Manure Spreaders/Farming Simulator 15
A Manure Spreader (not to be confused with a Fertilizer Spreader) is a piece of equipment that can cover a field with Manure. This doubles the field's Crop yield. Manure Spreaders are large, heavy, and inefficient. However, the fertilizer they use is practically free.
There are three Manure Spreaders available in the base game. They differ from one another primarily in capacity and working width, although their size and weight can also be very important.
List of Manure Spreaders
| Spreader | Price ($) |
Maintenance ($ / day) |
Capacity (liters) |
Working Width (m) |
Suggested Tractor Power (kW / hp) |
Max. Working Speed (km/h) |
Front Hitch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
17,000 | 20 | 6,800 | 6.0 | 51 / 70 | 20 | Drawbar (Bolt) |
 |
31,000 | 50 | 15,500 | 10.0 | 110 / 150 | 20 | Drawbar (Ball) |
 |
71,000 | 60 | 32,000 | 15.0 | 162 / 220 | 20 | Drawbar (Ball) |
Notes for Table
- The Power Requirements are suggestions only. Read the individual articles to learn the actual recommended tractors for each Spreader.
Overview
Manure Spreaders are machines that can be filled up with Manure, and then taken to a field where they will distribute it onto the soil. The fertilizer material itself is a mix of straw and cow feces which is highly nutritious for plants. Any patch of field covered with this material will yield double the normal amount of fruit, when harvested.
There are three Manure Spreaders available in the base game, and they are all functionally similar. Each is comprised of a large open-topped box (a "hopper") which can be filled with Manure. The floor of the hopper has a conveyer belt that can push the Manure towards the back, where it is pressed into rotating corkscrews that will eject it out to the field. The entire device is mounted on wheels, with an attachment point that can be hooked to a towing vehicle.
Manure Spreaders must be filled with (Solid) Manure in order to work. This type of fertilizer is only available as a byproduct of Cow husbandry - Cows will automatically produce it as long as their shed is bedded with Straw. It accumulates into a special enclosure next to the Cow Pasture, from which it can be loaded into Manure Spreaders with the help of a Front Loader.
Once dragged out to a field, unfolded, and activated, the Manure Spreader will continuously expend its supply of Manure. Any ground within the working arc of the Manure Spreader will become fertilized instantly. Manure Spreaders do not care whether the ground they are working has already been fertilized - they will continue expending Manure until they are turned off.
Manure Spreaders expend Manure very rapidly, and will often run out of material when working larger fields. More than 23,000 liters of Manure are required to fertilize only 1 hectare of field. Once empty, the Spreader needs to be taken back to the Cow Pasture for a refill. This process of ferrying the Manure Spreader back and forth from the pasture to the field is the primary reason why Manure Spreaders are not very effective for fertilizing fields. However, once again, the material they use is essentially free of charge, and requires little more than a large herd of Cows and machinery that can produce Straw for those cows.
Creating Manure
- Main article: Manure (Farming Simulator 15)
Before any Manure Spreader can be used, you first need to secure a large amount of Manure. Unlike other fertilizers, Manure is not infinitely available - you must produce it yourself.
Manure is a natural byproduct of Cow husbandry. It is only created if your Cow Shed has any amount of Straw in it. As long as there is even 1 liter of Straw in the shed, each Cow produces 190 liters of Manure per day. This may sound like a lot, but in actuality even 100 cows will take quite some time to produce enough Manure to fertilizer larger fields, such as those on Westbridge Hills. If the Cow Shed runs out of Straw, no Manure will be produced.
Manure accumulates into a small enclosure next to the Cow Pasture. It has three dark grey walls, an opening on the front side, and no roof. Manure will visibly pile up in this enclosure as it is produced. You may drive into the enclosure to see how much Manure is currently there. The enclosure can hold no more than 100,000 liters of Manure at any given time, and Manure production will automatically stop if there is no room left.
Towing the Spreader
Different Manure Spreaders have different attachment points on them, and so can be towed by different sets of vehicles.
The smallest Manure Spreader, the Bergmann M 1080, has a Drawbar (Bolt) attachment, which only fits small and mid-sized tractors. It can be indirectly attached to larger tractors, if a Weight is used as an adapter.
Larger Manure Spreaders have a Drawbar (Ball), which can be attached to any tractor in the game. It can also be attached to the Lizard PiQup. Furthermore, you can attach these Spreaders to some of the Harvesters - smaller Harvesters will have trouble getting the hitches together, and may not be able to hook up at all.
