Spray booms are known in the art for use in association with various agricultural pursuits, including spraying plants with fertilizer, herbicides, and the like. Such systems typically involve a generally horizontal boom provided with several sprayers. It is desirable to provide a spray boom with as many depending implements as possible to treat as many rows as possible during a single pass of the spray boom. As the spray boom moves over uneven terrain, it is desirable to pivot the spray boom to track undulations in the agricultural field.
Pivoting spray boom assemblies are known in the art. Spray boom assemblies are typically coupled to an agricultural vehicle by a four-bar linkage system from which spray boom assemblies may be attached and detached. Spray booms may be pivotally attached to the four-bar linkage assemblies so that the operator may pivot the spray boom to better coincide with contours of the agricultural field. It is known to pivotally couple the top of the agricultural spray boom assembly to the top of the four-bar linkage assembly to allow for the pivoting of the spray boom assembly. One drawback associated with such prior art assemblies is that by placing the pivoting mechanism at the top of the spray boom assembly, the pivot point is well above the agricultural row crops being worked. Accordingly, this high pivot point does not allow the operator to level the boom assembly relative to the agricultural field but, instead, places the ends of the boom assembly too low when the boom assembly is pivoted downward, and too high when the pivot assembly is pivoted upward relative to the center of the boom assembly.
It would be desirable, therefore, to place the pivot point of the boom assembly lower, thereby allowing the operator to more accurately match the level of the boom assembly with the contour of the agricultural field.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds