A 45m Amazone Pantera 7004 has lifted spraying output by 30-40% on James O'Reilly's tillage farm near Ballyragget, Co. Kilkenny — and he says the true figure may be higher because the self-propelled machine holds a better forward speed than his old trailed outfits.

The Pantera 7004 runs a 300hp Deutz engine, a 7,000L spray tank, a 500L clean water tank and a 45m boom. O'Reilly grows winter cereals, oilseed rape and beans on a min-til system, owning a third of the land he farms and leasing the rest. His ground stretches up to 30km in any direction, from the far side of Tullow in Co. Carlow to Cashel in Co. Tipperary.

Before the switch, the operation ran two 30m trailed sprayers with 6,000L tanks behind two 240hp Fendt tractors. "Quite often the second trailed sprayer wasn't out because either there wasn't a man there to follow it or men were busy at other jobs," O'Reilly said.

Why does a min-til system need the extra capacity?

Land that has not seen a plough in 25-26 years leaves no room for slack herbicide programmes. "If we don't keep on top of our herbicide programmes, we're going to run into difficulty with grass weeds and to a lesser extent broadleaf weeds," he said.

Previously one 30m sprayer struggled to keep ahead of two 6m drills, then chase behind them with pre-emerge sprays. The Pantera solved that bottleneck on its own.

How does the maths justify a self-propelled machine?

The decision came down to machinery costs. A new 240hp tractor costs "north of 200 grand", O'Reilly said, and a trailed sprayer adds another €140,000-150,000 — pushing a replacement tractor-and-trailed combination past €350,000. Upgrading just one of his existing tractors would have cost over €100,000.

"Believe it or not, the cheaper option was to go with one self-propelled unit," he said.

Wider tracks and fewer passes also pay. Two 700mm wheel tracks now carry no crop loss penalty, and cropping the old tracks across a third fewer runs across the field delivers "an increase in yield of somewhere north of 20 grand a year". That sum, O'Reilly said, is a massive subsidy towards the machine.

What makes a 45m boom work in practice?

O'Reilly cruises at 27-28km/h on the headland and holds better forward speed than he did with a 30m trailed sprayer. He credits the Pantera's independent four-wheel bogie suspension: "The level of comfort, the level of ride the booms are getting to start with is phenomenal."

Two large hydraulic cylinders brace the booms in opposing directions. "If I come to a standstill stop or if I take off too quick, there's no fear of the booms being left behind or being forced back in," he said.

Before buying, dealer Farmhand arranged a live demo on a Dutch farm. O'Reilly and his full-time operator Ross watched the machine stop dead from 20km/h across harvested potato drills with the boom staying put. "Once I saw that I said: 'That's fine, that's it for me.'"

What technology is on board?

The sprayer carries 90 individual nozzles with AmaSelect individual nozzle control, full RTK steering and section control, curve compensation, four-wheel and crab steer. O'Reilly sprays at 100L/ha and 2.6 bar using paired 02 and 04 nozzles, with the system dropping pressure and switching nozzle combinations automatically as speed changes.

He is now trialling drone-generated prescription maps for spot spraying, with the drone itself RTK-guided to pin weed locations. Individual nozzle shutoff matters here: turning on two, three or four nozzles to hit one weed is far less efficient than one.

Flotation tyres from Kevin Burke Tyres in Galway — Alliance 710/60R42 VF — run low ground pressure to cut compaction. On cultivated ground before sowing, O'Reilly narrows the front track against the rear to spread compaction risk.

At 10,000ha (25,000ac) sprayed a year, timing drives everything. "The difference between a good tillage farmer and a bad tillage farmer is a week. I'd say it's a day," he said. Average field size runs 27-28ac, with fields from 5ac to 100ac; four-wheel steer and crab steer get the 45m boom in and out of the tight ones.

His advice to buyers: don't stretch for a Pantera unless the maths stacks up, talk to Farmhand and Michael Eardly's dealer network — and visit someone running the machine. When he bought, no 45m Pantera existed in Ireland or the UK, hence the trip to Holland. Farmers considering the same step should watch the drone spot-spraying trial results as the next proof point.