Crop ‘dusting’ as such was not common in the UK. Pesticides were most usually applied as a liquid spray (concentrate pesticide diluted with water), and was usually performed where there was a need to avoid the physical crop damage that would result from driving a tractor and sprayer through the crop.
All pesticides have to go through an approval scheme, and those approved for aerial application were always few in number and generally less effective against the target pest (aerial application was only of insecticides or fungicides). As the approvals system for both terrestrial and aerial application has been tightened over the years, and more potentially harmful effects have come to light associated with some existing crop protection chemicals, or groups of chemicals, their approval has been restricted or revoked altogether in a large number of cases. I don’t think there are any still approved for aerial application in the UK.
This gradually reduced the pesticides approved for aerial application until there were very few that could be applied that way, and those that were still approved were much less effective than those approved for conventional tractor/sprayer use. Tractor sprayers have also increased in size enormously – when aerial spraying was at its peak, the average tractor sprayer width was 12m (40′); nowadays 24m is the norm with some larger growers and contractors using 36m, or even 48m spray booms, so the issue of crop damage from the wheelings has become much less of a factor.
The above, combined with the enormous cost of aerial application meant that applying pesticides from the air wasn’t economically viable any more.
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