N.Z. MAN FLIES IN WAR AGAINST POTATO BLIGHT

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28679, 1 September 1958, Page 13

N.Z. MAN FLIES IN WAR AGAINST POTATO BLIGHT

Captain John W. Reid, son of Mr and Mrs G. J. H Reid, formerly of Grassington. Rotherham, who left New Zealand in 1951 to join British European Airways, has recently been working from dawn to dark flying helicopters which have been engaged in spraying English potato crops against blight.

“I have been rushed off my feet for the last six weeks spraying potato crops in Lincolnshire.” says Captain Reid, who is with the helicopter development branch of British European Airways. in a letter to his parents. ‘‘l believe last time I wrote I mentioned that we were experimenting with a crop spraying installation for large helicopters. We had just finished our trials and were about to offer the equipment for sale to operators when the worst attack of potato blight for years hit the farms in the fen country from Lincoln through Cambridge to Essex. The local members of Parliament had us pressed into service at Vijry short notice so since mid-June I have been working seven days £ week from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Each of our aircraft can spray about 500 acres a day provided the fields are not too small and to date we have covered some 40.000 acres. We put on copper oxychloride solution, which has to be applied three to each crop at fortnightly intervals.” Captain- Reid says that there are about 55 helicopters in the Lincoln area spraying from May to December. “There is a lot of nitrogen spraying in the autumn—farmers I spoke to had varying views on its value as a fertiliser—but more and more are doing it. One of the strangest spraying jobs I saw was kerosene on carrot crops—the kerosene kills everything except the carrots which have a resistant foliage.”

A newspaper description of the “battle against the blight” which Captain Reid has sent to his parents mentions that British European Airways have been using the largest helicopter in the country equipped with spraying equipment and that French pilots of European Helicopters, Ltd., have been flying tiny Gyjn helicopters. In three days one helicopter sprayed more than 4000 acres of crops. English Fanning

“One thing has impressed me when flying at all these farms. It is to see the great strides that English farming has made, in the last four or five years,” says Captain Reid. “All the places are in good repair and all the equipment up to date. . . . The condition of English farming generally makes me a little uneasy about the market prospects for New Zealand produce in the next few years. The amount of stock being grown for home consumption has risen sharply since 1950 and the dairy produce picture has improved greatly too—although milk and cheese are the main items, not butter.

“I think that New Zealand will have to concentrate on markets nearer home while farming is so heavily subsidised here. If the subsidies were removed here the picture would be very different as the facilities for wintering stock, drying crops and the access to the latest scientific preparations to protect and fertilise crops would be denied to most farmers.”

Captain Reid, who was born in Christchurch and educated at Christ’s College, flew fighters in the Royal Air Force In World War II and after the war he was first instructor to the Nelson Aero Club.

Spraying potatoes is only one of the varied flying assignments that Captain Reid has fulfilled. In France he has flown cameras Cor a Bob Hope film yet to be shown in this country. When another helicopter crashed in the course of this job he flew the injured pitot to a hospital in Britain. * At present he is scheduled to be in New York training New York airways pitots .on a new helicopter navigation aid.