Moore’s Aerial Applicators’ ag planes appeared on the cover of the Summer 2023 issue of Home Grown, an advertising supplement to The Sampson Independent, a newspaper in Clinton, North Carolina, where Rivenbark’s operation is based. Moore’s AT-502XP also graced the cover of Farming Matters, a Dublin County, North Carolina, publication.

Rivenbark and his company were featured under the headlines “Agricultural Aviation technology: When timing and cost are of the essence” in Farming Matters and “Agricultural from the air: Moore’s Aerial Applicators of Clinton treats crops from up top” in Home Grown. 

Moore’s Aerial Applicators’ territory in eastern North Carolina is home to a lot of small farms, which means, “We can spray three acres up to 3,000 acres” in any given job, Rivenbark told Home Grown. Blueberries are one of Rivenbark’s main crops. His operation treats about 5,000 acres of blueberries, spraying those fields about seven times a year. Rivenbark also flies his AT-502XP to Nebraska for a few weeks each summer, where he’ll cover about 20,000 acres over a two-week span. Larger planes, such as the 502XP, can average 150 to 200 acres an hour, whereas smaller ag planes average 75 to 100 acres an hour, Home Grown reported. 

Even though Duplin County is mainly rural, not everyone who lives there understands what aerial applicators do or the care and professionalism ag pilots exercise when they are plying their trade. As Farming Matters put it, Rivenbark is an “eager educator,” whether he’s educating a farmer about the advantages of aerial application or clearing up misperceptions non-farming residents may have. One time a woman posted a video on social media of one of Rivenbark’s planes spraying a squash field next to her yard. In the recording, she accused Moore’s Aerial Applicators of killing some bushes in her yard. As Rivenbark recounted, he called the upset neighbor and explained what he had been spraying and how it wasn’t possible for anything he was spraying to kill her bushes. “She took the video down, but he asked her permission to post it himself because he thought it was a good educational opportunity,” Farming Matters wrote.