Farming Podcast | Is Foam in Your Spray Tank Costing You Time and Money?

00:00:00 Foam management is foam causing you problems, costing you money, or creating a efficacy issue for the products you're trying to put on your fields. 00:00:07 Not good in this environmental situation and the economics and farming, we're talking about foam 00:00:12 and how to manage it so it doesn't cause you problems and cost you money. In this episode of extreme Ag cutting the curve, 00:00:18 Welcome to extreme Ag Cutting the Curve podcast where real farmers share real insights and real results to help you improve your farming operation. 00:00:28 And now here's your host, Damien Mason. Hey, welcome to another fantastic episode of extreme Ag Cutting the curve. 00:00:34 We've got a good one few Today we did a shortcut video with Jeremy Geertz and he is with Spray Tech, and we did that at Farm Progress Show. 00:00:43 It's, it's really, I, I wanted to cover it at a more in depth. And we got Kevin Matthews here to help us do that. 00:00:50 In short, in there's farms around the country that are putting out product that's got a whole bunch of foam, or you're mismanaging your foam 00:00:58 or your sprayer is 20% foam and it's a big deal that you might not even be thinking that much about. And that's why the short video 00:01:05 with the covered only like 50 seconds, I said, let's go a little more in depth with this. Jeremy. Uh, Kevin says, Hey, 00:01:10 I've been managing it for a long, long time. I use your products, it helps me make it, uh, not an issue. But you said there's a lot of farms out here that they, 00:01:18 they're going to the field with a, a sprayer that's got a bunch of foam in it. That's really difficult. Uh, economics, when you figure 00:01:25 that sprayer costs a lot of money and you're running down the road with, um, with it less than full. 00:01:29 And then you also got the economics of the product. And then also, uh, to Kevin's point, we'll get to the environmental aspect of it. 00:01:35 If you're, uh, managing your foam by just letting it bubble over the top or spraying it out the boom 00:01:39 because then it's wasting product and putting it where it doesn't need to be. So let's talk about the reality of the problem foam. 00:01:44 Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, when we're looking at foam, we can be tying up anywhere between 20 and 30% 00:01:55 of our active ingredient in our herbicide in that foam. You know, that right there. Not only does that cause a big economic downfall 00:02:06 for the farm, that can be an environmental as well. And I say that 'cause one, if we're leaving that foam in the tank, 00:02:15 say you're got a thousand gallon tank, you're only able to put 900 gallons of water in it, but you've got a thousand gallons worth 00:02:22 of herbicide in there. Mm-hmm. You're over applying. If you push that foam out, now you've created an environmental 00:02:31 issue on the ground, right? Where you push that out and suddenly your rate has gone the other way where you're under applying, possibly helping 00:02:42 continue that resistance. The weed resistance issue that we've got going now, I Think we should talk about Kevin, the, 00:02:49 the first part there that you don't think about it. Um, I'm sure a lot of guys don't think about it. Uh, we're putting ounces per acre 00:02:57 and then that obviously correlates to the, the gallons in the sprayer. And obviously there's a lot of sprayer, uh, 00:03:02 you know, uh, what do you call it? Say sprayer calibration. And if you've got enough to cover your, whatever, 200 acres, 00:03:10 and then you don't factor in the fact that you actually don't have the right amount of water because a bunch of it foamed up 00:03:16 and you couldn't get your sprayer full, you're off by, you could be off by 20% on the amount per acre, which means absolutely it's costing you money. 00:03:24 But also it could even have a, some side effects. Yeah. And you're a hundred percent right. I, I look at the foam buildup as like going to the field 00:03:31 with an uncalibrated sprayer and, and you're going to that field and you're spraying and then, uh, you know, you, you go back 00:03:39 and your scout looks, or you go look and you don't have a good kill or you still got disease and you know, you put the right fungicide out. 00:03:46 I bought the right thing. I didn't have nothing left over. So I know I put, I put the right amount out. 00:03:51 But the problem is, yeah, you put it in the tank, but if you've got a thousand gallon capacity tank and you're putting out 10 gallons acre, so then 00:04:01 that's a hundred acres on a fill up and you only get 900 gallons in there and the other a hundred gallons 00:04:08 of space in the tank is filled with foam, then you've just cut your, you've actually cut your overall rate by 10%, 00:04:17 but you've also in used a possibility you've increased your herbicide by 10% and it to a point that you could cause crop damage. 