Topdressing - where did it start?

[Dave Homewood]

Where exactly is the birthplace of aerial topdressing?

I've heard a lot about the pioneer of the idea being Ossie James, of Hamilton.

I have also heard that Arthur Baker of Cambridge was the first to trial it. He was friends with ossie and maybe they worked together?

Then there's the story of the RNZAF trialling it. I assume that's after a civvie/ex-RNZAf pilot tried it and took it to the Govt for evaluation?

Also ths page asserts that topdressing began in the Wairarapa
www.svas.org.nz/pages/the_svas_museum_document.htm

So, where did it really start? And was it really even invented in NZ as I've seen numerous films where prewar Stearmen seem to be topdressing in the USA, yet they call it cropdusting. Or is that different?

Does anyone have Janic Geelen's books? Do they clear it up once and for all?

[corsair67]

I have heard a bit about the name John (?) Brazier being tied to topdressing in Canterbury, and I have a feeling that the Airwork company might be connected with that name too - does anyone know anything else about him?

[corsair67]

An interesting history here -

www.teara.govt.nz/1966/A/AerialTopdressing/AerialTopdressing/en

[Peter Lewis]

John & Bill Brazier ran Airwork (the original company) out of Harewood.
Their company carried out the first commercial topdressing operation in NZ using Tiger Moth ZK-ASO (no, I'm not joking) 27th May 1949.

[Bruce]

Many histories state Alan Pritchard's Trials on 90 mile Beach with the Public Works Dept Miles Whitney Straight in the late 1930s as being the first (as per the history above). I'm not sure of the overseas operations, but generally if they were using Stearmans it would have been postwar. I think the concept is one of those that develop independently in several locations at similar times (just like the jet engine).

[corsair67]

John & Bill Brazier ran Airwork (the original company) out of Harewood.
Their company carried out the first commercial topdressing operation in NZ using Tiger Moth ZK-ASO (no, I'm not joking) 27th May 1949.

Thanks Peter, now that you mention that I seem to recall my Dad talking about that event. I think they were topdressing a property near Kaituna (?) on Banks Peninsula.

[Dave Homewood]

flyernzl said:

Their company carried out the first commercial topdressing operation in NZ using Tiger Moth ZK-ASO (no, I'm not joking) 27th May 1949.

Yet the SVAS pages states "the first commercial topdressing flight on 3 May 1949 was from Hood Aerodrome"

[Peter Lewis]

admin said:

Yet the SVAS pages states "the first commercial topdressing flight on 3 May 1949 was from Hood Aerodrome"

Then they are wrong.

They're probably referring to the RNZAF trials, which were not commercial.

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks Peter.

Sorry, I didn't mean to make my message look aggressive with that bold text. Cheers.

[Peter Lewis]

History summary, excerpts from Quickseek:

The first known aerial application of agricultural materials was by John Chaytor, who in 1906 spread seed over a swamped valley floor in Wairoa, New Zealand, using a hot air balloon with mobile tethers.

The first known use of a heavier than air machine occurred on 3 August 1921 when as the result of advocacy by Dr Coad, a USAAC Curtiss JN4 Jenny piloted by John MacReady was used to spread lead arsenate to kill catalpha sphinx caterpillars near Troy, Ohio in the United States. The first commercial operations were attempted in the US 1924 and use of insecticide and fungicide for crop dusting slowly spread in the Americas and to a lesser extent other nations. Crop dusting poisons enjoyed a boom in the US and Europe after World War II until the environmental impact of widespread use became clear, particularly after the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Crop dusting was not adopted in New Zealand until after top dressing was well established.

Early Suggestions

Initial interest in New Zealand concentrated on seed sowing, however much of New Zealand's central North Island farm land, given to returned servicemen after World War I, had proven deficient in trace minerals such as cobalt, copper and selenium, forcing difficult topdressing by hand in rough country, or abandoning the land for forestry and the possibility of using aircraft soon occurred.

