With some form of low-level applicator becoming compulsory in many parts of the UK and Ireland, there’s a lot of interest in retrofit solutions, especially with the grant funding to incentivise the uptake of such systems. One option is the UniSpread trailing shoe from Vogelsang; we’ve been testing the 10.5m version.
The demand for slurry dribble bars and trailing shoes is huge at the moment, which clearly explains why so many relatively new faces have popped up offering tanker-mounted applicators.
One of the more longstanding manufacturers is Vogelsang, and in 2020 it introduced the UniSpread as either a drop hose or a trailing shoe. Available in widths of 6.0m, 7.5m and 9.0m, these booms all fold vertically behind the tank, rather than horizontally down the sides of the barrel.
The above units were more recently joined by a 10.5m version, which has a double-fold vertical boom and first featured in profi in our 11/2022 issue, where we explained how the UniSpread was retrofit-mounted to a 10m³ Bauer BSA slurry tanker. While the vertical-folding boom is a good pairing for the tandem-axle Farmerline tank, its long barrel could also have accommodated a trailing shoe that folds down along the sides of the tank, which, in the Vogelsang range, would be the BlackBird.
Due to the current demand for slurry tankers through Europe, this Farmerline/Vogelsang outfit was the most suitable machine that we could get our hands on. It is also worth noting the price difference between the 10.5m UniSpread trailing shoe, which has a base price of £23,000, and 12m Blackbird that has a tag in the region of £36,000.
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