00:04:26 Right? So one, did you run, did you push that foam out on the ground and create the environmental issue 00:04:32 as Jeremy is just speaking about? And then also then you also open yourself up for a door of having a situation that you got a low rate 00:04:42 because you might have put, you don't know what part of that foam went out, was that, was that the third of an ounce per acre product 00:04:50 and now you're only putting a 10th of an ounce? You just made the, the exact point here that I think is where someone might just dismiss this. 00:04:58 Okay, I, I got some foam in my tank. You know, Jeremy, you probably see this be like we're not in, we're not in the old days where uh, 00:05:07 you kinda like go up and uh, you know, put your finger up in the wind and say, ah, maybe this, 00:05:12 you're talking about ounces per acre. You're talking about, we talk about tips. I think we're at Kevin's farm. We talked about tips. 00:05:18 I know it was at Chad's farm. We talked about tips to make sure that your droplet size is the right droplet to get the most penetration down into the canopy when we're 00:05:25 doing this level of scientific application. And then we're just, oh yeah, I don't give a damn, there's some foam in there. 00:05:33 To Kevin's point, we might have just misused the product by a factor of 10%. 00:05:39 We're being 10% off on something that's that precise. Uh, it's a bigger problem than people think about economically and environmentally. 00:05:46 Yes. Yep, Yep. Absolutely. And you know, tying into all that, foam's not just an issue when we're filling foam can be an 00:05:55 issue too, when that tank's getting empty. So then, you know, we, we get foam in the bottom of the tank, you try to push it a little bit too far, 00:06:06 work that into the boom. Now we can start with if we get foam out to the tips, we can start having some more off target movement too. 00:06:15 'cause that foam is gonna be more drift than what that water solution is gonna be as well. I'm not a plumber, but Kevin, answer me this. 00:06:24 I just had to shut my water off yesterday. And when we turn it back on, it goes for about a minute. Doesn't that same thing happen toward the 00:06:32 end of the sprayer load? And if I got foam in there, it's trying to grab product, but it's grabbing foam, which is air 00:06:38 and it's gonna go PP which means while I'm driving across that field, there's a bunch of swaths 00:06:43 that are gonna get PP and they get the product. Yeah, that's exactly right. And it, it can cause all kinds of issues that we can, 00:06:50 we call it cavitation your pump's cavitating and uh, it's, it's getting air instead of product and then you put it throughout the whole system 00:06:59 and it, it can be, um, it can really mess some things up actually. So it's, it's not something you just wanna do. 00:07:07 So what's your thing? You said Listen, I've been managing the foam issue for a long, long time. 00:07:12 It's, is it as simple as using a product like spray tech's, uh, adjuvant or is there, 00:07:17 or I'm guessing there's more to it pressure how you feel, whatever, whatever your, give me your, how you handle foam, 00:07:23 how you make it so you don't have foam. We, you know, we've been using the full tech adjuvant for several years and it's just not an issue. 00:07:32 We don't even think about it no more. Um, it's um, you know, and we wasn't looking at it mainly for foam. 00:07:38 That's just part of the benefits. That's just one of the very few benefits. So the adjuvant, and that's what I like about it personally. 00:07:45 My biggest thing is the drift component of it and then the, the spreader the way it, uh, gets on the plants and gets the product in there. 00:07:53 I just get more money, you know, more of the efficacy out of the use of the products I'm using when I use that. 00:07:59 And then I don't have to deal with the foam. But I think what happens is a lot of times is we get in a rush 00:08:04 and we're filling these sprayers and we're dealing with the foam and we fight it the best way we can put some 00:08:09 defoamer different things in. But we've all, including myself, are guilty of, you know, pushing some foam out. 00:08:16 You don't know you got foam till it starts coming out top of the tank lots of times. 00:08:19 And then you've done put it on the ground and then you're trying to fight it in the tank after you've done got maybe 90% of your solution in there. 