Fertilizer Spreader Innovations Abound Going Into 2025
October 28, 2024 It’s no secret what’s driving the overall agricultural marketplace going into the 2025 growing season, says Andy Unverferth, Marketing Manager at Unverferth Manufacturing: “Virtually everyone is watching their costs right now.”
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For equipment manufacturers such as Unverferth, this market desire has spurred plenty of new developments across the board for spreaders. As proof of this trend, market observers need look no further than the summer and fall equipment trade shows. Usually, many of the highest profile equipment innovations at these events for ag retailers tend to be in the area of self-propelled sprayers. In 2024, however, spreader innovations led the way. And many of these made their market debuts at the annual Midwest AG Industries Exposition (MAGIE), held in Bloomington, IL, in late August.
“As one of the first summer shows, MAGIE is the kickoff to the new season for many in agriculture,” says Jason Eaton, COO at RBR Enterprise. “Everyone expects the OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to introduce the latest and greatest here.”
This was certainly the case at the 2024 MAGIE. Numerous new/upgraded spreaders models were present on the McLean County Fairgrounds during the show. In fact, when sister publication CropLife IRON® was selecting its five finalists for the magazine’s annual Product of the Year competition, three of them were spreaders formally launched at MAGIE 2024.
Innovations Aplenty
For the most part, each of the new spreader models making their debuts for the 2025 application season are designed to accomplish three key goals. The first is coverage/capacity when applying.
According to Grant Lien, OEM Projects Manager at Amazone USA, the company’s ZG-TS Spreaders can be trail or truck mounted and feature a hopper capacity of 10 tons. With 128-part width sections control and online weigh cells, these units can prevent overfilling or underfilling and auto-adjust for deviation in product flow characteristics and slopes in the field, he says.
“For retailer’s appeal, these spreaders can cover more acres per day,” says Lien. “Wider spread widths can be achieved — 120-feet for urea and 177-feet for heavier materials such as phosphorus and potash.”
ZG-TS Spreaders also use sensors to auto-compensate for wind speed direction and gusts, he adds. “The spreaders also comes with the ArgusTwin System, which utilizes 14 radar sensors to adjust application automatically as product density changes throughout the day,” says Lien.
Another such spreader at MAGIE 2024 was the Double-Duty TR4 from GVM. “We have one of the widest and most accurate spread patterns in the industry,” says Joe Anderson, Vice President of Sales. “This is a four-section box that can be fitted onto any type of chassis, regardless of your color preference.”
The second trend spreader manufacturers are tying into with their newest models is accuracy. According to Joe Dimler, Business Development Manager at The Salford Group, the company’s new SS400+ Spinner Spreader can apply fertilizer up to 120 feet and lime up to 70 feet. The floater model holds 420 cubic feet of fertilizer or 320 cubic feet of lime in a single bin configuration or 377 cubic feet of fertilizer using a dual bin configuration. The SS400+ features 304 stainless steel bin screens and is chassis compatible with John Deere 800R, Case IH Titan, and RBR Enterprise Vector units.
“The unit features 12-section swath control that is easy to operate and has few moving parts,” says Dimler. “Users can cover more ground with fewer refills from the high-capacity hopper.”
Over at Unverferth, the company’s Pro-Force spreader also offers users better accuracy.
“These units come in pull-type or chassis mounted configurations, capable of holding up to 22 tons of fertilizer,” Unverferth says. “And the spinner discs on these models are unique, with each having six vanes. This allows users to achieve a more even spread pattern, out to 90 feet.”
Uptime and Comfort
The third trend driving new spreader innovation in 2024-25 is reliability. According to Zach Rissi, Business Development Specialist at New Leader Manufacturing, this is one of the motivations behind the company’s newest spreader, the NL720. This chassis-mounted spinner spreader features a 120-foot spread width to provide a 33% increase in productivity over previous models, he says. The NL720’s integrated control module offers pushbutton spread width changes, allowing operators to swap between the full 120-foot swath width and a 70- to 90-foot option for windier conditions or when spreading challenging fertilizer products.
“The NL720 is designed with tool-free components, a positive-drive straight belt, a fixed feed gate, an operator inspection platform, and simplified spread-pattern testing,” says Rissi. “Plus, there are no grease points on this model, which means users can keep their uptime in the field at a higher level.”
Besides the spreaders themselves, at least one manufacturer has introduced an improvement for the cab. According to RBR’s Eaton, the company is debuting an entirely new cab design for 2025 for its Vector spreaders. “The cab design for these units hasn’t changed in 10 years,” he says. “However, today’s spreader cabs need to have more controls than 10 years ago, plus all the creature comforts applicators spending many hours working in them have come to expect.”
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