I love my two Toro sprayers with Geolink but to be honest, I would have never gotten them for the reasons that sales people were pushing.
They said it would save money in applied product. These machines are expensive and I wasn't seeing any return on a 10-15% savings due to less overlap and waste because the fertilizer I spray is so inexpensive and we hardly spray any fungicide or other expensive chemicals. There is definitely less overlap and waste. Zero overlap actually. With traditional sprayers I was taught to mix 15% extra for overlap and overspray. With a GPS sprayer, you actually spray slightly less than the designated area. It only overlaps if something goes wrong.
They also said it would save time because there was less overlap. For me it doesn't save time because autosteer only works below 10 km/h and I used to like to let'er rip and spray at 12 km/h. We have 18ha of fairways (44 acres) and very limited weather windows so you have to go fast to stay ahead of golf when you have the chance to spray. We also don't miss a square cm with this machine (a huge bonus) and with traditional spraying I bet we missed all sorts of stuff but would have no clue. It simply is much slower than a traditional spray, at least the way I was using it.
For me the advantages are much better than what they sell it as. If we can spray it, we don't miss it. We can classify all sorts of special areas and focus our product where it's needed most. We can put new operators on the machine with supervision and know that they will do an almost perfect job (assuming they keep all 4 wheels of the machine on the ground). We can also see exactly where we have spot sprayed and use that map to reapply a second application if needed. Awesome!
Our native rough is very sporadic and challenging to spray. Before we had GPS, we would spray for weeds and find out we missed spots when there were still weeds in places. The rough would grow long and we would then be stuck spraying with a backpack sprayer as we didn't want wheel marks in the long grass. With the GPS we don't miss anything as long as it's mapped. Say what?!
I have spent 200 machine hours mapping our course. We have gone well beyond the basic green tee and fairway boundaries. We have over a dozen classifications of areas that we use our sprayer on like high traffic tees, high traffic walkways, high traffic rough, collars, approaches, green exclusion zones (low spots that accumulate nutrients so don't need any fertility) and 3 classifications of native rough depending on how thick it is (thin, good and thick rough where we vary the fertilizer amounts when we spray for weeds to try and achieve a consistent rough thickness across the course). I really like the high traffic classifications. Instead of managing all your tees or all your fairways for the weakest turf, we only apply elevated fertilizer amounts to the areas that need it. With a traditional sprayer I would ask the spray tech to do this but it was left to opinion and experience. Now I can send out a tech and know they fertilized exactly the spots I wanted. I can even train my assistants to adjust these boundaries as they change. Dude!
We have a collar classification. The collar area on the course isn't obvious based on the way it was designed. I classified the collars as an area around the greens that receives elevated traffic from either golfers or equipment. These areas have greens and fairway mower turning, rollers changing direction, and golfers walking around. I simply used my eyes and circled the stressy areas around the greens. Now when we fertilize greens we include the collars. When we fertilize the fairways we also include the collars. Naturally for almost no extra work or thought, we can give our collars a little extra love and they suffer few effects of traffic. As these areas are stressed from traffic, the elevated nitrogen levels don't result in an obvious green ring around the greens, they just result in good healthy grass. Word!
Certain products are only permitted to be sprayed once or twice a season. Some of these we also don't want to spray over the whole course so we spot spray. With the GPS we can track where the initial application was made and then follow up after the allotted reapplication interval has elapsed and spray over these areas for a second or third follow-up applications. We can also easily spray other areas for the first time and simply follow up again and again without worrying about going off-label because the map shows the accumulated rate for each area sprayed. Insane!
The GPS has also made training much easier. We still start training on the nurseries with just water. I still like to train the old-school way with foam markers as the only indication of where you've sprayed. We set the sprayer to dummy mode and turn the screen around. The operators can spray the area and then look at the screen when they're done to get instant feedback on how they did. Incredible!
We can put new operators into the field quicker and be certain they will be successful because the machine doesn't let you overlap and provides instant feedback to coverage that is simply impossible without gross dyes. I can work with a new operator and then provide feedback after each green based on things like I normally would with a traditional sprayer (turns, approach angles, not running into things, etc.), but now we can do it with a much more intuitive and visual way. I am seeing operators becoming good much quicker than in the past. Unreal.
It's not all sunshine and rainbows though. I have seen some bad things in my time and am still very cautions to ensure that my new operators are set up with solid foundation of sprayer fundamentals. This machine can cover up some bad habits and I am sure to educate my team of some of the pitfalls of bad sprayer operations.
Things like turning while spraying. The GPS doesn't have variable rate based on turns like some agricultural sprayers have so if you turn, your inside boom will apply more than the outside boom and if you turn tight enough the boom will just dump fertilizer in the same spot until it eventually decides that it has already applied in that spot and will shut off. Not ideal and not something I encourage from my staff. Spraying in straight lines is still required and advised.
I will say that we do intentionally spray in circles in some instances. Areas around our fairway bunkers see more traffic from mowers etc. so we spray in circles and this applies more fertilizer on the inside along the edges of the bunker and less as you go out. It tapers the fertilizer application out nicely into the fairway. I love it when we can use limitations to our advantage.
Sprayer operators seem to fixate on the screen and forget to look at what's in front of them. The GPS screen doesn't show you people and equipment that is around you and will happily drive you into a bunker if you let it. It also doesn't let you know if a nozzle is plugged. If you are fixating on the screen, you will miss obvious issues with the sprayer. When training, you need to train sprayer operators to keep their head on a swivel just like you used to do with a traditional sprayer. If anything, when a person is properly trained, they should have more time to maintain awareness of their surroundings and the proper function of the sprayer. I am constantly reminding operators to keep their "heads up" when using this machine. We have foamers on our GPS sprayers and I encourage operators to use them so you can keep your head up and let the machine worry about overlap.
Finally the GPS sprayer will drive people with any amount of OCD crazy. It makes your spray look like a dog's breakfast. I work hard to help them understand how much better they are doing when you compare it to how we used to do it. The only difference is that before, we had no idea it was so bad.....
I have really enjoyed learning how to use this technology beyond the basics that they tell you about.