Crop dusters 'running daylight to dark every day'

Pilots have been fielding numerous calls from farmers across the south east and south west looking to get fungicides on their winter crops to protect them from significant disease pressure.

And with a third consecutive La Nina announcement, the demand for ag pilots doesn't look like slowing down any time soon.

Precision Aerial owner and pilot Lachlan Hill is currently running 13 agricultural aircraft with 13 pilots from their bases at Meandarra, St George and Mungindi.

He said demand for their services started climbing in May and had not slowed since.

"There was quite a bit of demand for in-crop herbicides in cereals and that's led straight into spraying for fungal disease - stripe rust, yellow spot and so on - so it's just been full on for the whole season," Mr Hill said.

"We're running pretty well from daylight to dark every day when the weather permits, which is well within our limits. We can do that for 13 days in a row."

Mr Hill said there had also been a "fairly solid" run on fertiliser applications across the areas they service.

Precision's fleet includes 11 Ayres Thrush aircraft, which have a 2000L capacity, six Air Tractor 802 aircraft (3000L), one Air Tractor 602 (2500L), two Robinson R22 helicopters, two Cessna C210 fixed wing passenger aircraft, and one Cherokee 6 grass seeding aircraft.

A grain grower himself, Mr Hill is well positioned to understand the situation from the air and land.

"It's wet everywhere, but the crops in general are looking magnificent," he said.

"I think growers would like to see the rain back off a bit now so they can get the summer crops in the ground. It's fairly challenging at the moment.

"We're hoping things can dry out so we can get the headers out - our barley will come off in about two weeks."

Mr Hill and his wife Fiona generally grow 4000ha of winter crop at their Meandarra farm, but this year they're hoping to plant 700ha of summer crop when conditions improve.

Keyland Air Services owner and Aerial Application Association of Australia president Frank Drinan, based at Dalby, is also experiencing unprecedented demand.

"It's one of the busiest springs I've ever seen for disease in cereal crops. We've been flat out for more than six weeks," Mr Drinan said.

"There's lots of rust and leaf diseases in the cereals, and because it's been so wet, especially on the inner Downs, there's only one way to get fungicide on and that's by air."

Mr Drinan has also been trying to spray weeds, but with crops around and young crops coming up, he has to be very careful about applications.

The AAAA president said one of the biggest challenges was getting work done between weather events.

"We seem to get a couple of days of rain and wind and then a couple of good days, then it's back to rain again," Mr Drinan said.

"This whole cycle makes it difficult to get the volume of work done that we've been asked to do. I know in South Australia there's been up to a three week wait for fungicide applications because of the weather."

Mr Drinan is urging farmers to be patient if there is a delay due to weather - particularly with herbicide applications.

"We need to make sure we get those 100 per cent right because we don't want to impact on anybody else."

However, Mr Drinan and his pilots have caught up on their jobs in the last week and have "plenty of capacity".

Both Precision and Keyland say fatigue and risk management are vital in their industry to protect pilots and aircraft, with time off and paddock assessments crucial.

"It's a hazardous job, but pilots do risk management before they enter a paddock and do an application," Mr Drinan said.

"Good mapping and giving us good information on power lines - the more information a grower can give us, the safer we can make it for the pilot. And not having overly onerous expectations - if there's multiple powerlines in the paddock, you're probably not going to get the absolute perfect job.

"We'll do our best, but within the bounds of safety. No one is willing, nor should they, to stick their neck out for a few acres of crop that are under powerlines."

Mr Drinan said there had been some tragic freak accidents recently and authorities were investigating.

This season, production of cotton is forecast to reach the third highest on record of 1.1 million tonnes, according to ABARES.

NSW growers are on track to plant 341,000ha of cotton to produce 687,000t, while Qld growers could sow 223,000ha for 439,000t.

The Precision Aerial team, which service the likes of Cubbie Station at Dirranbandi, are well aware of the cracking season potential ahead, which is why they've been getting heavy maintenance done on their aircraft.

"It's going to be one of the biggest cotton crops in history, so we're preparing ourselves now," Mr Hill said.

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