Crop Dusting instead of using tractor

John B.

Well-known Member
TO keep this tractor related I always use my tractors to pull a sprayer but want to ask a few questions about crop dusting.
Are any of you on here crop dusters? If so are there many companies that actually crop dust? Where do you go to school to become a crop
duster? I know a person needs a pilot license and an applicators license. The neighbor had his fields sprayed last year with a small
helicopter. It would land on a platform on top of the nurse truck to refill with the herbicide or insecticide they were using.
 
We have a neighbor next to us that had his field next to us crop dusted. The crop dusting caused the galvanized corrugated sheet metal roofs on our barns to rust out, and killed all our pine trees. So glad he doesn't farm it anymore. If you are going to use a crop duster think about what effect if will have on your neighbors property. [/u]
 
My son was having the beans sprayed for aphids around our house a couple of years ago and I yelled for the wife to get the camera for they were flying right over my shop--boy was I surprised!!! Sorry this was on here before, (nobody got hurt)---Tee
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There used to be a lot of crop-dusting in the wheat fields of eastern Washington. Fields are steep, not many farmsteads to get collateral damage, and very little variation in crops, so ideally suited to that method. But with the advent of larger tractors that are more stable on steep cross slopes, I think air application has gone way down, because many farmers now spray themselves, now that its practical to tow a sprayer around.
 
Here in ND there are still quite a few spray planes. Most are commercial applicators, a few farmers have their own. Very few "dust" anymore, it is called ultra low volume application. Less than 1 gal of water per acre compared to 5-10+ with a ground rig.

Many of the farmers here have a self propelled high clearance sprayer of their own, but will call on the aerial applicators, when they need extra help, its too wet to drive, or later in the season when you don't really want to drive through the crop. Used to be when the area was mostly wheat, one spray application a year was all that was done. Now some fields will get 3-5 applications in a year. The sprayer is the machine that gets the most hours in a year on the farm.
 

Quite a bit of aerial application goes on around here. Usually takes place AFTER the crops have grown too large for the tractors and sprayers. Not sure what is being targeted. Aphids maybe? Or some kind of fungus?
 
N.E. Iowa---There is a airport 6 mi. South of me that has 2-3 based there most of the Summer. I think they call them Air Tractors. The bi-wing ones are called Ag-Cats. Or were you talking about the B-29?---Tee
 
(quoted from post at 13:51:50 11/17/17) big tee where are you from? that plane looks like one that shows up every summer. stephenson co . il
ig in planes made specifically for crop dusting is Air Tractor (Olney, TX), so many if not most will look like that yellow one with blue & black stripes.
 
We actually have a lot of that here in mid-Michigan. It's pretty impressive in the summer as the aircraft do aerial seeding before the first crop is harvested. That way when it is harvested the next crop is just about ready to pop out. Used to let them use our airstrip but the trucks that fed the airplanes put big ruts in the field. They said they would fill them in but never did so we no longer allow them to use our strip due to the damage.
 
(quoted from post at 12:01:47 11/17/17) We have a neighbor next to us that had his field next to us crop dusted. The crop dusting caused the galvanized corrugated sheet metal roofs on our barns to rust out, and killed all our pine trees. So glad he doesn't farm it anymore. If you are going to use a crop duster think about what effect if will have on your neighbors property. [/u]

As mentioned on the other forum I am a retired crop duster. More damage is caused by spraying with ground rigs than crop dusters. State Ag Dept. come by regular about complaint on damage to something. Now understand, a ground rig can be spraying 24d just a few yards from cotton or a garden and no one knows because he can't be seen because of tree line. I can be spraying a mile away and everyone can see and hear me so I did the damage. I got accused of so much damage you can't believe. It takes valuable time to show ag dept. all records and while they are there they want to do an inspection of equipment. Well I started carrying a notebook and when I see a ground rig spraying near and upwind of a field I get the time and location. That saved me a lot of grief and ag dept found a lot of those ground rigs didn't have records and had people operating them without supervision or license and that they had cause the damage. Crop dusters spray more acres in a day than ground rigs to in months, our damage verse acre sprayed is much lower than ground rigs. I could go on and on but I ain't
 
I wonder how much health damage is done to humans by all the spraying that is done. I live on a few acres but don't raise anything other than garden but there are a lot of large farmers all around and I have to admit with all the chemicals in the air I am concerned. I am taking chemo for leukemia and like chemo there are toxic ingredients in the spray mix.
 