Spreading Superphosphate by agricultural aircraft was independently suggested by two New Zealanders, John Lambert of Hunterville and Len Daniell of Wairere in 1926. There was some publicity when in 1936 Hawkes Bay farmer Harold McHardy used a de Havilland Gypsy Moth to sow clover seed on his own land. This lead the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council to decide to fund aerial sowing and topdressing trials to prevent erosion in 1937, but little progress was made, despite strong advocacy by Doug Campbell.

At that time it was illegal to drop anything from an aircraft, which dissuaded several advocates who felt a law change was needed before experiments could begin. Eventually Esmond Gibson would get that law change, but long before that news of early experiments was spread by an article was a published by a government pilot for the Ministry of Works who simply took the risk of publishing an article showing he broke the law.

Alan Pritchard

Alan Pritchard pilot for the New Zealand Public Works Department, recalls the idea of spreading seed occurred to him as he was flying E Madden of the Ministry of Works in a Moth, sharing grapes and throwing the seeds out of the open cockpits. A few months later, he was prevented from conducting an aerial survey in Northland when the Ministry's Miles Whitney Straight ZK AFH was grounded by bad weather. A supervisor J L Harrison, complained Pritchard was holding back men needed to sow lupin seed. Pritchard suggested that the sowing the seed by air. Burying the hatchet, Harrison and Pritchard spent that evening experimenting with methods of dispersal, before settling on sewing a sack onto a piece of down pipe. The following morning, 8 March, Pritchard flew over Ninety Mile Beach while Harrison, on his signal, held the down pipe out a window and emptied the sack. They then landed and examined the spread of the seeds. It was found a distribution of 1 seed per square foot was obtained from a height of 100 - 150 feet. On Monday 10 March, they sowed 375 acres, using 2lb/acre (instead of the 5lb/acre used when sowing by hand). The pair returned to examine the site at 2 weeks, 1 month and 2 years, at all points the aerially sown land was indistinguishable from that sown by hand. After the outbreak of World War II, he had the good fortune to retain the use of ZK AFH, when most often aircraft were impressed for war time service.

Pritchard wrote up the experiment in the NZ Journal of Agriculture (vol 70 p117-120). This came to the attention of the Minister Bob Semple, who Pritchard occasionally flew as a VIP. Semple asked how Pritchard had obtained permission. Pritchard admitted he hadn't, and had "cribbed' back the time in the ZK AFH's logbooks by extending the time of other flights. Semple encouraged Pritchard to continue, adding "Don't let anyone catch you, and if they do, send them to me". Pritchard conducted various trials between 1939 and 1943, at some point during which he added fertiliser to the seeds.

As a result in 1945 the Department of Agriculture estimated aerial topdressing would cost about £4 per ton of fertiliser (on a basis of 2 cwt per acre), which was economic, (in actual fact, this price turned out to be a significant overestimate). Pritchard now found an ally, who could officially sanction further trials.

Doug Campbell

Doug Campbell had been suggesting the spread of both seed and fertiliser for erosion control and adding trace minerals since the 1930s. Immediately after the war, he obtained permission to build a sheet metal hopper for ZK AFH to test the spread of blue stone crystals. In 1946 the first pure topdressing flight was conducted. Mixtures of bluestone crystals, sulphate of ammonia, slaked lime and carbon black were used. The lack of a lid for the hopper initially resulted in irritating dust spreading through the aircraft in turbulence, in cold wet conditions it was necessary to heat the hopper to prevent the fertiliser coagulating, while in dry conditions the powder tended to disperse in the wind before reaching the ground. Never the less in July Campbell arranged for ZK AFH to topdress 1,100 acres of a copper deficient farm. In August 1947 trials with cobalt sulphate in liquid form were conducted on the farm of KM Hickson near Taumaranui, with a horseback mounted radio used to convey results to the pilot. It was soon suggested that cobaltised superphosphate would be easier to spread although it was felt a specialised aircraft would be needed to do this.