00:08:27 95% they certain products, I mean, you might only have a half a tank in and it'll foam that whole tank up. 00:08:35 So you gotta know the right order to put 'em in. And, and that's another thing too, Damien, we gotta remember as growers out there, just 00:08:43 because we use a product to take care of the foam, we gotta remember when to put the correct products into the tank to try 00:08:51 to prevent the foaming up front to not need that anti foamer. So it's not like I'm gonna buy a four wheel drive truck 00:08:59 and I'll never get stuck again. Right. You know, that's not the case. You gotta remember. Well I shouldn't be driving through that hole right there 00:09:06 'cause I don't think I'm gonna get through it. Yeah. And um, you can only expect so much. So Jeremy, I want you to help me out here. 00:09:12 First off, go through your tips to a producer to prevent foam besides just using your product. There's other stuff I'm guessing pressure has to do with it, 00:09:21 I'm guessing, obviously, uh, fill rate. You, you can go on about that. And then I wanna get into some of the economics, uh, 00:09:26 on rough numbers on why I think it matters. So you're, you go out to somebody and they say, I don't have a phone problem. 00:09:32 You say, well actually you do. So take me from there and then how you help 'em work through this. Yep. So actually one of the big things 00:09:39 that I saw this year when there were some foam issues that I got pictures on, um, going out there talking with the grower on 00:09:50 how he was filling, he was using a three inch pump, which is great, you can fill fast, but that water's coming in 00:09:58 and the product's coming into that tank at a high rate. And then he was also, he had his agitation turned on on a sprayer, agitation and a sprayer's great. 00:10:09 But we get into trouble if we have too much pressure in that and we're really creating a boil in the tank. 00:10:16 That's what we wanna try to avoid. We want to get a good mix, but we don't wanna be overkill on that agitation side. So, 00:10:24 So obviously you gotta have your agitation because otherwise product settles out. You gotta keep stuff in solution or suspension. Right Kevin? 00:10:30 So that's where well is that, is that an issue of pressure? Is that your, your pump's moving too fast 00:10:35 and then it just creates a tid foam? Well, Jeremy brings up a great point, Damien, something I've been doing 00:10:42 for several years is I do not have my agitation pump running at all when I'm filling my tank. 00:10:47 The reason I do that is I may put something in there and we, at extreme ag, we use some crazy stuff. We do some crazy trials, you know, that. 00:10:56 And what I've learned to kind of safeguard me against plugging stuff, stopping stuff up. Water is your best friend when you're mixing stuff. 00:11:04 Water can, can correct a lot of problems. So I like to get the total solution into the tank and then get into sprayer and cut my agitation on. 00:11:15 I'm not a fan of having that agitation running at the beginning because let's think about this. 00:11:19 If we're putting product A in and we're putting five products in and it needs so much water 00:11:28 and then B only needs so much water, it's just a lot better if we just shoot it all in that tank and then hit the agitation. 00:11:36 'cause you gotta remember when that, as Jeremy stated on a three inch pump, which we use a two inch 00:11:42 because I just would've preferred to fill it a little bit slower on mine. It just works for me. I ain't saying it's right. 00:11:49 It gives me a break from be sitting in the sprayer all day long. But we like to feel it a little bit slower. 00:11:55 That real fast rapid feel is putting tremendous velocity into that spray tank, that solution tank. 00:12:04 Yep. And uh, you know, and we're talking about doing your hot mix in your spray tank right here. 00:12:10 We're not talking about having a separate hot mix tank or truck out there, but, um, whenever you're creating the original hot mix, I prefer not 00:12:20 to have agitation on unless I'm using a dry powder or something that I've gotta really have a lot of agitation to get it to dissolve up. Right. 00:12:28 Which we don't use a lot of powders anymore, like the old days. Right. 00:12:32 Actually a lot of your foliar fertilizers now, you're, you'd be surprised to the different products that's coming out there that's like that. 00:12:38 So there's more out there. So the person that's listening, it says, well then what do you do? 00:12:42 You keep your agitation tank on, do you, I I'm guessing you probably wait until later till later in fill? 00:12:49 Uh, yeah, as soon as I get all my ingredients in and I'm just pumping water, uh, to finish out the top of the tank, then I'll cut it on. I'm safe then. 00:12:57 Okay. So the product that you're talking about though, that from spray tech is full tech and that's the adjuvant that does the foam mitigation. 00:13:05 Yeah. And yeah, and, and I really, I kind of put it in it, it also reduces the pH as well in that water. 