I going to jump the gun. Number 1 reason I have time for 650 acres. I can cover ground quick enough with my 400 gallon saddle tanks on a Deere 4020 with 60 foot boom. Local custom applicator said many years ago there was no way they would be able to cover all beans in area in time if rust hit. So I even bought a VERY NICE melroe 220 spray coupe (200 gallon tank) to be able to go through tall beans if needed for rust. If rust hits I believe I will be spraying/saving $12 beans. So if I only used it once in ten years for rust it would pay for itself ($12,000) in full and then some. And neighbors would be lining up at door to use it.

I just ran some real quick and crude numbers. Figuring we spray 1500 hundred acres four times a year that equals 6000acres. The local coop charges $4 for application, so 24000 dollars I get to keep vs give the coop. Plus I spray my ground when and how I want to. Plus I can shop around and find better deals on chemical. The 3440 spray coupe we bought a four years ago is already paid for plus the AgLeader EZ-steer and the Ez-boom we added last spring. It isn't the biggest sprayer in the world but we won't out grow it any time soon and are gonna use it to apply all our fertilizer on our wheat this year so that is more application fees we will be saving over having the coop spread urea on the ground.

You don't get to keep 24000 in your pocket. I love it when people think sprayers are free. "Well I payed for my sprayer in one year" they all say. There are many cost that go with a sprayer. The costs all need to be accounted for and then decide if your own sprayer is a good idea. Some day when grain prices really drop we will see if these farmers that don't know how to figure costs are still farming.

If you have time, do it yourself. If you don't have time, do the best you can. Isn't that about everything? Whenever you can do it better yourself, do it, but at what cost and return?

I guess when I made my post thismorning I forgot to say that I am 100 percent no-till so my sprayer does not cost that much to maintain vs tilling everything.

True, you can figure your sprayer costs less per acre because you spray so many acres but you are spending 2x more in herbicides/adjuvants/water etc. than the guys who till do. I'm not saying you spend more $ overall, but it's not all as rosy as it looks. We sprayed our own for 30 years & last year we decided to hand it over to a local coop. We can't afford down time in our operation & I'm not going to operate junk so when our sprayer upgrade was due we decided to get out while the getting was good and divert that investment capital to other power units. The dirty little secret is the coop doesn't make a dime on the the spray rate/a. They run those machines over your ground for break-even and make their $ on volume & product markup...which is a much narrower margin than years ago. If you don't believe me, sit down and run the #'s on their $250K machines + overhead. What guys don't figure is that as their sprayers are depreciating the new ones are increasing in price and the candle is being burned at both ends. They fool themselves thinking they are running it for free. Finally, intangibles such as liability, exposure, insurance pushed us out. Lastly, eventually the EPA is going fix the wagon of the individual spraying community.

I spray all my own. I've had / seen too many custom jobs screwed up either by poor application, cutting rates (suspected) or simply improper tank cleaning and sprayer maintenance. All that said the custom rate in our area looks like $9/ac not $4. When combined with the benefit of scouting my fields at 60ft intervals, I figure spraying my own is the most profitable field operation that I do, fuel and shiny paint added in.

If you don't do your own spraying, why do your own combining either. Last time I checked combines were pretty expensive too. Just figure out what spraying pays if you have time to do it yourself. I figure doing something that pays 80 to 100 dollars per hour is worth doing myself.

I appreciate everyone's comments. Definitely more farmers spraying themselves for a variety of reasons. I don't own a sprayer and because I don't live on the farm and have full-time job, I can't do it myself. But after my experience with custom spraying I would definitely do it myself if I could so if spraying is imperfect I only have myself to blame and can make necessary changed. However when you hire it done all the complaining done in the world won't change a thing. This year another neighbor called me and they had just bought a JD 4920 and asked if they could spray for us. And since I know they are conscious and do a good job and we can use the same herbicides products I think this might be a good solution since I can save on herbicide. We will see how it works out.