Frost Control By Helicopter

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 24, 24 November 1948, Page 4

Frost Control By Helicopter

A novel experiment in the use of a helicopter to control frost conditions was described recently at the West of Scotland Agricultural College farm at Auchincruive by Dr. John Grainger, head of the plant pathology department, and Mr D F. Booth, who is working on frost research for the Agricultural College. Dr. Grainger explained that the frost most damaging to plants is what is known as radiation fros + . When a calm, cool night follows a warm day there is an inversion of temperatures, and the coldest air is found near the ground. This was where the helicopter came in. During the first part of the experiment a helicopter was landed near lines of posts, each of which bore a thermometer. While the machiffe remained stationary its rotors fanned the air vigorously for fifteen minutes, during which time the thermometers on the posts registered a steady and significant rise in temperature as the warmer air was fanned down to mix with the cold layer at ground level.

After time had been allowed for the inversion condition to reform with the cold layer of air near the ground, the helicopter completed the experiment by flying over the area for fifteen minutes at about fifty feet. Again a rise in temperature was noted.

It seems possible, if further experiments prove successful, that at sunset the ploughman may no longer “homeward plod his weary way" but will be wafted into the evening sky in the farmer’s helicopter to stir the air above the early potatoes in Home Field.