Experimental agricultural aircraft AG-1 • Texas A&M University via Flickr
1906 First aerial sowing – using a balloon – John Chaytor, Wairoa, New Zealand.
1911 (17 December) German forester Alfred Zimmerman obtains a patent for spreading chemicals from an aircraft to combat forest pests.
1918/1919 Reno, USA – first use of an aeroplane to combat pests.
1919 Canada – use of aviation for forest area observation.
1921 (3 August) Use of an aeroplane for tree dusting near Troy, Ohio (USA): under the direction of C. R. Neillie and J. S. Houser from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, pilot John McCready and technician Etienne Dormoy used a Curtiss JN-6H aircraft to spray lead arsenate against catalpa sphinx moth caterpillars attacking catalpa trees. The event was reported by National Geographic Magazine.
1922 An experimental station for testing the use of aircraft in agriculture is established near Moscow.
1922–23 In Canada, forest dusting from an aircraft with insecticide was carried out.
1922 Locust control in the USSR (near Kholdynsk beyond the Urals) using aviation.
1923 The training aircraft Khioni M-5 (Koniok-gorbunok) produced in Odessa is fitted with dusting equipment.
1924 Combating pine beauty moth in forests of northern Germany using Fokker F.III aircraft.
1925 The Huff-Daland Duster, designed for agricultural work, is created as a modification of the Huff-Daland HD-4 Petrel.
1927 In New Zealand, aerial fertiliser spreading is carried out.
1929 Production begins of the Polikarpov U-2AP, a special agricultural aviation version of the aircraft.
1947 First flight of the prototype multi-purpose Antonov An-2 aircraft, intended to be used for agricultural aviation work, among other tasks.
1947 Approximately 2,000 agricultural aircraft are in use worldwide.
1948 In Great Britain and the USA, helicopters are used for agricultural aviation work.
1950 First flight of the experimental agricultural aircraft Texas A&M AG-1 designed by Fred Weick.
1951 Leland Snow builds the S-1 aircraft designed for agricultural work.
1951 The first specialist agricultural aircraft by a major aviation company is created – the Grumman G-164 Ag-Cat.
1952 In Canada, a trial aerial firefighting operation is conducted.
1958 Establishment of the European Agricultural Aviation Centre (EAAC).
1960 The EAAC is transformed into the International Agricultural Aviation Centre (IAAC).
1960 The area cultivated from the air in the USSR exceeds 20 million hectares.
1971 The IAAC has 25 member states from around the world.
1973 In the USA, 2,500 agricultural aviation enterprises are operating, employing 4,700 pilots and 18,000 support personnel, with a fleet of 8,700 agricultural aeroplanes and helicopters.
1980 The number of agricultural aircraft worldwide exceeds 25,000.
1987 The first unmanned helicopter for use in agricultural aviation is introduced to the market – the Yamaha R-50.
