London Inc. Summer 2021 - 20

Upfront Agriculture
FLYING LOW
For General Airspray of Lucan, agricultural
spraying is both a business and a way of life
JUST AFTER SUNRISE on a foggy, humid day in the marrow
of the summer growing season, David Hodgins touched down
at a rural airport near Walkerton in a white Piper PA-18 Super
Cub monoplane and launched into the yeoman's work of an
agricultural pilot.
Dressed casually, with clear safety goggles and a faded ball
cap, Hodgins rapidly filled the holding tanks of two Grumman
G-164 Ag-Cat biplanes with diluted fungicide and sent them
back into the air to spray nearby cornfields.
" The early hours are not for everyone, " says Hodgins, a pilot
and aircraft mechanic with General Airspray Ltd. of Lucan,
one of the top agricultural spraying companies in Ontario.
" Getting up in the morning and then working till dark and
then getting up again in the morning can be pretty strenuous.
You kind of get used to it, I guess. "
Hodgins is the third generation of his family to staff
General Airspray, located on a small rural compound near
Lucan with three aircraft hangars and its own 3,000-foot
grass landing strip.
David's father, Paul Hodgins, owns and manages the
company, started in 1962 by the late Roscoe Hodgins -
20 | londonincmagazine.ca | SUMMER 2021
David Hodgins of Lucan-based General Airspray
David's grandfather - and business partner, Doug Worgan.
General Airspray formed when Roscoe Hodgins and
Worgan bought a portion of Leavens Brothers, a Torontobased
company later known as Leavens Aviation. They
acquired four Boeing-Stearman Model 75 biplanes and
operated an agricultural spraying business from St. Thomas
Municipal Airport until 1971, then moved to a family farm
near Lucan later that year.
Today, General Airspray has agricultural clients across
Southern Ontario, covering thousands of acres of crops with
fungicide each summer. The company also plants about 2,000
acres of cover crops each year to replenish the soil with nitrogen
and to prevent erosion.
Aerial spraying is a way of protecting the investment
farmers put into their fields each spring, helping them avoid
yield loss believed to be caused by soil compaction and crop
trampling when tractors tow ground sprayers through the
fields.
London Inc. Summer 2021

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