NAAA Visits Key Leaders at Helena and National Cotton Council, Continuing Its Promotion of Aerial Application to Key User Groups and Pesticide Manufacturers

Earlier this week NAAA visited with key leaders at Helena Agri-Enterprises and the National Cotton Council in Western Tennessee as part of NAAA’s ongoing efforts to inform and incorporate the support of pesticide manufacturers and key users of agricultural aviation services. Helena Agri-Enterprises sells and applies inputs, including its own line of products that include adjuvants, pesticides, and fertilizers that improve agricultural productivity. Helena subsidiary, Diversified Applications, is one of the largest aerial application operations in the country in terms of individual operations and aircraft in its fleet and applies in multiple states. The National Cotton Council represents cotton growers throughout the United States. Cotton ranks as the fifth most treated crop by aerial applicators throughout the country with 34.1% of operators treating it, according to NAAA’s 2019 Industry Survey.

At both the meetings with Helena and the National Cotton Council, NAAA discussed its advocacy to the EPA of the more robust and accurate Tier 3 version of the atmospheric model AgDRIFT, which has resulted in preserving numerous aerial uses of pesticide products. NAAA also discussed its involvement in retrofitting the AGDISP atmospheric model to allow for more drift reduction technology inputs to be added to the model’s calculus of drift which will also help labeling of aerial use on pesticide products and, ultimately, may lead to site specific, real-time modeling of applications in the cockpit rather than a one-size-fits-all, overly restrictive aerial label that doesn’t reward applicators that incorporate drift reduction technologies or techniques into their application practices. NAAA also advocated for support of many of its networking and safety and stewardship educational programs.