Crop Spraying

[Phoenix09]

Not exactly General Aviation but I am sure that someone in here will know.

Does crop spraying using aircraft still take place within the UK?

Thanks.

[LowNSlow]

Very little as I understand it. The chap who owns the airfield I'm based on gave it up in the late 80's / early 90's. The only reason for doing it was that a conventional tractor and spray trailer could destroy up to 10% of the crop that it was trying to protect. With the advent of very narrow wheeled specialised spraying machines the loss rate came down to a much more acceptable figure and expensive aerial crop spraying was doomed in the UK.

[Lister Noble]

The main reason for the massive reduction in crop spraying is that fewer and fewer agro-chemicals have approval for aerial application.
Lister:)

[stiknruda]

I understand that aerial application still happens in the north of England and southern Highlands to heather on certain grouse moors, albeit by helicopter.

Stik

[Lister Noble]

Inded it does Stik,the heather/bracken control product is Asulox manufactured by Rhone-Poulenc,now owned by Bayer.
Cleared for aerial application,mostly helicopter work.
The product is so benign that years ago at agricultural shows they used to have goldfish swimming around in it,until the RSPCA got to hear of it!
Lister:)

[MoateAir]

Sadly, it was more or less legislated out of business in the late 80's. We were very restricted as to what we could spray, and with very negative public opinion, the industry eventually all but ceased.

One of our biggest earners was a product called Spodnam DC, nothing more than a basic 'glue' that was sprayed onto oilseed rape to stop the pods from shattering when harvested. It was a totally harmless product, but the flak we used to get from various locals was unbelieveable. One person claimed that his 14 year old Ford Capri had its vynyl roof peel off because of the dangerous chemicals that were being applied by air. It had nothing to do with the farmer down the road on his tractor spraying sulphuric acid onto his potatoes to burn the top of the plant off, in 15kt winds directly onto the housing estate the previous day. That must have been safe.:uhoh: We were in excess of a mile away, and downwind, but it must have been our fault.:*

I'm surprised that aerial top dressing doesn't still go on though. That was a very useful task that kept us busy when nothing else had any chance of getting onto the field due to waterlogging.

As LowNslow says, the expense also contributed to the demise. back in the late 80's we were spraying 35 acres to a load, and charging £3/acre. I guess that we avaeraged about 300 acres each day, mainly working only dawn and dusk due to wind restrictions, but on occasion, 1000 acres a day was easily acheived.

I understand that work is still done on behalf of the Forestry Commision in Wales and Scotland, and heather/bracken control on the Scottish moors. I saw a Jet Ranger working up there last summer, but he was miles from his landing site, so I couldn't go visit them. Wonderful memories.

[Phoenix09]

Thanks for the replies everybody. Very informative.

I have been asked to re-write an Operations Note on incidents involving crop spraying aircraft and this could be just the information I need to get out of it! :ok:

[FrogPrince]

I presume the world of crop spraying for defoliant purposes has moved on from the days of Agent Orange ?

( Thinking of weed, poppies and coca plants, if you can follow my line of questioning. )

[Pitts2112]

The agent may no longer be Orange, but I believe the USAF still has one unit capable of doing the spraying; an Air National Guard unit out of Rickenbacher ANG Base in Columbus Ohio. They used C-123 Providers during the Vietnam era, upgraded to old C-130s in the late 80s.

Found this:
infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/airplanes_spray_for_mosquitoes.htm

Pitts2112

[172driver]

Don't know if this is of interest to you, Phoenix09, but there's still large-scale crop dusting going on in Spain. Mind you, some fields there are the size of an English county (only exaggerating slightly.....;) ).

[Phil Space]

I doubt any aerial crop spraying now takes place on the UK lowlands. Government figures for 2002 (the latest I can find) show no fixed wing operations with spraying mostly confined to bracken on moorland. PDG Helicopters at Dalcross Inverness do a lot of forestry spraying in Scotland.
http://www.pdg-helicopters.co.uk/Lama_Forestry.jpg
Ludham in Norfolk was a base for crop spraying many years ago.I seem to recall Chafers operated crop sprayers from Bourne in the 60's.
Here are a few earlier pictures of a demonstration in Wales in the 1950's.
http://www.gtj.org.uk/storage/Components/417/41787_2.JPG
Anyone know what this helicopter is?
http://www.gtj.org.uk/storage/Components/417/41786_2.JPG

[Them thar hills]

That's an early-model Hiller.
TTH

[AerBabe]

I remember reading a couple of years ago about a farmer who hired a helicopter & pilot to hover above his tomatoes. Apparently, the air current kept the frost off... :confused:

[Barcli]

cleaned thousands of tonnes of blackcurrants for ribena years ago by blowing out the rubbish with a low and slow Hughes 500 once they were spread out on a dissused runway - turned them over and over with a snowblower - worked a treat !!

[Monocock]

"Geek mode on"

It is worth mentioning that the advancements in agrochemical technology in the past 20 years has also meant that aerial applications of the vast majority of chemicals would be inefficient.

There are many rules affecting the use of agrochem's these days that were not even thought of back in the eighties. LERAPS to name one governs the use of such products in certain proximities to watercourses etc. The accuracy of aerial applications mean that this method of application would just not suffice these days.

