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Crop Dusting, Brawley, California, 2005

A setting sun casts a fiery glow over a crop duster spreading pesticides in a Brawley, California, field. In addition to controlling insects, bacterial diseases, and weeds, crop dusting can be used to apply fertilizers, delay fruit ripening, increase or decrease the number of fruit a plant produces, and defoliate plants to facilitate harvest. Biologists and farmers continue to weigh its costs and benefits.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Salton Sea," February 2005, National Geographic magazine)

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Photograph by Gerd Ludwig