![Schweizer 269C (VH-FUJ) takes off at Devonport Airport](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Schweizer_269C_%28VH-FUJ%29_takes_off_at_Devonport_Airport.jpg)
Aerial application, or what is informally referred to as crop dusting, involves spraying crops with crop protection products from an
agricultural aircraft
An agricultural aircraft is an aircraft that has been built or converted for agricultural use – usually aerial application of pesticides (crop dusting) or fertilizer (aerial topdressing); in these roles they are referred to as "crop duster ...
. Planting certain types of seed are also included in aerial application. The specific spreading of fertilizer is also known as ''
aerial topdressing
Aerial topdressing is the aerial application of fertilisers over farmland using agricultural aircraft. It was developed in New Zealand in the 1940s and rapidly adopted elsewhere in the 1950s.
Origins
Previous aerial applications
The first k ...
''in some countries. Many countries have severely limited aerial application of
pesticide
Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and lampri ...
s and other products because of environmental and public health hazards like
spray drift; most notably, the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
banned it outright with a few highly restricted exceptions in 2009,
effectively ending the practice in all member states.
Agricultural aircraft are highly specialized, purpose-built aircraft. Today's agricultural aircraft are often powered by turbine engines of up to and can carry as much as of crop protection product.
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s are sometimes used, and some aircraft serve double duty as
water bomber
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
s in areas prone to
wildfires
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identif ...
. These aircraft are referred to as SEAT, or "single engine air tankers."
History
Aerial seed sowing
The first known aerial application of agricultural materials was by John Chaytor, who in 1906 spread seed over a swamped valley floor in
Wairoa
Wairoa is a town and territorial authority district in New Zealand's North Island. The town is the northernmost in the Hawke's Bay region, and is located on the northern shore of Hawke Bay at the mouth of the Wairoa River and to the west of ...
,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
using a
hot air balloon
A hot air balloon is a lighter-than-air aircraft consisting of a bag, called an envelope, which contains heated air. Suspended beneath is a gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule), which carries p ...
with mobile tethers. Aerial sowing of seed still continues to this day with cover crop applications and rice planting.
Crop dusting
![Etienne Dormoy and John A](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Etienne_Dormoy_and_John_A._Macready_in_front_of_1st_crop_duster_aircraft.JPG)
The first known use of a heavier-than-air machine to disperse products occurred on August 3, 1921.
Crop dusting was developed under the joint efforts of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
and the
U.S. Army Signal Corps
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, colors = Orange and white
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' research station at
McCook Field
McCook Field was an airfield and aviation experimentation station in Dayton, Ohio, United States. It was operated by the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps and its successor the United States Army Air Service from 1917 to 1927. It was named fo ...
in
Dayton, Ohio
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Day ...
.
Under the direction of McCook engineer
Etienne Dormoy, a
United States Army Air Service
The United States Army Air Service (USAAS)Craven and Cate Vol. 1, p. 9 (also known as the ''"Air Service"'', ''"U.S. Air Service"'' and before its legislative establishment in 1920, the ''"Air Service, United States Army"'') was the aerial war ...
Curtiss JN4
Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company (1909 – 1929) was an American aircraft manufacturer originally founded by Glenn Hammond Curtiss and Augustus Moore Herring in Hammondsport, New York. After significant commercial success in its first decades ...
Jenny piloted by
John A. Macready
John Arthur Macready (October 14, 1887 – September 15, 1979) was an American test pilot and aviator. He was the only three-time recipient of the Mackay Trophy, receiving the trophy three consecutive years. Macready won the MacKay Trophy thr ...
was modified at McCook Field to spread
lead arsenate
Lead hydrogen arsenate, also called lead arsenate, acid lead arsenate or LA, chemical formula PbHAsO4, is an inorganic insecticide used primarily against the potato beetle.