Campbell published his research in the New Zealand Journal of Science and Technology Volume X 1948 as “Some observations on Top dressing in New Zealand”.

Convinced by the trials, Campbell formed the co-ordinating and advisory committee on Aerial Topdressing with representatives from the Ministry of Public Works, Department of Agriculture, Department of Air, DSIR and Soil Conservation council. At the committee's first meeting on 27 November 1947 it resolved to ask the RNZAF for assistance.

The Royal New Zealand Air Force trials

Between the second world war and the cold war, the RNZAF was a large and competent organisation without a lot of work to do. It responded enthusiastically to Campbell's suggestion, initially proposing to use Tiger Moth and DC-3 aircraft, but concerns about corrosion lead them to use "expendable" war surplus Grumman Avengers.

Experiments were resumed on 5 September 1948 using the Witney Straight and three Grumman Avengers; the Royal New Zealand Air Force put superphosphate in a converted long range fuel tank in Avenger NZ2504 and dropped it over the concrete runway at Ohakea. (NZ2504 is now preserved in the Royal New Zealand Air Force Museum).

The superphosphate was too powdery but a more granular form was found before final trials measuring distribution pattern of spread by air on September 16. The results were considered very promising. Trials proceeded to hill country at Te Mata near Raglan, and were extended to three other sites.

For 1949 a Research and Development flight was formed under Stan Quill equipped with the three Avengers and a DC3, while instructions were sent to England to modify 2 Miles Aerovans on the production line to carry 1 ton hoppers. A ground convoy of station wagon, car, one-ton truck, jeep, fuel tanker and radio van supported them. The 1948 fuel tank was replaced by a hopper with sides angled at 60 degrees and a vibrating rod to loosen the superphosphate. Large scale topdressing started on 14 March 1949 spreading clover-super mix. The "Topdress III" trials culminated on 21 May 1949, with a demonstration drop on eleven different properties close to Masterton in front of large numbers of farmers and press. These trials were calculated to have spread 2.5 cwt/acre at an all up cost of 15/- despite the use of inappropriately over powered combat aircraft. Further public displays were given to cabinet ministers on 30 August at Johnsonville, on 9 September at Ohakea and at a September 17 Airforce day air show. As these trials were a resounding success, in addition to the Aerovans, 12 RNZAF Bristol Freighters, then under construction were modified to take Superphosphate hoppers.

Following the successful RNZAF trials, in 1950 farmers groups lobbied the government to have the RNZAF provide subsidised topdressing with the Bristol freighters and even advocated using giant Handley Page Hastings. But by this time, government work was being overtaken by private enterprise as in ex-airforce pilots bought kiwi built De Havilland Tiger Moth biplanes cheaply, placed a hopper in the front seat and went into business flying from the paddocks of any farmer willing to pay. The RNZAF was waking up to the "Communist threat" and preferred to concentrate upon defence and the government reluctant to spend money or interfere with the increasing number of commercial operators.

Several factors lay behind the development of aerial topdressing in the apparent backwater of New Zealand. The New Zealand civil service gave its employees time and resources to pursue their ideas and publish research. Many farms included hill country, where it was impossible to spread fertiliser by truck. New Zealand farms tended to be large enough to make the costs worthwhile. High prices for lamb and wool in the early 1950s gave farmers the extra capital. World War II had left behind cheap war surplus Tiger Moths and highly trained ex air force pilots.

The majority of the 40,000 plus New Zealanders trained by the RNZAF were aircrew - because most were sent to Europe, and amalgamated into squadrons where the ground crew were from the United Kingdom. On returning to their rural homes, many bought cheap war surplus aircraft, particularly the Tiger Moth primary trainer, available for £100. These were used for weekend flying, but also dropping fencing, feed and people into remote areas, as well as occasionally aerial sowing and dropping rabbit poison.

