How much land area can I treat with a single tank or charge of a controlled droplet application (CDA) ultra low volume (ULV) sprayer?
Our Mankar CDA/ULV sprayers caused quite a stir at Groundsfest in September and rightly so. They offer a neat solution (literally – they use neat Glyphosate!) to the conundrum many councils and growers are faced with, namely keeping weeds truly under control within a budget while doing as little harm to the surrounding environment as possible.
In previous posts, we have discussed what CDA/ULV sprayers are, their merits and costs. To see our video series answering these questions and more, why not visit our YouTube playlist here
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Today, we want to discuss what sort of area you can actually treat with a Mankar HQ sprayer. These sprayers only have a 1 litre tank and are battery powered. So how long will they last between recharging and refills?
CHARGE
Fully charged, the Mankar will operate for about 8 hours continually. The energy requirements for spinning disc atomisation used by the Mankar sprayer are very modest (3 Watt) as we are only atomising very small amounts of fluid. The modest energy requirements coupled with advances in battery technology mean that you can get a full day’s continual spraying on a single charge. Running out of power should never be a problem.
TANK
So, what about the small 1 litre tank? Well, as the Mankar will spray pure undiluted chemical this also lasts a very long time. In addition, because of the controlled droplet application (CDA) technology the chemical will have better absorption rates so you can stretch it even further for the same results. For example, studies have shown that a 1 litre per hectare application rate of glyphosate will often do the same job as the standard 3.75 litre application rate through conventional sprayers. This being the case the 1 litre of undiluted glyphosate could treat an entire hectare of area. Pretty good, huh?
PUTTING IT IN CONTEXT
Common applications for Mankar HQ sprayers are for between and around rows of plantings (tree saplings for example) and in amenities for weed control on pathways, curb sides and pavements. The Mankar’s spray width can be adjusted from between 15 and 55 cm. With a 50 cm spread and moving at a walking speed of about 1m per second (ca.3,6 km/h) it would take 100 seconds to cover a 50cm by 100m stip. There are 200 such strips in a hectare so it would take 20000 seconds to cover the hectare which will take about 5 and a half hours.
If you put that in the context of a kerb side that is 50cm in width then that’s 20km of kerb side on a single tank! If the required strip spraying is thinner, the flow rate will be reduced accordingly, and the tank will last even longer! Obviously for heavier application rates the tank will last less but even with 3.75 litres per hectare of glyphosate using the full 50 cm width, a single litre will give nearly 1 and a half hours of spraying before it needs to be refilled. By comparison a typical 20 litre backpack spray would need to be refilled about 5 times in that time and bear in mind that is the worst-case scenario for Mankar. In most situations you would need to complete 10 or so backpack refills for every refill of the Mankar 1 litre bottle.
We hope the above demonstrates just how cost effective using a Mankar or equivalent CDA/ULV sprayer can be. For further details or if you have any questions, just give us a call on 01273 400092.