Many of todays chemicals require very specific droplet size to hit the leaf and I am doubtful that the distance from the wing mounted boom to the top and bottom of the leaf can be achieved by an Auster overhead at 10 feet!

In recent years, public footpaths have now become the "vein of the Berghaus brigade". The backlash from a Piper Pawnee passing overhead with 200 litres per hectare of well mixed strobilurin, triazole and plant growth regulator doesn't bear thinking about (even though in that level of dilution it is harmless).

Being a BASIS (agronomic qualification) trained farmer with an unhealthy interest in aviation I have often considered (and researched) the potential here. My conclusion has always been that it just 'aint gonna' happen in this country. Added to this, it is unlikely that a succesful new business in any other country would enjoy much longevity with restrictions increasing worldwide at the current rate.

"Geek mode off":8

[nouseforaname]

I'd love to think that a crop spraying emphasis may aid planning permission for a grass landing strip.

My long term plan is to have a farm West of London and have a grass landing strip where I/we can keep our plane. If I could say that I needed to have a landing strip to be able to dust my crops (which will conviniently be there!) 15 times a year...i'm sure it would be a good aid. Also a lot of strips around the UK got their planning this way years ago.

[Monocock]

You want to buy a farm???:hmm:

Be prepared to lose a fortune and the dream can come true!!!;)

[Formally Known As]

Phoenix09

"Not exactly General Aviation........"

Well put it this way, it is more general aviation than private flying. Crop spaying is carried out by proffesional pilots for "hire and reward" So IMHO your thread does not belong in this forum, or is it the case the moderators are so out of touch with "real aviation" they haven't ever heard of this line of aviation?

[Phoenix09]

Well put it this way, it is more general aviation than private flying. Crop spaying is carried out by proffesional pilots for "hire and reward" So IMHO your thread does not belong in this forum, or is it the case the moderators are so out of touch with "real aviation" they haven't ever heard of this line of aviation?
Indeed... however I knew that the knowledgeable folk that frequent this forum would be able to answer my question. The nature of the posts above have proven this to be exactly the right forum for an intelligent, timely and friendly response.

Thank you everybody. :)

[MoateAir]

"I'd love to think that a crop spraying emphasis may aid planning permission for a grass landing strip"

You might get away with justifying a strip for the aerial application of granular fertiliser (i.e. Nitram), but would struggle to get it on the basis of spraying alone, for the reasons that Mono has stated above. But then, I gather the CAA still classify it all as 'Aerial Application' regardless of what you're plans would be.

I still believe there is terrific scope for the application of granular fertiliser by air in the UK, the only problem being that it tends to be done from March to May only, and only when the ground is too wet to get on it by more conventional means.

[Lister Noble]

We also used to pay around £/acre or £7.50/hectare for spreading fertiliser (ammonium nitrate 34.5%N) in the 80's.
Used it mostly on trial plots to eliminate the tractor wheeling damage to the crop.
The chap used a Pawnee which carried 500kgs payload,and he handled it like a fighter around low level obstacles!
I imagine the current fuel prices would hike the cost up quite a bit nowadays.
We also used a helicopter,again flown incredibly close to power cables and trees but somehow not quite as impressive as the fixed wing stuff.
Lister:)

[Mandator]

Nouseforaname: Don't mention crop spraying when you apply for planning permission. If you do, you will have every green-wellied tree-hugger within a thousand miles objecting to your application. If you are only going to spray your crops 15 times a year (that number of times you must be talking blight in spuds in a very hot and very wet summer) you should operate off a convenient field headland or farm roadway, which under the 28-day rule does not require planning permission. We have frequently operated Pawnees out of convenient pastures or stubble fields.

Moateair: Dont bank on the granular stuff. Many farmers in the main agricultural areas (Lincs/East Anglian fens) are going over to liquid fertilisers. Trouble with that stuff is that it has to go on at such a rate that a Pawnee pilot would need to be heaving on the dump handle to get it out of the hopper at a high enough rate. You are right to say that aircraft come into their own when we have a wet spring, but when did that last happen? You can no longer afford to keep aircraft and crews on stand-by, and pay the CAA fees and insurance, for the calls that may never come. Seeding stubble turnips was a nice little job for the Pawnee - until 2001 when, for a year, foot & mouth came and stopped sheep being brought from the north to the barley stubbles in East Anglia.

[MoateAir]

Your quite right of course. The small amount of available work, and the high costs associated with getting set up in the first place now make it a definate non-starter. Our aircraft used to do the winter in Greece just to keep them busy all year round. They've since been exported out there permenantly, so I don't know what became of them. For each aircraft we had 2 support wagons, each with a crew of 3, plus pilot, plus ground 'mapper' who worked a day or so ahead of the aircraft, so a team of 8 per aircraft. Crikey, doing the sums on that would make it far too expensive at todays rates to even consider.

[DB6]

Can't read the phrase Crop Spraying these days with a straight face since reading Roger's Profanisaurus. To quote:
crop spraying v. To have diarrhoea. As opposed to cable laying (qv). A doctor may enquire: 'So what's the old ****ter been up to then? Cable laying or crop spraying?'
Sorry about lowering the tone a bit :E .