Are any of you on here crop dusters?

I'm surprised this is staying on topic :lol:

A few years ago, I talked to an old friend that pilots a duster, it was side work/fun for him but said he would starve if he counted on it.
 
(quoted from post at 15:16:15 11/17/17) I wonder how much health damage is done to humans by all the spraying that is done. I live on a few acres but don't raise anything other than garden but there are a lot of large farmers all around and I have to admit with all the chemicals in the air I am concerned. I am taking chemo for leukemia and like chemo there are toxic ingredients in the spray mix.

Oh come on, you know that can't be true.......why all the chemical companies swear up and down it's perfectly safe! So do the guys applying it and using it (farmers).......I will admit that ALL of the above is profit motivated......but THEY say it's safe.

Rick
 
A friend of mine had a pilots license, but wanted to do crop dusting. He went and spent some time in Texas to get certified to operate a crop duster. He's back here in MI now, and although he is a mechanic, fills in for a few different dusters around here if they need a hand, using their planes. His plane (not a crop duster) is a biplane stunt plane, very nice.
 
(quoted from post at 14:59:23 11/17/17)
(quoted from post at 12:01:47 11/17/17) We have a neighbor next to us that had his field next to us crop dusted. The crop dusting caused the galvanized corrugated sheet metal roofs on our barns to rust out, and killed all our pine trees. So glad he doesn't farm it anymore. If you are going to use a crop duster think about what effect if will have on your neighbors property. [/u]

As mentioned on the other forum I am a retired crop duster. More damage is caused by spraying with ground rigs than crop dusters. State Ag Dept. come by regular about complaint on damage to something. Now understand, a ground rig can be spraying 24d just a few yards from cotton or a garden and no one knows because he can't be seen because of tree line. I can be spraying a mile away and everyone can see and hear me so I did the damage. I got accused of so much damage you can't believe. It takes valuable time to show ag dept. all records and while they are there they want to do an inspection of equipment. Well I started carrying a notebook and when I see a ground rig spraying near and upwind of a field I get the time and location. That saved me a lot of grief and ag dept found a lot of those ground rigs didn't have records and had people operating them without supervision or license and that they had cause the damage. Crop dusters spray more acres in a day than ground rigs to in months, our damage verse acre sprayed is much lower than ground rigs. I could go on and on but I ain't

ldj, I am glad that you were able to respond to ptfarmer.
 
(quoted from post at 14:59:23 11/17/17)
(quoted from post at 12:01:47 11/17/17) We have a neighbor next to us that had his field next to us crop dusted. The crop dusting caused the galvanized corrugated sheet metal roofs on our barns to rust out, and killed all our pine trees. So glad he doesn't farm it anymore. If you are going to use a crop duster think about what effect if will have on your neighbors property. [/u]

As mentioned on the other forum I am a retired crop duster. More damage is caused by spraying with ground rigs than crop dusters. State Ag Dept. come by regular about complaint on damage to something. Now understand, a ground rig can be spraying 24d just a few yards from cotton or a garden and no one knows because he can't be seen because of tree line. I can be spraying a mile away and everyone can see and hear me so I did the damage. I got accused of so much damage you can't believe. It takes valuable time to show ag dept. all records and while they are there they want to do an inspection of equipment. Well I started carrying a notebook and when I see a ground rig spraying near and upwind of a field I get the time and location. That saved me a lot of grief and ag dept found a lot of those ground rigs didn't have records and had people operating them without supervision or license and that they had cause the damage. Crop dusters spray more acres in a day than ground rigs to in months, our damage verse acre sprayed is much lower than ground rigs. I could go on and on but I ain't

ldj, I am glad that you were able to respond to ptfarmer.
 
i don't know model number just know the guy that flys it has more guts than smarts.
how he missed going into my barn roof a couple of years ago i don't know
 
We have quite a few buzzing around for awhile in my part of Iowa. It's mainly when the fungicide and insecticide goes on the corn and beans. A few weeks later the planes start flying on cover crop seed. When the cover crops are aerial seeded the adjoining neighbors end up with some rye and turnips too.
 

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