Despite the fact that all these vehicles can be used for towing, only certain vehicles will actually be able to operate the device properly. Even towing itself can be difficult if the vehicle is too weak, when towing uphill, or if the Spreader is full of Manure at the time.
This is especially true once the device is turned on. Any towing vehicle can turn on the Manure Spreader (except the Lizard PiQup, which does not get the option at all), but once the device is activated it actually weakens the towing vehicle by quite a bit. The largest Manure Spreader may only work properly with very large tractors. Read the individual articles for each Manure Spreader to learn what vehicles are suitable to tow and operate it.
Loading Manure
Once a Manure Spreader has been attached to a towing vehicle, it needs to be filled with Manure before it can start working.
Manure Spreaders can only be filled with Manure at the enclosure in the Cow poo
Pasture (see previous section). However, unlike other fertilization machines, a Manure Spreader cannot simply be driven up to the manure to initiate automated refilling. It must be manually loaded with the use of a Front Loader, equipped with a Universal Bucket or similar device.
The Front Loader can drive its bucket into the Manure pile to scoop up that manure. It must then drive up to the Manure Spreader, put its bucket over the Spreader's open-top hopper, and tip the bucket to let the Manure fall into the hopper.
This process requires some skill. If the bucket is not properly aligned, it can spill the Manure on the ground - causing it to be lost. You must make sure that the Manure falls into the hopper.
Fertilizing the Field
As long as the Manure Spreader's tank contains at least 1 liter of Manure, and is attached to a towing vehicle, it can be activated.
As soon as the Spreader is activated, it will immediately begin dispensing Manure within its working area. Different Manure Spreaders expend their Manure at different rates, but that rate is often very high (anywhere from 75 to 325 liters per second, with the machines available in the base game). The Manure Spreader does not care whether it is currently on a field, nor whether that field is already fertilized - it will continue expending its fertilizer until turned off.
The working area of a Manure Spreader is in the shape of an arc. The sides of the arc extend outwards more than 60 degrees to either side of the machine. The widest part of the arc is equal to the "working width" of the Manure Spreader you are using, and can range from 6.0 to 15.0 meters with the machines available in the base game. Any piece of field within that area will instantly become fertilized. A piece of field that was already fertilized does not gain any additional benefit from being fertilized again, but the Manure Spreader does not care - it will expend fertilizer anyway.
Fertilization can be performed at any time, but will only affect the next crop that becomes ripe on the fertilized field. That crop will give double yields, and the soil underneath it will become immediately unfertilized. Therefore, you may postpone your fertilization until just before the field becomes ripe, and still get the same results as if you had fertilized the field before it was even sowed. However, if you fertilize a field when it already contains ripened crops, those crops will not give a double yield - but the next harvest will. Until a crop becomes ripe on top of it, fertilized soil will not become unfertilized no matter what you do to it.
Hired Workers
You may use Hired Workers to operate a Manure Spreader.
Manure Spreaders are fairly reliable in terms of coverage; Hired Workers should have no problem covering the entire field with few or no missed patches. You do not require much maneuvering space at the end of the field, especially if using a smaller Spreader and Tractor.
Note that Hired Workers can continue working when they run out of Manure in the tank. However, once the tank is empty, the Hired Worker will automatically purchase more Manure as necessary, at an incredibly high price (about $30,500 per hectare!). This price is far higher than that same hectare can produce in profits, even when planted with the most profitable crops. The solution is to either use automated Manure Spreaders only on limited-size fields, or make sure to dismiss the Hired Worker and go refill the tank every time it runs out.
Refilling
The smallest Manure Spreader in the game is incapable of covering any field in one go. The largest Manure Spreader can work the smaller fields In the Bjornholm map without stopping for a refill, but even this Spreader cannot work medium-sized fields in one go. On Westbridge Hills, most fields are too large for even the largest Manure Spreader.
This presents a problem, since there is only one refilling point on the map - the Cow Pasture - and you will need to operate a Front Loader to refill the machine (see above). This means a lot of effort each time the machine needs refilling (which as explained above, will be quite often).
There is no way to fill the Manure Spreader from any other source. There is no way to fill a "secondary" tank with Manure and drive it to the field where it can serve as such a refilling point. This is another important disadvantage that the Manure Spreaders have in comparison to some other fertilization devices.