Scope

Agricultural aviation owes its development to the capabilities of the aeroplane, which allow for rapid treatment of large crop areas, particularly in situations where appropriate ground equipment is unavailable or its use is impossible, e.g. on boggy, waterlogged terrain or where access roads are lacking. The aeroplane allows threats to crops to be combated in their initial phase and when pest infestations affect large areas. During aerial treatment, neither crops nor soil are damaged. The use of manpower and ground equipment is limited. In agriculture, aeroplanes and helicopters are used for tasks such as: combating pests and plant diseases, destroying weeds, fertilising and supplementary feeding of crops, and seed sowing. Among these, tasks such as combating mosquito plagues, migratory locusts, cotton pests and plants clogging water reservoirs are practically only feasible by aircraft.

In forestry, aeroplanes are used primarily for combating pests feeding in tree canopies and for forest fire protection. Aeroplanes and helicopters are employed here for patrolling large forest areas, rapid transport of firefighting teams particularly to incipient fires, and for dropping water and fire retardants onto the blaze. Aero-hydro-seeding is also performed by aircraft. A mixture of seeds and fertilisers is dropped onto mining spoil heaps or areas of extensive earthworks for the reclamation of these sites. The use of aviation can be limited by meteorological conditions such as fog, strong winds causing chemical drift, high air temperatures causing evaporation of liquid chemical solutions, terrain features (slopes and elevations), and terrain obstacles – power lines, trees, buildings.