Conditions ripe for crop spraying

That loud noise you’ve been hearing in the skies is three crop-spraying airplanes zooming across area wheat fields.

The planes, from a St. Joseph, Mo., aerial spraying company, are spraying area wheat fields.

The planes are applying a chemical to prevent wheat rust and fungal diseases, Tim Pearson, Ottawa Co-op, said.

According to research over several years, conditions are prime in Franklin County for an outbreak of rust and fungus, he said.

This year’s cool and rainy weather is ideal for promoting the wheat diseases, he said.

Such an outbreak would devastate the area wheat crop, he said.

So far, enough farmers have signed up so that the planes will treat nearly 10,000 acres in the area, Pearson said.

Depending on weather conditions, the sprayers will be flying this week and probably into next week, he said.

Aerial spraying, which involves swooping down into fields to release the spray, is not always without incident.

One of the pilots, Norman Gaul, 59, Highland, snagged a power line at Hamilton and Nevada roads west of Ottawa Wednesday afternoon, according to a sheriff’s department report.

“He had made one pass in a field and was coming back for another pass when he caught the power line,” Sheriff Craig Davis said.

Gaul wasn’t injured and he landed his 1974 Cessna 188 back at Ottawa Municipal Airport.

The plane had a small amount of damage to a couple of sprayer heads, Davis said.

Kansas City Power & Light, which owns the power line, strung it back up without incident, he said.

The planes were back in the air this morning.