By the end of 1949 there were 5 firms; Airwork had 5 Tigermoths, James aviation 3, Aircraft Services 3, Gisborne Aerial topdressing - which was to become Field air - had 1 and Southern Scenic Airtrips had converted an Auster. In addition Wally Harding was top dressing his own property with his private Tiger Moth. Within the following 5 years nearly 50 other companies - mostly one man operations - joined as competition, but when amalgamation occurred it was these pioneers who came to dominate the New Zealand industry.

Airwork(NZ)

Since 1947 Airwork (NZ) Limited had been operating Tiger Moths for rabbit killing by spreading poisoned carrots in Canterbury. In early May 1949 Charles Brazier used ZK ASO to spread lime. Airwork were aware Fred "Popeye" Lucas had conducted aerial seeding as well as rabbit poisoning and discussed the possibility of dropping seeds with fertiliser - as Pritchard had done - with Ces Worrell, a grain and seed merchant. He suggested spreading superphosphate alone would be more profitable, (a suggestion he may have wished he'd kept to himself - the following year, Worrell started a rival firm, Aerial Sowing). Acting on Worral's suggestion, Airwork arranged a public demonstration on Sir Heaton Rhodes's property at Tai Tapu, south of Christchurch on 27 May 1949. They advertised spreading superphosphate for £5 per ton, and several orders came from the audience.

Airwork pioneered the technique of landing on the farmer's own property, loading and turning the aircraft round in three or four minutes. To save time bulk loading from a vehicle was pioneered instead of emptying bags into the hopper. For the first drop a hurriedly converted Hupmobile but this soon broke down and replaced by a Landrover chassis was fitted with hydraulic arms. This investment was justified when Pyne Gould Guinness placed the first large contract at Christmas 1949. Airwork would go on to have a major role in the development of the Fletcher.

[Dave Homewood]

Wow, that is really fascinating reading. Thanks for going to the effort to research and write that out Peter. So it's definately a purely Kiwi invention then.

My own research into the life of Arthur Baker OBE, who was a Cambridge airmen and agicultural pioneer, found he too was one of the early pilots to drop seeds from the air. He had already, prewar, become a pioneer of land by making cheap hill country at Whitehall, Cambridge, more suitable and profitable using earthmoving equipment. When war came his earthmoving skills (and I suspect his gear) were used by the RNZAF when he became a Works Officer with one of the Aerodrome Construction Squadrons.

He learned to fly after the war, and this comes from my webpage on him.
www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/Arthur%20Baker.htm

If you have any additions or corrections I'd like to hear - especially what his other three planes were.

"In 1946 Arthur bought his first private aircraft, a Gipsy Moth. It cost him £300, and one use he found for it was seeding new strains of white clover onto his hilly property at Whitehall. A report said, "The method was to have a passenger in the front seat with a bag of seed and throwing the clover over the side from an Edmonds baking powder tin. This was before the first aerial topdressing and the passenger, a former Wing Commander, declared at the finish that he would have preferred to return to combat flying."

"In 1947 Arthur Baker and Ossie James set up fthe James Aviation group, which owned fourteen companies, and he remained a director of that company for many years. For decades it has been one of the largest aerial topdressing companies in New Zealand. Arthur and Ossie were true pioneers of topdressing, a method of dispatching fertiliser or seed to pasture from the air, which incidentally was first trialled scientifically by the RNZAF using Grumman Avengers and is now a method used the world over.

"After the Gipsy Moth, Arthur would own four further private planes. The last such was a Miles Gemini M65-1A which he'd bought from the Wellington Aero Club in 1957. He used his aircraft extensively for both business and pleasure, and he found them a useful tool for business before the days when Rukuhia was serviced by NAC. Due to heart problems he was forced to relinquish his flying licence in 1965, and he decided to donate the Gemini to the Museum of Transport and Technology at Western Springs in Auckland. The Gemini is still there today."

