The Rural Voice, 1978-06, Page 6plane and costs such as about 15 trips to Toronto to try to get the
licence. Finally he got impatient and took the plane up without a
licence and was charged.
But it's in the area of regulations on chemical use that he is
most vitriolic. Tight restrictions have been placed on crop
sprayers in the use of herbicides and pesticides. restrictions
which are. he says. impossible to adhere to. There have been
times when sprayers have been forced to get a permit for every
spray job they undertake, he sayys but when a crop sprayer is
doing up to 500 acres a day it's ridiculous to have to get a permit
for every 10 or 15 acre field he sprays. Besides, he says. the
inspectors who are supposed to check up on the spraying.
couldn't possibly cover the same ground as an aircraft. given the
time involved.
Some of the regulations he terms ridiculous such as the one
two years ago that said that a permit was needed to spray every
application of 2-4-D and wasn't supposed to spray within 200-300
yards of a river or open ditch. Yet, he claims. ground sprayers
were washing out their tanks in the same ditches and creeks.
Spraying only 8 ounces of chemical on an acre meant that even if
he dropped a full 50 -foot swath right across the river he wasn't
putting much chemical into the water, he said.
Mr. Szekely is irked because he sees so many restrictions on
crop sprayers yet so many other forms of pollution seem to go
merrily along. He and fellow pilot Hans Fischer complain about
industries in Northern Ontario that continue to spew pollution
out yet go untouched because they provide thousands of jobs.
Table salt, he said, is more toxic than some of the chemicals he
uses. Indeed, he says, many trees along highways are killed
every year from the spray of salt off the roads sent up by passing
cars yet often it is crop sprayers who get the blame for the dead
trees.
The heavy burden of restrictions are not only frustrating.
they're costing time and money, he says. and that means
somebody has to pay and that's the farmer. If he sprays 10,000
acres a year he's saving farmers a lot and even if there are two or
three gardens damaged by spray drift it's a small price for the
benefit, he says.
He is, naturally enough, high on the value of spraying by
aircraft. Aircraft can spray when ground sprayers can't get on
the ground because it is too wet. They can cover the ground fast.
as much as 100 acres in an hour. They don't damage the crop by
tracking it down as tractor -towed ground sprayers do. He's not
alone in his praise. Soils and Crops specialist Pat Lynch of the
Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food at Stratford lists the
same benefits of crop spraying, plus the fact that aircraft can put
the fertilizer or chemicals on the crops and leave the farmer free
at busy times to do other work. Though the initial cost may be
slightly higher, Mr. Lynch said recently, the end cost is likely to
be the same or lower because there is no tracking down of crop
with an aircraft doing the spraying. That tracking can cost about
5 per cent of yield, Mr. Szekely says, which on a small lot may
Nozzles and spinners that help spread the payload over crops
nestle along the back of the wing.
PG. 6. THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1978.
VISTA VILLA
FARMS
ANNOUNCES
The Introduction of our
Purebred Yorkshire Herd
We based our herd on females from the herd of
Murray Faris, Bradford, and a herd boar from
Bodmin Farms, Brussels. Therefore, these will be
genetically different from most of the Yorkshires
in this area.
We plan to base our selections of Yorkshires on
the same important basics that we use on our
Hampshires: soundness, length of body, and
Ieaness.
We have tested our first group of boars on the
R.O.P. programme, and got the following
averages:
158 days, 200 lbs., 12.8 m.m. (.15 in.) backfat.
We would be pleased to show you our new Zine
of Yorkshires or our regular quality line of
Hampshires any time.
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No. 8 highmay
ROBERT J. ROBINSON
RR 4, WALTON, ONT.
345-2317