00:13:13 And that's really, really important with a lot of the products that we're using. And we actually check our pH periodically in 00:13:21 that spray solution tank. A lot of people say, well, I'll check it in my water and I'll pull some full tech in 00:13:26 or a pH reducer and see what it is. You need to check it when you got all your ingredients in that tank. 00:13:33 That way you know what the issue is. Uh, you know exactly what's going on. All right, so the numbers, the person 00:13:42 that's gonna poo-pooing this, Jeremy, you're a good Indiana farm guy. So, uh, you go out there 00:13:49 and then these people say, all right, you're taught me into reducing the foam. Gimme the economic case for it. I already got the time. 00:13:56 I already got the fact that I'm driving down the road with a $600,000 sprayer that's only at 80% full. That's a waste of money. 00:14:03 I've got the, I'm guessing a little bit of loss of product. So gimme some numbers. 00:14:08 Yep. So, you know, I guess I don't know exactly where the costs, I'm going to use Glufosinate right now. Uh, let's talk about glufosinate in that tank. 00:14:19 We're gonna lose five gallons, whether it's 'cause we're over applying or we're under applying, and we really should add more in if we push that foam out, 00:14:30 um, let's just throw that at a cost of $20 per gallon. Now we're having to add four to five more gallons into there. 00:14:39 So we're 80 to a hundred dollars right there. Right. And that's per load. Per load. That's Yep. That's per load that we're either over applying, so 00:14:49 we're wasting that money or we really need to add in to make sure that we're getting the good weed kill that we want. 00:14:56 Um, you know, time is gonna be another big one. Once you get that foam in that tank, it can take 10, 15 minutes at times to get that out. 00:15:06 Then you've got that added stop out in the field if you're having to break that foam up towards 00:15:11 the end of the load as well. Um, those are, those are gonna be the big costs right there. Well, the big cost on product that you just said. 00:15:19 All right. So if a sprayer covers, if you're covering, you know, to use Kevin example, uh, it's a hundred bucks on a hundred ac, 00:15:24 it's a buck an acre, you're like, oh, what's a big deal? It's a buck an acre. But the other one I think 00:15:28 that I just heard you say is mis misapplication. If you're under applying now you're creating a potential for, uh, you gotta go un treat it again 00:15:35 or worse yet you're contributing to the, Uh, resistance weed. Yes. Resistance. Yeah. Resistance. Yeah. Uh, 00:15:41 and that's a, that's a hell of a cost that, uh, amortizes over time. Right, Kevin? Yeah, and I think we as farmers, uh, you know, a lot 00:15:49 of us over the years, uh, has been guilty of that. You know, we're trying to maybe cut, you know, tight as tight times in the economy right now and, 00:15:57 and you know, maybe we can get by with 18 ounces instead of 20 ounces, this product that the weeds are real small. 00:16:04 But then you get out there in the field and realize, well, they're a little bit bigger, but I've already mixed it, so I'm gonna go ahead 00:16:09 and get it sprayed and if I need to come back, the problem is just like what Tyler said is Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, 00:16:15 I mean, I mean Jeremy, sorry about that. But it's just like Jeremy said on the, uh, I got, uh, but um, I'm getting bombarded here in harvest, 00:16:25 but um, when you lose a percentage of that active ingredient Yeah. What, what is the efficacy degradation that we're creating? 00:16:37 Yeah. Nobody knows the answer to that. Right. But we really need to be observant and try to put out the correct amounts. 00:16:45 And we also need to make sure that we're putting the correct pH carrier in there so 00:16:51 that these products can work properly. And Damien, I, you know, it, it humbles me being in this group that 10 years ago, 00:17:02 I really didn't know that. I never thought about the pH in my spray solution of my carrier quarter. 00:17:08 I never did. And then I'm sitting here looking at, well, maybe if I'd have knew that. 00:17:12 Yeah. And I knew in 1998 at at Mons Santos headquarters that they wanted a pH you know, around four for Roundup to work. 00:17:22 But I never thought nothing about it. You know, I, I never, I knew what our water was and it was what it was. 00:17:27 And we, we had treated it and tried to bring it down a little bit, but we didn't focus on it that hard. 00:17:32 Maybe as farmers, if we had focused on that early on, we wouldn't be fighting these roundup resistant issues that we are today. 00:17:41 Yeah. And that's a subject for another recording because we talked about pH with, in fact, I went and got my water tested just 00:17:47 because I was curious what my pH was because of recording. I did with the spray tech guys. It wasn't Jeremy. 00:17:53 Um, because it Might have been Tyler. Yeah. It Wasn't Tyler, it wasn't Tyler either. Hey, you get, you, you get a, you get a pass on 00:18:01 that you, it's harvest time. You got a lot on your mind. So you call somebody the wrong name. 00:18:04 Hell, I called somebody the wrong name the other day and I'm not even, I'm not even spending 12 hours a day in a combine. 