Gehl 309/"Scavenger" Spreaders? Lime?

[DanielW]

We've been looking for a better way to spread lime screenings at our Northern farm for ages. Up there in the Canadian Shield the soil is so acidic it really needs a couple tons per acre applied every 5 years or so, else the aluminum phytotoxicity wreaks havoc with things - especially potassium uptake (and makes it pretty much impossible to maintain any sort of legume hay stand). Ideally we'd find a proper tow-type lime spreader - which is essentially just a fertilizer spreader, but with a wider (at least 16") apron that will pull lime out of the hopper without it bridging over. But despite having been looking for the last 10 years or so, nothing's cropped up. Only one popped up within the province that I saw - about 5 hours away and for what seemed like a crazily high price. Can't remember exactly what they were asking, but it was well over $5k for one absolutely beat to heck. And would have had to be floated as an extra wide load over here, which would have added significantly to the cost. So we're still using a New Idea/Gandy drop spreader, which is very slow & painful.

Not too far away a Gehl 309 manure spreader came up for what seems like a cheap price. This is one of Gehl's 'Scavenger' series of spreaders, which is essentially a segmented auger moving material forward into a side-discharge beater. It looks to me like it might do for limestone screenings. You certainly wouldn't want to load it to the hilt, but even if you could load three or four tractor bucket loads into it at a time it'd still be way faster/easier than our drop current spreaders. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic?

Any thoughts on this (or wild speculation)? I think you'd maybe want to put a larger sprocket on the auger to slow it down some for lime, but that's no big deal. And I know Gehl dropped their Ag line, but I never found that cause for concern: Bearings, chains, etc. are all standard, shafts and other simple steel components I can make or have made.

Here's a video link to one of these spreaders (not the same model, but same principle):

 

[Absent Minded Farmer]

We've been looking for a better way to spread lime screenings at our Northern farm for ages. Up there in the Canadian Shield the soil is so acidic it really needs a couple tons per acre applied every 5 years or so, else the aluminum phytotoxicity wreaks havoc with things - especially potassium uptake (and makes it pretty much impossible to maintain any sort of legume hay stand). Ideally we'd find a proper tow-type lime spreader - which is essentially just a fertilizer spreader, but with a wider (at least 16") apron that will pull lime out of the hopper without it bridging over. But despite having been looking for the last 10 years or so, nothing's cropped up. Only one popped up within the province that I saw - about 5 hours away and for what seemed like a crazily high price. Can't remember exactly what they were asking, but it was well over $5k for one absolutely beat to heck. And would have had to be floated as an extra wide load over here, which would have added significantly to the cost. So we're still using a New Idea/Gandy drop spreader, which is very slow & painful.

Not too far away a Gehl 309 manure spreader came up for what seems like a cheap price. This is one of Gehl's 'Scavenger' series of spreaders, which is essentially a segmented auger moving material forward into a side-discharge beater. It looks to me like it might do for limestone screenings. You certainly wouldn't want to load it to the hilt, but even if you could load three or four tractor bucket loads into it at a time it'd still be way faster/easier than our drop current spreaders. But maybe I'm being overly optimistic?

Any thoughts on this (or wild speculation)? I think you'd maybe want to put a larger sprocket on the auger to slow it down some for lime, but that's no big deal. And I know Gehl dropped their Ag line, but I never found that cause for concern: Bearings, chains, etc. are all standard, shafts and other simple steel components I can make or have made.

Here's a video link to one of these spreaders (not the same model, but same principle):

They were meant to spread anything, but didn't do the best with dry material. I have seen compost spread with one, so it's not impossible.

Mike

 

[oliverkid]

Guy I used to work for had a New Holland slinger spreader like that. I don’t think you would be at all happy with the spread pattern. They tend to spread heavy close to the beater and trail off the farther out you get. I also think it would be very hard to get a consistent application rate out of it with something fine like lime.

 

[showcrop]

Here in the Northeast the most popular seems to be the two-spinner Stoltzfus units. They are built in PA so probably not common out your way. They seem to be built in a way that minimizes the affect of the abrasiveness of the lime.