How-to videos: Inoculant applicator maintenance and basic operation

Posted on May 24, 2013 in Dairy Performance
UrnessBy Jon Urness
Some things are simply not worth doing unless they’re done correctly. And that most certainly applies to the application of forage inoculants. That’s why Vita Plus has put together a couple very basic maintenance and operation videos on the Dohrmann Dohrect Enject ultra low volume applicator. A large proportion of our Crop-N-Rich inoculants are applied with this equipment and we want to help our staff, partners, and customers become familiar with basic operation and maintenance.

Basic applicator operation

 

In the basic applicator operation video, we cover proper mixing proportions using our Crop-N-Rich MTD/1 as an example. Our Stage 2 and Buchneri products work equally well, but are applied at 2 grams of product per ton rather than 1.  Turning to basic operation, the real “genius” of the Dohrect Enject system is that, if you apply inoculant at the ultra-low volume rate of 1.28 oz per ton (one gallon per 100 tons), all you have to do is set the flow meter to correspond with tons/minute harvested on the left (red) side of the scale.

Basic applicator maintenance

Experience has shown that these applicators are incredibly reliable, but do require a little cleaning and maintenance, particularly the pump tube. Our maintenance video shows how easy it is to change the heart of the system – the pump tube. This should be done annually or when output doesn’t seem to be quite up to par. This procedure is similar on the new DE-1010 series applicators, but that applicator offers various size tubes depending on output capacity. Watch for other basic operation videos later this summer when we cover the DE-8 applicator, a stationary applicator used at blowers, baggers and high moisture corn processing units.

About the author:  Jon Urness is the Vita Plus national forage specialist.  He grew up on his family’s five-generation homestead dairy near Black Earth, Wis. and still lives there today.  He graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism.  Since 1992, Urness has provided on-farm dairy nutrition consulting in southwest Wisconsin as a Vita Plus employee owner.  He has also taken on the forage marketing responsibilities outside of the traditional Vita Plus market.

 

Category: Dairy Performance
Equipment
Forage inoculants