ECONOMICS OF AERIAL SPRAYING ON COTTON IN EGYPT

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Faculty of Agriculture, Ain-Shams University, Cairo, Egypt

2 Plant protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt

3 Civil Aviation Organization, Cairo, Egypt

10.21608/ejar.1994.452593

Abstract

The cost of aerial application was greatly affected by the number of operations executed annually and the level of utilization (flying hours/ operation). Such conclusion stemmed from the generalized assumption that emerged in 1990 to spray the whole cotton area using either fixed-wing planes represented by Kruk (PZL - 106 AS) or helicopter represent­ed by (M1- 2). 105 and 141 % increase in cost were recorded for multi-operations / year and single operation / year by means of Kruk and (Mi­2) , respectively - at 50 flying hours . At the actual level (117 hrs.109 hrs), the increase was 65% and 104%. At 500 flying hours, 20% and 39% were recorded. However, the majority of local operators could be classified under the category of single-operation per year. Concerning the volume of ag-aviation activity, the sprayed area was subject to successive reduction during 1987/1991 due to change in strategy of application by the Ministry of Agriculture: The circular -protective spraying of the whole cotton area was replaced by a selective spraying of only the infested plots, thus returning back to ground equip­ment after certain degree of modernization. The calculated percentage of reduction in ag-aviation utilization ranged between 50% to 89% for all governorates with an average of 70% for the whole country.

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