[Peter Lewis]

admin said:

If you have any additions or corrections I'd like to hear - especially what his other three planes were.

Arthur Bakers aircraft:
DH60G Moth ZK-ADT bought 1947 sold 1951 (currently restored to airworthy with Lee Middleton)
DH82A Tiger Moth ZK-APP bought 1947 sold 1950 (currently restored to airworthy with Ian Pirie)
Taylorcraft Auster 5 ZK-AVF bought 1950 sold 1951 (Cr near Homewood, Wairarapa, & DBF 3Jan60)
Miles Messenger 2A ZK-AWE bought 1951 sold 1957 (WFU & scrapped)
Miles Gemini ZK-ANT bought 1955 last flight 31Jan63, to MoTAT

[Dave Homewood]

Brilliant, thanks Peter. Nice photo.

[Dave Homewood]

I just came across this article that may be of interest, from the NEW ZEALAND HERALD, 26 NOVEMBER 1945

HILL COUNTRY

AERIAL TOP-DRESSING

TRIALS TO BE UNDERTAKEN

(0.C.) PALMERSTON NORTH Sunday

The initial steps in an attempt to arrange for trials of aerial top-dressing have been taken by Massey Agricultural College, although the selection of a machine suitable for the purpose has presented difficulties. The question of aerial top-dressing has been revived with the end of the war. Owing to the necessity for the immediate application of superphosphate to large tracts of sheep-grazing hill country which have been denied treatment with fertilisers during the war and the shortage of labour for surface treatment, these areas, which carry a large proportion of the Dominion's flocks, may erode badly, or revert to scrub and fern, if early steps are not taken to re-establish a firm sole of grass.

Progressive-minded men who have visualised a future in which the spreading of fertilisers by hand is replaced by rapid work from the air are convinced that the project is worth investigating. The hilly Gisborne district, one of the most important sheep-farming areas in New Zealand, is vitally interested in any scheme which may save labour and' prevent further erosion scars from appearing on the steeper slopes. A small committee of sheep-farmers in the district has discussed the question of having supplies delivered to isolated stations by air, as well as the general question of hill country top-dressing.

The idea of harnessing aircraft in the cause of agriculture is not a new one. In New Zealand tracts of sand-dune country have had the soil improving lupin established on them through the seed being broadcast from the air. Notably in America, vegetable crops on a large scale have been sprayed with insecticide from aircraft.

Even if the air experts, in collaboration with economists and farmers, find as the result of trials that the spreading of fertiliser from is impossible or uneconomic in the case of hill country, there still remains the question of rapid spreading on large areas of comparatively flat country — an operation which is undertaken by ground machines. It is to much of the hill country, however, that regular spreading would tend to bring salvation in better feed for stock at lower costs, and the counteraction of erosion.

[Dave Homewood]

Foresaw Topdressing From Air In 1926

One of the features of the development of aerial farming, and in particular aerial topdressing in New Zealand, has been the relatively short space of time that has elapsed since its beginnings.

It is really only since World War II that this new industry, which has been likened to the development of, refrigeration in its importance to the farming industry, has taken shape.

However as is the case with most significant developments, there are inevitably people who dream dreams and have visions, which mark them as being far ahead of their time. One of these was a Mr John Lambert, of Hunterville, who wrote to his member of Parliament in 1926 saying: "We have millions of acres of hill land requiring topdressing which can never be done by hand but it might be worth while to try it from the air.”

According to the information services section of the Civil Aviation Branch, which published a history of aerial topdressing in 1953, this is the first recorded suggestion of the use of aircraft for aerial topdressing on the Air Department's files, and it may well have been the first suggestion of this sort of thing ever made in New Zealand.

As might well have been expected, Mr Lambert’s ideas did not receive a very warm response from the Defence Department, which then controlled aviation in New Zealand. In a reply to Mr G. Elliott, M.P., to whom Mr Lambert had addressed his ideas, the then Minister of Defence, Mr F. J. Rolleston, said “...the suggestion is considered to be impracticable.”

