Next week will be putting our two crops sprayers through their annual MOT for the NSTS (National Sprayer Testing Scheme). This involves checking for leaks, drips, corroding pipes, lights, accuracy of application and 3 A4 pages of other checks and boxes to tick. This annual MOT is part of the Voluntary Initiative (VI), an industry led scheme to improve the environmental impact of spraying activities and to therefore avoid a pesticide tax, (which would cripple the arable enterprise). It also enables the farm to be crop assured, another scheme demonstrating our commitment to providing safe, traceable food. Finally it means that we can demonstrate our professionalism as we know our machinery is ready to swing into action in the early spring.
In order to cut the costs down, 4 other neighbouring farmers all bring their sprayer to our farm so that the engineer can complete more tests in a day, thus reducing the cost, both to the engineer and to us. The Bateman RB25 shown here is fertilising Naked Oats in early spring last year.
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