Oat Crop Harvested At Airport

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30368, 18 February 1964, Page 15

Oat Crop Harvested At Airport

The Christchurch international airport now has pastoral farming as a sideline. The photograph above shows the harvesting of a crop of oats sown on 30 acres at the south end of the main runway.

When the runway was being extended the City Council joined with a neighbouring farmer who leases airport land for farming to. plant the area in oats, initially to keep down the dust as the contractors were working on the runway. With the consent of the Civil Aviation Administration, other airport land is being farmed. As an experiment 10 acres has been planted in potatoes.

The council has also harvested 1200 bales of hay from the airport this year.

“There is nothing new in fanning airport land,” said the airport manager (Mr A. I. R. Jamieson) yesterday. “Now that we have made a start, and harvested our first crop of oats, we are looking to improve the quality.” With judicious use of the ground there could be revenue earned for the airport, he said, and at the same time cropping saved maintenance expenditure on mowing.

Some European airports, notably Copenhagen and Amsterdam, earned a considerable amount through cropping, he said.

This year the Christchurch airport had used aerial topdressing to improve the fields, and there would be greater use of this in the future, he said.