Having switched from 24m to 30m tramlines, Buckinghamshire farmer Charlie Edgley and his team set about building a custom Avadex applicator/cover crop broadcaster to suit the new setup.

A donor 24m Kongskilde Wingjet pneumatic spreader was the starting point for the build, which had been retired after they upgraded to an Amazone ZGTS.

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Once the original lightweight boom had been removed, the chassis and drawbar were extended to make room for a larger 30m example from an old Knight sprayer.

This was expected to be the trickiest part of the build, but the pneumatics proved far more challenging.

Originally, the Wingjet had 20 outlets (four banks of five for section control), which they fitted with splitters feeding 40 spreader plates spaced evenly across the boom.

However, even when applying Avadex at a modest rate of 15kg/ha, there was too much friction in the system and the pipes blocked.

Rather than muddle on, they turned to Paul Macavoy of Litetrac, who supplied 20 of his own-designed spreader plates.

These were fitted to the boom at 1.5m spacings and the diameter of the pneumatic hose was also doubled to reduce drag.

The machine passed its NSTS test and put in a good performance during its first outing this autumn.