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ND | As custom spray and the rest of the fellas say, get a feel for whats available in the area for you to work with before you figure out what sprayer will fit your needs and goals. That will be the key factor in getting the right sprayer for the right money. I was like you when I first started doing custom work when we upgraded to a HC sprayer 8 years ago. I got my commercial license, liability insurance set up, several neighbors willing to give me a chance to spray for them. That allowed me to get into a pretty fairly loaded sprayer that was not even 4 years old then with 700 hours on it. There was only a couple other independent sprayer outfits at the time besides the 2 co-ops and their sprayers. The first 4 years went very well. I had enough work to do besides doing our own crops. We always did our own crops first when we needed to spray something. In the 5th year, I upgraded the sprayer one size bigger with way more options with the expectation of doing maybe 25% more custom work in the same amount of hours my old one did. This was also when there was more competition with the additional 3 farmer/custom sprayer in the picture besides the existing latter outfits listed above. I actually went backwards. I also upgraded tender trailer into a reefer trailer that more than doubled in size of capacity with the ability to keep everything inside dry. This was one of the best investments I made besides upgrading sprayers one size bigger. Its not easy getting work now, especially with the low commodity prices now. Yes my reputation gets me work, but that is not enough anymore. Some neighbors have finally bought their own PT sprayers to do their own spraying to help save some money in this depressing times. Therefore, there is less work and more competition to deal with. Had I known this was gonna happen, I would have maybe traded into something a lil cheaper than what I did just to have better cash flow and a lil lower sprayer payments. I still managed to get through this unexpected change. Start small. Work yourself up a little bit at a time. It is fun doing some extra work as you get a chance to visit with your customers and get a little extra help in the process on the sprayer payments. Good luck! | |
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Custom applicating