Lead arsenate was the most extensively used arsenical insecticide.Peryea F. ...
to kill
catalpa sphinx caterpillars
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symph ...
at a
catalpa
''Catalpa'', commonly called catalpa or catawba, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to warm temperate and subtropical regions of North America, the Caribbean, and East Asia.
Description
Most ''Catalpa'' are decidu ...
farm near
Troy, Ohio
Troy is a city in and the county seat of Miami County, Ohio, Miami County, Ohio, United States, located north of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton. The population was 26,305 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the largest city in Miami Cou ...
in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
.
The first test was considered highly successful.
The first commercial cropdusting operations began in 1924 in
Macon, Georgia
Macon ( ), officially Macon–Bibb County, is a consolidated city-county in the U.S. state of Georgia. Situated near the fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is located southeast of Atlanta and lies near the geographic center of the state of Geo ...
by Huff-Daland Crop Dusting, which was co-founded by McCook Field test pilot Lt. Harold R. Harris.
Use of
insecticide
Insecticides are substances used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and by consumers. Insecticides are claimed to b ...
and
fungicide
Fungicides are biocidal chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill parasitic fungi or their spores. A fungistatic inhibits their growth. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in critical losses of yield, quality, ...
for crop dusting slowly spread in the Americas and, to a lesser extent, other nations in the 1930s. The name 'crop dusting' originated here, as actual dust was spread across the crops. Today, aerial applicators use liquid crop protection products in very small doses.
Top dressing
Aerial topdressing is the aerial application of fertilisers over farmland using agricultural aircraft. It was developed in New Zealand in the 1940s and rapidly adopted elsewhere in the 1950s.
Purpose-built aircraft
In 1951, Leland Snow designed the first aircraft specifically built for aerial application, the S-1. In 1957, The
Grumman G-164 Ag-Cat was the first aircraft designed by a major company for agricultural aviation. Currently, the most common agricultural aircraft are the
Air Tractor
Air Tractor Inc. is a United States aircraft manufacturer based in Olney, Texas. Founded in 1978, the company began manufacturing a new agricultural aircraft derived from the S-2B aircraft (designed by founder Leland Snow's previous compa ...
,
Cessna Ag-wagon,
Gippsland GA200
The Gippsland GA-200 Fatman is a low-wing single-engine agricultural aircraft built by GippsAero.
Development
Based loosely on the Piper Pawnee, the first two prototypes used damaged Pawnee frames. The third prototype, built in 1992, was th ...
,
Grumman Ag Cat
The Grumman G-164 Ag Cat is a single-engined biplane agricultural aircraft, developed by Grumman in the 1950s.
Development
In 1955, Grumman preliminary design engineers Joe Lippert and Arthur Koch proposed the design for a "purpose-built" cr ...
,
PZL-106 KRUK
The PZL-106 Kruk ( en, Raven) is a Polish agricultural aircraft designed and built by WSK PZL Warszawa-Okęcie (later PZL "Warszawa-Okęcie" and now EADS-PZL).
Design and development
The PZL-106 was developed as a modern agricultural aircraft ...
,
M-18 Dromader
The PZL-Mielec M-18 ''Dromader'' ( Polish: "Dromedary") is a single engine agricultural aircraft that is manufactured by PZL-Mielec in Poland. The aircraft is used mainly as a cropduster or firefighting machine.
Development
PZL-Mielec, then know ...
,
PAC Fletcher Pac or PAC may refer to:
Military
* Rapid Deployment Force (Malaysia), an armed forces unit
* Patriot Advanced Capability, of the MIM-104 Patriot missile
* Civil Defense Patrols (''Patrullas de Autodefensa Civil''), Guatemalan militia and paramili ...
,
Piper PA-36 Pawnee Brave
The Piper PA-36 Pawnee Brave is a 1970s American single-engined, low-wing, propeller-driven agricultural plane built by Piper Aircraft
Piper Aircraft, Inc. is a manufacturer of general aviation aircraft, located at the Vero Beach Regional Air ...
