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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“[Men say:] “Don’t you know that we are your natural protectors?” But what is a woman afraid of on a lonely road after dark? The bears and wolves are all gone; there is nothing to be afraid of now but our natural protectors.”
—Frances A. Griffin, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 19, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)