Crop Spraying

[ravenx]

How come we don't see people crop straying in the UK. I think I'm right in saying it's still reasonably popular in the US and in Australia - so why not here ???

[josephshankes]

In a nutshell the conservationists helped killed it off. Also the CAA would like to have banned it but NFU is a very powerful lobby.

Instead the CAA effectively kicked it into touch by over regulation.

Can understand the public point of view, as people don't like "getting their garden sprayed."

[SLF]

Smaller fields too I guess

[Dead_Heading]

Tractors are generally cheaper, unless you are talking about the V-A-S-T fields that they have over there.

Massey-Fergusson all the way!

[Kurtz]

I spent several years crop-spraying in the UK, great fun. Can't remember the figures, but certainly one of the significant selling points was that in fact it was cheaper than using a tractor based purely on the amount of field sacrificed to tractor and trailer (if applic) wheels. It also had the great benefit of swift application, which (as I recall) was particularly critical for things like potato blight and a type of insect which attacked grain whose name I forget.
Marvellous job, staright out of HM forces, and hurtling around at 60 knots and two to three feet, under the power lines, under the telephone wires. Rule of thumb - if a combine can get under here, so can I. Didn't always work, but was very fortunate never to hit anything thicker than a phone line! Several pheasants and partridge etx in the canopy, and loads desperately flying ahead of you only to rise through the rotor blades with a thump of blood, bones and feathers all over the windshield.

As someone said, killed by over regulation and compensation culture, though one has to sympathise with people getting the downwind spraydrift all over cars, gardens, houses, fishfarms, etc. Worst thing, thinking back was how as pilots we were assured the stuff was relatively harmless (no probs mate, you could DRINK a pint of this!!!) and now discovering a lot of the relevant chemical is banned and just BTW carcinogenic. Great times though, but not a career. Certainly wouldn't like to try any of that again.

[rotornut]

Crop spraying in Canada

In Canada, at least in the prairie provinces where fields are fairly large, high clearance sprayers have replaced a lot of airplanes. These machines have narrow tires and high clearance to avoid crop damage, wide booms - generally around 90 ft. or more, and go fairly quickly compared to a conventional tractor. However, there are still a few aerial ag outfits out west but it's a tough business competing against the ground sprayers on field crops.

[phnuff]

I remember when growing up in Hertfordshire, there was still some spraying going on, mostly by Bill Bowker's organisation based at Hitchin Intercontinental Airport (aka Rush Green). Until recently, there was a Pawnee there which I believe at least had been used for spraying at some stage in its life.

[Dead_Heading]

Didn't realise that ^^, but modern dedicated crop sprayers like the ones made by Frasier (Sp?-can't remember) surely cut this down, thin wheels and long arms?

What are the regulations the CAA have put on it? minimum height/amount of stuff?