“Farmers are often faced with the question whether to treat their crop by aerial application or ground application” Field Air take a look at the pros and cons of aerial versus ground application.

Field Air, a privately owned company established over 60 years ago in 1953, is a diverse aerial agricultural business broadly based around aerial agriculture. With their head office in Ballarat and two other operational bases at Finley and Deniliquin in the NSW Riverina, this ag operation specializes in the precision application of sprays, fertilizers and baiting across all cropping types.

Field Air reliably service rural customers across Victoria and New South Wales with a diverse range of applications including:

• Fertilizers, solids and liquid application
• Granular Herbicide application
• Insecticide, fungicide and Herbicide sprays
• Seeding and Baiting
• Locust spraying

Agricultural operations are carried out with their fleet of turbine powered Air Tractor aircraft. Being the Asia Pacific Air Tractor dealership, the companies aircraft fleet is equipped with the most up to date satellite marking systems and application equipment.  Possessing a varied selection of aircraft and capacity, this ensures load size can be appropriate for each unique job.

Aerial application has several advantages over ground-based application. The primary benefits include zero crop damage and disease transfer, professional accurate application, zero soil compaction and timeliness of operation. In the past, it was believed that aerial application was the more expensive option for treating crops, however taking into account the above factors, this is certainly not the case in many situations.

“Often a farmer will be faced with a decision as to whether to treat their crop by ground application or aerial application. As a general rule, the more advanced the crop and/or the wetter the ground, the greater the damage. When crops are more advanced the damage is multiplied, as the vehicle chassis tend to damage the crops as well as the wheels. Damage will be greatest as tyre width increases and boom width decreases. Crops often recover visually from being run over but often these areas lag behind the rest of the paddock and grain ripens later or not at all. Damage will obviously vary with crop type, crop stage and other variables but a rule of thumb seems to be an average of 40% damage (ie yield loss) to areas that are run over” says Field Air.

In order to assist when choosing aerial vs ground application, you can visit Field Air’s website where they have built an online calculator which assesses potential wheel track damage https://www.fieldair.com.au/aircraft-operations/ground-vs-air