Tom Wolf, widely known as "the Nozzle Guy," talks with Dan Aberhart about a career built on answering the technical questions other agronomists avoid, particularly around sprayer nozzle selection, pressure, and drift. He makes the case that nozzles are consistently the most overlooked purchase on a new sprayer despite offering some of the best returns available, critiques what he sees as stagnant sprayer design from major manufacturers, and reflects on the empathy and curiosity he considers central to good communication, on the farm and off it.
Tom Wolf, known across the industry as "the Nozzle Guy," spent his career answering the questions other agronomists couldn't: what nozzle, what pressure, what rate, for exactly this field and this product. He built that expertise into a public research career and later an independent consulting practice, after growing up on a small farm in Germany and later Manitoba.
Beyond the technical detail, this conversation is about communication. Tom talks through why nozzles get picked last at the sprayer counter even though they're often the most cost-effective fix available, what he thinks is missing from modern sprayer design, and why he believes good public service, and good agronomy advice, starts with genuine curiosity about the person asking the question.
What's Inside
- Why nozzles are consistently the last, most overlooked decision in a sprayer purchase, and what that costs a farm in lost efficiency
- What Tom sees as the real gap in modern sprayer design: booms that can't stay low and level at field speed, and plumbing systems built for engineers, not operators
- How low-drift nozzle technology becomes an agronomic tool by buying growers extra spray hours before weather shuts a field down
- Why Tom believes real communication starts with curiosity, not with trying to convince someone you're right
- The data-sharing philosophy behind his public spray drift research, and why he gives away work that could have stayed proprietary
- What it meant to leave the family farm for good, and how growing up between rural Germany, small-town Manitoba, and inner-city Saskatoon shaped how he sees agriculture today
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