History
According to the National Agricultural Aviation Association, the birth place of aerial seeding in America happened 1921 in Ohio. Lt. John A. Macready, a U.S. Army pilot, used a modified Curtis JN-6 to dust a field of catapla trees with arsenate to kill sphinx moth larvae. This early crop dusting lead to aerial seeding.
Aerial reforestation, a type of aerial seeding, specifically to repopulate forest land after some type of disaster was being used as early as the 1930s. Planes were used to seed mountain areas in Honolulu that were inaccessible to traditional methods after forest fires.
By 1946 aerial seeding was being used in Oregon to seed more than 500 acres of Douglas fir, and Port Orford cedar as well as 100 acres of grassland and other trees that were burned by fire. In 1947 the Crown Zellerbach Corporation seeded over 1000 acres in Oregon.
Surplus planes from World War II were initially used for aerial seeding, with the open cockpit Stearman biplane used frequently. Because many veterans were trained to fly these planes, this lead the way for many people to develop a business around aerial applications. Today professionals use planes powered by turboprop engines and are navigated by GPS for pinpoint accuracy.
Read more about this topic: Aerial Seeding
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