It's hard to believe that the Tigers were once used for crop dusting.
So under powered that I can't imagine them carrying much of a load. Minimum fuel would be the first consideration.
In 1956, I was among several RAAF QFI's from No 1 BFTS Uranquinty NSW, that quietly took rec leave and went crop dusting with Air Farm P/L based at Tamworth. At Uranquinty we instructed on Tiger Moths and Wirraways and easily met the minimum requirements of 500 hours on Tiger Moths stipulated in the short term contract with Air Farm. The manager was Basil Brown who founded East West Airlines. We did two weeks at a time flying crop duster Tiger Moths which had a hopper instead of the front seat. It was hard and dirty work often flying eight hours a day but the pay was good. We operated from strips around the Armidale area where density altitudes could be 6000 ft. The Tiger Moth was not a good sea level performer at the best of times so 6000 ft DA really stretched the friendship.
We regularly flew (staggered was more like it) with 450 lbs super phosphate in the front which was the equivalent of 2.5 passengers in the front seat. The CG was probably way out of the forward limit and we needed full back cheese-cutter (mechanical elevator trim) for take off. Full throttle was needed to fly. Every landing was seriously short field technique to minimize ground roll as the Tiger Moth did not come with the luxury of wheel brakes. But it had a tail skid which acted as a brake if you kept the stick hard back.
Minimum fuel was unheard of. You filled the tank first flight of the day usually 0600 and topped it as required during the day. I don't know what the max structural weight for take off in the Tiger Moth but two pilots and full fuel was normal for sea level. We certainly exceeded that for every take off and then some.
On my first take off with full hopper at Guyra NSW, I could barely maintain 200 feet to the drop zone even with full throttle. After having spread the load over the drop zone I returned for a short field landing and pulled up at the loader who quickly poured super phosphate into the hopper while I kept the engine running at idle (no brakes, remember?). I heard a frightful oath from the loader who happened to be the farmer paying for the load, and saw him point to under the Moth. I cut the engine, removed my dust covered flying goggles, and climbed out.
I then understood why he was so pissed off. Being a novice crop duster on my first operational mission it turned out I had forgotten to close the bomb bay doors (the dump valve) after the last run. When the phosphate poured into the hopper it went straight through and poured out at the bottom on to the ground. My zero fuel weight was thus only me and my Tiger. No payload. The farmer gave me a dirty look and made me shovel the stuff from the ground into the hopper. That was back breaking work. Phosphate was expensive so I guess he had a point.
I finished my two week agreement and went back to Uranquinty a bit richer financially, but to the relative safety of teaching sprog trainee pilots.
Postscript: About six QFI's were involved at various times with the Air Farm flying. The Commanding Officer of No 1 BFTS, Wing Commander Keith Bolitho DFC didn't know about it. We just took recreation leave for two weeks at a time. Some recreation that's for sure.
One of our bunch was Flight Sergeant Ted Dillon. Ted had hurt his ankle playing football and had it strapped up with plaster. He heard we were making money crop dusting so he hacked off the plaster and went to Tamworth. He pranged a Tiger Moth while crop dusting and broke the other leg. On arrival back at Uranquinty, questions were asked about his two legs being strapped up instead of the one when he had gone on leave. The CO twigged something was fishy about his pilots disappearing for two weeks and coming back with more folding money than when they left. Add that to Ted's broken leg in mysterious circumstances. We all admitted guilt. The CO threatened us with Courts Martial if we did that again.