DRIVING IMPRESSION: Despite acquiring the rights to Cleanacres’ bigself-propelled sprayer technology and buying inHouseham skid units for its previous machines,Knight Farm Machinery has now designed its firstcompletely in-house self-propelled model, the 1530.Martin Rickatson tours a pre-production version
While long established in the UK’s mounted and trailed sprayer market, in the self-propelled sector Lincs-based Knight Farm Machinery has traditionally concentrated on building sprayers to mount on to bought-in skid units and its own MB-trac tractor forward control conversions, rather than build its own self-propelled machine. Ten years after the MB’s demise, that has all changed with the imminent introduction of the firm’s new 1530, its first totally ‘self-build’ design of self-propelled sprayer.
Admittedly the new machine is not Knight-designed from the ground up, but rather, as with most selfpropelled units on the market, it marries together major components from many outside suppliers – cab, transmission etc – using Knight key design know-how. And a very tidy machine it seems to make.
At the front end, the curvy combinestyle cab sets the machine apart from others in the sector. While many other sprayers on the market use similar bought-in cabs, the Knight unit is unique to the company, and isn’t found on any other sprayer model available in the UK, says the firm. Access is via a set of slim hydraulically folding steps to the narrow cab walkway – which will seem a lot less narrow once a planned sliding door is fitted to 1530 production versions, rather than the hinged unit on our test preproduction machine.
Some detailed work on the impressively spacious cab interior was still to be completed on our pre-production trial unit, but given a good finish it looks to have the potential to compete with the best on the market. The large pivottype wiper should give operators a clear view, as should the bank of six roof-mounted worklights for those who find themselves spraying at dusk. Actual spraying kit controls were yet to be fitted to our 1530, but the TeeJet 844E+ or RDS Pro series units will be found in conventional right-hand eye-level fashion on the production machines.
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