 80-0-100 with 30 pounds of sulfur/acre applied so I called a different dealer and had a blend of urea (BD ~46 lb/ft3 ), AMS (BD ~53 lb/ft3 ) , and potash applied. I saw no streaking in the regrowth. I asked the dealer/driver about the spread pattern and the answer was 50 ft per pass. So, in order to not show streaking, the dealer must have set his truck spread pattern for urea and over spread the AMS and potash.


----------



## Hayman1 (Jul 6, 2013)

I see streaking all the time, regardless of driver/truck combination. Last 3years I have had nothing but grief with having acreages/loads work out. They are either too much or too little. Company says they are using GPS yada yada. I suspect the problem is that they are not dealing with the different BDs


----------



## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

The carts my coop has are 50 foot. But if I ran them at 540 rpm I'm sure they go 65. So I run rpm about 375 or 400. Ends up about right with my gps set for 50 feet. Sometimes over lab about 5 feet or so. Rarely miss. When I have the coop spread on my large fields to save me time they use a Rogator so that is usually right on as they don't fling fertilizer with that.


----------



## rjmoses (Apr 4, 2010)

Simple physics: distance = ((mass * velocity) / gravity) * air resistance!

Essentially, lighter material will not travel as far as a heavier material of the same particle size because of air resistance, given the same velocity and throwing angle.

It's really nicely explained in detail here:

http://young.physics.ucsc.edu/242/range.pdf

Ralph

(Like I knew what he was talking about! I got a D in physics.)


----------

