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| Maybe not a good comparison but I went from a pt sprayer with the boom mounted on the tractor loadr to a sp sprayer with rear mount booms, though there were a few years inbetween that I had my crops custom sprayed. When we bought the sp sprayer I had some reservations about running a rear mount boom much like you have. The transition hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be but I think I would still prefer a front mount boom.
As I get older I find it harder to look back towards the boom and invariably seem to get on the row when I do. Running 20" rows doesn't give a person a lot of wiggle room. I do the corners much like obie said & that works ok but it always seems when I get ready to take off the other direction I'm on a row. Plus, the looking back problem comes into play, especially to my right, the side I prefer to run to the outside & has the fence row nozzle on it.
I have been fortunate as I very seldom seem to plug a nozzle in the center boom where they can't be seen. Though this year I had the very center nozzle cutoff diaphrams start to leak and didn't catch it right away. Seems like if I have a nozzle plug it's always one of two on the outer wing of the right hand boom. Our ground is fairly level so I don't have much trouble with the boom ends dragging other than crossing waterways & i just spray a pass around them & raise the boom up when crossing.
Obvious advantages to the front mount boom, besides being able to see all your nozzles, is keeping the boom adjust propewrly above the crop / weeds, I don't have auto boom height, and turning on & off at the ends, again don't have auto on/off
Biggest disadvantage for the front mount is that any spray drift comes back on the machine. Depending upon what you are spraying that can be hard on paint and gets on the windshield cutting down on visibility. Or in my case with the pt, the tractor was open station so that meant it was getting on me. I ruined the paint on my 4020 spraying a chemical with 28%.
Being there was a time lag from when I was using the pt with the boom on the loader till going to a rear mount sp most of my apprehension was just getting use to spraying again & worrying about screwing up the mix. As for getting use to the difference in sprayers, within a couple days I was was comfortable with the operation of it & it only took a couple fields to figure out doing corners & such. For a younger guy who has been spraying.
I wouldn't think the transistion would be that difficult.
If I had my "ruthers" I think I would "ruther" have a front mount boom but I'm fairly comfortable with the rear mount now and wouldn't be afraid to buy another.
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switching from front-boom sprayer to rear-boom sprayer
