ATTENDING to liquid kit issues on seeding bars has become an accepted part of applying liquid cropping inputs today, however McIntosh Distribution has moved to ensure the liquid kits on its Morris seeding bars are simple to manage, and, more importantly, the most reliable to use.

The latest development follows extensive work by the McIntosh Distribution team on liquid kit designs across the Morris range to conveniently specialise the kits to each individual system.

Duncan Murdoch, the company’s National Morris Product Manager, said widespread reviews of working machines in recent seasons had identified air and liquid kits as largely the two main areas that could be further improved.

Duncan said air kit problems, in many cases, highlighted the need for correct fitment, while reliability issues with liquid kits resulted in leaks and corrosion concerns, which was compounded where growers were using dual liquid kits or had added to existing systems.

He said the company decided to mirror the new liquid kits to its air kit designs and it had collaborated with Furrow Management Systems Australia (FMSA) to tailor-make the liquid kits to each individual bar and tine assembly.

“Growers appear to put up with issues with their liquid kits," Duncan said.

"They accept that there is going to be some mucking-around, but we wanted to come up with a completely-designed liquid kit for each given bar – and to remove any items that could cause issues.

“For users of dual liquid kits, which can present challenges, we wanted to provide a solution where growers can immediately see that it works.

“Most bars have tines fixed to a frame that moves up and down, whereas the Morris tines move up and down relative to the frame.

"They also fold very tight, with tines passing through the frame.

“Rather than use a generic kit to suit every bar, we have worked with Furrow Management (Systems Australia), who also are located just down the road and have an engineering focus, to individually design liquid kits for improved performance and reliability.

"We are aiming to make the systems as reliable as possible.

“They also use better quality fittings and more durable tube – and on the bulkheads we have switched from plastic to stainless-steel fittings.”

The new liquid kits have been designed to suit all models of the Morris Quantum air drills and C3 and C2 Contour drills, with pre-cut and pre-formed friction tube and standardised layouts.

Single and dual liquid kits are available to suit bars set on 250-millimetre (10-inch), 300mm (12in) or 381mm (15in) tine spacings, and they can be used with existing pumps and controllers, as well as with systems featuring variable rate control and section control technologies.

They also can be retrofitted to earlier-manufactured Quantum air drills and Contour drills.

Liquid fertiliser (red) and soil wetter (green) friction tube has been configured to suit growers’ typical application rate ranges and operating speeds at the different tine spacing settings (see table).

“The typical rate ranges will suit more than 90 per cent of growers, and custom-designed kits can be arranged to suit rates outside of these ranges,” Duncan said.

“The total solution with UAN applied is generally 45-70 litres per hectare, and with wetter it’s 35-55L/ha, and we are comfortable with growers going up to 3-bar of pressure.

"The sweet spot tends to be 1-2.5 bar.”

He said standardising the kits was a great step for growers and dealers.

“Up until now, they have had to calculate the length of tube based on a number of measurements including speed, viscosity, spacings and bar pressure, and the correct length has required getting all of that right.

“We wanted to achieve fixed lengths of tube, where it can arrive to the dealers and they can just fit it to the boots with no calculation required.

“Growers won’t have to worry about working out anything with dealers.

"There’s every chance it will suit what they need and if they damage a tube, they can have the spare tube part sitting on the shelf and just fit it.”

Duncan said the new liquid kit system was trialled on a bar in the northern wheatbelt this season without fault and the dealer involved quickly indicated its preference exclusively for the new kits.

He said further work on the air kits involved precise configuration of every seed and fertiliser hose, including to within 10mm of required lengths and suitably arranged to each port linked to heads.

“Sometimes hoses are not routed correctly.

"They can be too short or too long and pull out of boots.

"We have started with an air kit system on a 24-metre, tow-between Quantum and we have looked at every hose and configured things individually.

“We would now like to roll this level of detail out with our air kits, starting with the most popular Morris bars, to help further improve the reliability of the kits,” Duncan said.