,
Embraer EMB 202 Ipanema
The Embraer EMB 202 Ipanema is a Brazilian agricultural aircraft used for aerial application, particularly crop dusting. It is produced by Indústria Aeronáutica Neiva, a subsidiary of Embraer located in Botucatu, Brazil. The latest version o ...
, and
Rockwell Thrush Commander
The Ayres Thrush, formerly the Snow S-2,Macdonald, 1964. p.138. Aero Commander Ag Commander, and Rockwell Thrush Commander, is an American agricultural aircraft produced by Ayres Corporation and more recently by Thrush Aircraft. It is one of the ...
, but multi-purpose
helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...
s are also used.
Unmanned aerial application
![YamahaRMax](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/YamahaRMax.jpg)
Since the late 1990s,
unmanned aerial vehicles
An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft without any human pilot, crew, or passengers on board. UAVs are a component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS), which includes adding a ground-based controller ...
have also been used for agricultural spraying. This phenomenon started in Japan and South Korea, where mountainous terrain and relatively small family-owned farms required lower-cost and higher-precision spraying. , the use of UAV crop dusters, such as the
Yamaha R-MAX, is being expanded to the United States for use in spraying at vineyards.
Concerns
The
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Rese ...
keeps track of relevant research. Historically, there has been concerns about the effects of aerial applications of pesticides and the chemicals' effects as they spread in the air. For example, the aerial application of
mancozeb
Mancozeb is a dithiocarbamate non-systemic agricultural fungicide with multi-site, protective action on contact. It is a combination of two other dithiocarbamates: maneb and zineb. The mixture controls many fungal diseases in a wide range of field ...
is likely a source of concern for pregnant women.
Bans
Since the 1970s, multiple countries started to limit or ban the aerial application of pesticides,
fertilizer
A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...
s, and other products out of environmental and public health concerns, in particular from
spray drift. Most notably, in 2009, the
European Union
The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...
prohibited aerial spraying of pesticides with a few highly-restricted exceptions in article 9 of ''
Directive 2009/128/EC of the
European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
and of the
Council
A council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate, or make decisions. A council may function as a legislature, especially at a town, city or county/shire level, but most legislative bodies at the state/provincial or natio ...
establishing a framework for Community action to achieve the sustainable use of pesticides'', which effectively ended most aerial application in all member states and overseas territories.
Guidelines
The
United States Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is an independent executive agency of the United States federal government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it be ...
provides guideline documents and hosts webinars about best practices for aerial application.
In 2010, the
United States Forest Service
The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands. The Forest Service manages of land. Major divisions of the agency inc ...
collected public comments to use within a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which was developed because the
Montana
Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...
Federal District Court
The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...
ruled that aerial application of fire retardants during wildfires violated the Endangered Species Act.
See also
*
Pesticide application
Pesticide application refers to the practical way in which pesticides (including herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, or nematode control agents) are delivered to their ''biological targets'' (''e.g.'' pest organism, crop or other plant). Publ ...
*
Pesticide drift
Pesticide drift refers to the unintentional diffusion of pesticides and the potential negative effects of pesticide application, including off-target contamination due to spray drift as well as runoff from plants or soil. This can lead to damage ...
*
Sprayer
A sprayer is a device used to spray a liquid, where sprayers are commonly used for projection of water, weed killers, crop performance materials, pest maintenance chemicals, as well as manufacturing and production line ingredients. In agricult ...
*
Ultra-low volume Ultra-low volume (ULV) application of pesticides has been defined as spraying at Volume Application Rate(VAR) of less than 5 L/ha for field crops or less than 50 L/ha for tree/bush crops. VARs of 0.25 – 2 L/ha are typical for aerial ULV appl ...
spray application
*
Aerial spraying of herbicides in Colombia
References
{{Authority control
Agriculture
Crop protection
Occupations in aviation
Aerial application