A Wisconsin company that has supplied aluminum spray booms for Case IH sprayer product lines has been brought in-house.
CNH Industrial, owner of the Case IH and New Holland brands, announced May 23 it has bought Specialty Enterprises, which is billed as North America’s biggest maker of aluminum spray booms for farm applications as well as boom accessories such as cradles, swing arms, transoms and bracketry.
Specialty, which has one plant at Wautoma, about 130 km southwest of Green Bay, has been a supplier to Case IH since 2020, CNH said. Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.
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“The direct ownership of spray boom production is the latest step in Case IH’s strategic road map for its sprayer product platform,” CNH said, and the use of “longer, lighter” booms has allowed for “accelerated development and deployment” of new technologies.
Aluminum spray booms are up to 50 per cent lighter than their steel counterparts, CNH said, making for better weight distribution and less field compaction and rutting.
Specialty, which started in 1987 as a welding and fabrication job shop, tacked to specialize in sprayer boom manufacturing by 2010, designing the Legacy line and, in 2015, the “ultra-durable” Millennium line of booms used by manufacturers including Deere, Agco, Hagie and Buhler Versatile, among others.
Specialty’s sprayer boom design incorporates multiple patents to “virtually eliminate” the fatigue cracking associated with other aluminum boom designs, CNH said, noting the aluminum used in Specialty products is both sourced and extruded in the U.S. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
