Aerial application, or 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 duste ...

. 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 used to control pests. They include herbicides, insecticides, nematicides, fungicides, and many others (see table). The most common of these are herbicides, which account for approximately 50% of all p ...

s and other products because of environmental and public health hazards like

spray drift Pesticide drift, also known as spray drift, is the unintentional diffusion of pesticides toward nontarget species. It is one of the most negative effects of pesticide application. Drift can damage human health, environment, and crops. Together ...

; most notably, the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

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 (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s are sometimes used, and some aircraft serve double duty as

water bomber Aerial firefighting, also known as waterbombing, is the use of aircraft and other aerial resources to combat wildfires. The types of aircraft used include fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. Smokejumpers and rappellers are also classified as ...

s in areas prone to

wildfires A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...

. 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 the largest town in the Wairoa District and the northernmost town in the Hawke's Bay region of New Zealand's North Island. It is located on the northern shore of Hawke Bay at the mouth of the Wairoa River and to the west of Mā ...

, New Zealand, 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 carri ...

with mobile tethers. Aerial sowing of seed still continues to this day with cover crop applications and rice planting.

Crop dusting

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 an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and production ...

and the U.S. Army Signal Corps' 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 f ...

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

. 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 warf ...

Curtiss JN4 Jenny piloted by

John A. Macready John Arthur Macready (October 14, 1887 – September 15, 1979) was an American test pilot and aviator. He is the only three-time recipient of the Mackay Trophy, and they were awarded in three consecutive years: once for altitude flight, once ...

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 formerly used to control pests including gypsy moth, potato beetle and rats. Lead arsenate was the most extensively ...

to kill

catalpa sphinx ''Ceratomia catalpae'', the catalpa sphinx, is a hawk moth of the family Sphingidae. The species was first described by Jean Baptiste Boisduval in 1875. Other common names are the Catawba worm, or Catalpa sphinx. Range ''Ceratomia catalpae'' ...

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 Sym ...

at a

catalpa ''Catalpa'' (, ), commonly also called 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, United States. The population was 26,305 at the 2020 census, making it Miami County's largest city and Ohio's 55th-largest. Troy lies along the Great Miami River about north of Da ...

in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. 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 Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. Situated near the Atlantic Seaboard fall line, fall line of the Ocmulgee River, it is southeast of Atlanta and near the ...

by Huff-Daland Crop Dusting, which was co-founded by McCook Field test pilot Lt. Harold R. Harris. Use of

insecticide Insecticides are pesticides used to kill insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against insect eggs and larvae, respectively. The major use of insecticides is in agriculture, but they are also used in home and garden settings, i ...

and

fungicide Fungicides are pesticides used to kill parasitic fungi or their spores. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in losses of yield and quality. Fungicides are used both in agriculture and to fight fungal infections in animals, ...

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. File:Etienne Dormoy and John A. Macready in front of 1st crop duster aircraft.JPG, Lt. Macready (right) and

engineer E. Dormoy (left) in front of the 1st crop duster airplane (August 3, 1921) File:World first crop duster aircraft.jpg, First crop dusting used a

Curtiss JN Jenny The Curtiss JN "Jenny" is a series of biplanes built by the Glenn Curtiss Aeroplane Company of Hammondsport, New York, later the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company. Although the Curtiss JN series was originally produced as a training aircraft f ...

Top dressing

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 ...

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, 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 ...

Grumman Ag Cat The Grumman G-164 Ag Cat is a single-engined biplane agricultural aircraft, developed by Grumman in the 1950s. Schweizer built 2628 under contract for Grumman between 1959 and 1979, including more than 400 G-164s, 1330 G-164As and 832 G-164Bs ...

PZL-106 KRUK The PZL-106 Kruk () is a Polish agricultural aircraft designed and built by Państwowe Zakłady Lotnicze, WSK PZL Warszawa-Okęcie (later PZL "Warszawa-Okęcie" and now EADS-PZL). Design and development The PZL-106 was developed as a modern ag ...

M-18 Dromader The PZL-Mielec M-18 ''Dromader'' (English language, English: "Dromedary") is a single engine agricultural aircraft that is manufactured by PZL-Mielec in Poland. The aircraft is used mainly as a Aerial application, cropduster or firefighting mach ...

PAC Fletcher Pac or PAC may refer to: Aviation * IATA code PAC Albrook "Marcos A. Gelabert" International Airport in Panama City, Panama * Pacific Aerospace Corporation, New Zealand, manufacturer of aircraft: ** PAC 750XL ** PAC Cresco ** PAC CT/4 ** PAC ...

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 ...

, Embraer EMB 202 Ipanema, and Rockwell Thrush Commander, but multi-purpose

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s are also used.

Unmanned aerial application

Since the late 1990s,

unmanned aerial vehicles An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Dron ...

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 The Yamaha R-MAX is a Japanese unmanned helicopter developed by the Yamaha Motor Company in the 1990s. The gasoline-powered aircraft has a two-bladed rotor and is remote-controlled by a line-of-sight user. It was designed primarily for agricultu ...

, 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 fi ...

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 or fertiliser 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 liming materials or other non-nutrient soil amendments. Man ...

s, and other products out of environmental and public health concerns, in particular from spray drift. Most notably, in 2009, the

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 two 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 ...

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 agency of the United States government tasked with environmental protection matters. President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970; it began operation on De ...

(EPA) 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 within the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 United States National Forest, national forests and 20 United States Natio ...

collected public comments to use within a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), which was developed because the

Montana Montana ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota to the east, South Dakota to the southeast, Wyoming to the south, an ...

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. Each district covers one U.S. state or a portion of a state. There is at least one feder ...

ruled that aerial application of fire retardants during wildfires violated the Endangered Species Act.

References

{{Authority control Agricultural chemicals Crop protection Occupations in aviation Aerial application