In rather more recent times a little more than 30 years ago, Mr A. M. Prichard, chief pilot, public works, aerodrome services, also had some thoughts about the possibility of topdressing pasture from the air and he was also told that his proposals were a rather far-fetched "pipe dream.”

Nevertheless in the following year — in 1939 — Mr Prichard, who had the advantage of being a pilot himself, was given permission to carry out limited trials in aerial seed sowing on the sand dunes at Ninety Mile Beach, North Auckland. However, owing to the difficulty of securing sufficient seed, full scale trials proved to be impossible and it was not until 1943 that seed sowing trials on a much larger scale were carried out. These were in the same area — about a ton of seed was dropped in about seven hours’ flying over two days.

It is a matter of interest that prior to leaving Wellington for the Ninety Mile Beach Mr Prichard dropped 2cwt of sulphate of ammonia at Rongotai as a test — the first time in New Zealand that fertiliser had been dropped from the air.

About this time a farmer came into the picture to stir up interest and activity in this field. This stormy petrel was Mr L. T. (Len) Daniell, of the Wairarapa.

After the war a whole series of trials and experiments quickly followed each other. The Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council also came into the picture seeing in aerial topdressing a means of preventing and checking soil erosion and improving hill country, and in 1948 the council’s senior soil conservator, the late Mr D. A. Campbell, a great enthusiast for aerial farming, asked the Air Force to undertake trials and on September 16 that year a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber with an auxiliary petrol tank converted into a hopper in the bomb bay, for the first time in New Zealand dropped loads of superphosphate alongside and across the runways at Ohakea.

A little later the Air Force undertook the first full-scale topdressing operation — its aim was to evaluate the cost and feasibility of a miniature aerial topdressing service. In May, 1949, in the Wairarapa 125 tons of super and 12 tons of lime, with seed and clover mixed with some of it, were dropped in 48 hours and 20 minutes of flying.

Now the commercial operators began to appear and the Air Force all, if not quite, bowed out.

“First in the field,” says the Civil Aviation Branch publication, was Airwork (N.Z.), Ltd, who submitted drawings of a hopper for approval to the Civil Aviation Branch of Air Department in September, 1948

“As a result of topdressing tests carried out on Sir R. Heaton Rhodes's property at Otahuna and on other properties Airwork were able to submit a report to the Director of Civil Aviation which threw some light on the costs and operating efficiency of aerial topdressing as a commercial proposition. Carrying a payload of 400lb. each of Airwork's two Tiger Moths employed on these trials had topdressed an average of 64 acres per hour with an average spread of 3200lb of superphosphate per hour. Each round trip had averaged 7½ minutes with three minutes of this time being spent on the ground.

“These and other figures were sufficient to convince Airwork that aerial topdressing "had arrived’ as a profitable commercial enterprise and a valuable aid to the primary industry.”

The Press, 3 July 1970

[The Red Baron]

We may have to concede to the Yanks..Huff-Daland had quite a large crop dusting business in the 1920's and one of thier stated aims was 'aerial fertilizing'.They had large contracts in South America in the 1920's dusting cotton.But as the dusting season wasn't that long,hard to believe they didn't do aerial fertilising to keep the planes working.
I also unfortunately don't have my copy of the Aussie 'Topdressers' book any more.But I think they may have just beaten us on super spreading as they were into ag flying after the end of WW2.

[madmax]

A Marlborough farmer John chaytor is recorded as having sown seeds from a hot air balloon on his marshlands property near Blenheim in 1906, its not known if this was his sole attempt. His son Anthony was a member of the AACA during the 1960s and owned a Druine Turbulent although I think he obtained it in a damaged condition and it never flew

[The Red Baron]

[The Red Baron]

[The Red Baron]