00:18:08 So it's all right. But about foam to get us outta here on this, I think the issue of course is you, you got a product, 00:18:15 it probably allows you a little bit of, I can have the pressure a little bit wrong, I can make a few mistakes by using the full tech, 00:18:22 because now otherwise I'm doing, I'm, I'm walking on eggshells to make sure that I don't screw up the batch 00:18:27 and then all of a sudden it caused me the problems. Is that an accurate statement, Jeremy? Yeah, it absolutely is. 00:18:33 And you know, one thing about it with the full tech in there, it's gonna be the first thing in the tank. 00:18:39 'cause we want that water treated. So no, I've been Doing that wrong, Damien. I've been Put it in first. Put it in 00:18:46 First. If you put it in, if you put it in last, does it have a, does it have less, uh, effectiveness? 00:18:53 Uh, putting it in last, it's not gonna work as well at conditioning the water. 'cause there's already could be some tie up 00:19:00 with the herbicides and the way that our anti foam defoamer built, it's 80% anti foam, 20% defoamer. 00:19:09 Mm-hmm. So our effectiveness of being able to cut that foam isn't quite as good. Now it still does a really good job of cutting the foam, 00:19:18 but by going in on the front side, it uses 80%, 80% of the 80% of the, of the product that is designed to anti foam versus the 20%, which is 00:19:29 with if it's already too late. And that's, uh, Yeah. Which By the way, the sample that we showed at the farm prior 00:19:34 show was more showing the defo because you shake up a jar and make it all foamy is all get out 00:19:39 and then you dump that stuff in there. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So we're really doing that backwards when we show that. 00:19:45 But it's hard to, hard to be able to do that demonstration the other way around. Alright, so Kevin wonders if it was worth his time to, uh, 00:19:51 climb out of the combine record this, and what we just discovered is yes, it was because you need to put the full take adjuvant in, uh, 00:19:58 at the first thing, then first, first thing, and, and then you capitalize, then you get it full effectiveness, I think is the issue. 00:20:04 Yeah. Um, all right. So if I am now realizing, because I'm listening to this, the foam's a problem. I got the environmental aspect, like Kevin talked about, 00:20:10 it's running out the top of the tank or I'm spraying it out my boom to, to try and clear it. It's environmentally wrong 00:20:15 because I'm putting stuff just in the driveway or in a barn lot of where it doesn't need to be. Second part of it is I'm misusing the 00:20:22 ratios either underplaying or over applying. And then that brings to the economics aspect of it. Plus you're going out there with, 00:20:27 you're using your time and your equipment. So have I made the case environmental and economic? I think there's, is there anything I missed, Jeremy? 00:20:35 No, I think you pretty well pretty well covered it there. The frustration, you know, frustration 00:20:40 of foam is probably the biggest thing and number one thing that guys have with it, And Kevin's been managing it for a long time. 00:20:47 To avoid the fru, you got enough frustrations. You don't need to foam frustration. Uh, yeah, I, I do enough outta ignorance 00:20:52 to create frustrations I don't need to add to it. So it's interesting. He called the the thing cavitation. I'm gonna make sure that we pull that out for a, 00:20:59 for a promo clip so people can see the cavitation discussion. Anyway. If I wanna learn more about this to prevent foam, 00:21:05 because I'm now realizing it's an environmental and economic, uh, cost to me. Uh, where do I go? I pulled up my phone, Jeremy. 00:21:13 Yep. You, uh, on your phone, you can go to spray tech usa.com. Spray tech usa.com. Right. There's our website. 00:21:21 His name's Jeremy Gertz and he's with, it's Kevin Matthews, uh, and a, a shadow guy named Tyler. 00:21:26 That's Mware floating around here. My name's Damian Mason. This is a great episode of cutting 00:21:29 the Curve with extreme Ag. If you learn from it, share it with somebody that can benefit from it. 00:21:32 Also, remember, there's hundreds of videos, guys like Kevin shoot out in their field that you can use. It's a library of free information@extremeag.farm, hundreds 00:21:39 of episodes of this show right here, cutting the curve at Extreme Mag Farm. While you're there, check out our new show. 00:21:44 The grainery, Kevin's been there. Uh, it's a bunch of farm guys sitting around talking about the, the real, 00:21:49 the personal professional and everything in between about agriculture. So go check it all out@extrememag.farm. 00:21:54 Uh, and also you might go ahead and click subscribe on our YouTube channel. So next time, thanks for being here. This is 00:21:58 extreme mags cutting the curve. That's a wrap for this episode of Cutting the Curve. Make sure to check out Extreme ag.farm 00:22:06 for more great content to help you squeeze more profit out 00:22:09.445 --> 00:22:10.725