Des Moines Register
09-16-07
Aerial crop spraying soars
High prices for corn, soybeans from biofuels boom secure service's future
By JERRY PERKINS
REGISTER FARM EDITOR
Indianola, Ia. - High prices for corn and soybeans have sparked a comeback for
the aerial spraying business.
Terry Sharp, owner of Agri-Tech Aviation, said business nearly tripled this
summer because of heavy demand to spray fungicide on corn and to apply
pesticides to soybeans.
Sharp, 60, estimated his company treated by air 275,000 acres of corn and
soybeans this year. He estimated that his and other aerial companies sprayed
5.5 million acres of Iowa crops this summer.
"That's significantly more than our previous biggest year," Sharp said.
Alison Robertson, Iowa State University Extension plant pathologist, said
no one knows exactly how many of Iowa's 13.5 million acres of corn and 8.8
million acres of soybeans were sprayed this year.
"It was a huge increase this year from previous years," Robertson said. "They
started spraying corn before the Fourth of July and sprayed for a good three
weeks, and then they went on to soybeans."
Rich Pope, Extension program specialist with the corn and soybean
initiative at ISU, said most corn spraying was done with a fungicide to prevent
plant diseases.
Soybean aphids - the worst infestation in four years - became a problem in
August and pesticide spraying really picked up, Pope said.
"Most of the applications for soybean aphids were a wise, judicious use of
insecticides," he said. "It was an appropriate tactic."
Plant pathologists aren't so sure if spraying corn with fungicides was an
economical effort, Pope said.
The increase in spraying this year's corn and soybeans was related to the
increase in corn and soybean prices, he said. If you grow more bushels an acre
(by spraying), the extra yield might more than make up for the application cost.
The increase in aerial spraying also has sparked more complaints about
chemicals drifting onto neighboring properties or unprotected people, said Chuck
Eckermann, chief of the pesticide bureau of the Iowa Department of Agriculture
and Land Stewardship.
There have been 55 complaints about drifting chemicals and 84 complaints about
ground applicators this year, according to Eckermann.
That compares with 13 complaints in the previous 12 months, he said.
Eckermann said the state has licensed 217 businesses to apply agricultural
chemicals by airplane, including 175 from outside the state, he said.
Test results from investigations of most of the complaints are just starting to
come back, Eckermann said.
So far, only one Iowa commercial pesticide applicator license has been revoked
because of a complaint.
Kin Co. Ag Aviation of Beech Grove, Ark., had its license revoked by an
administrative law judge because of a July incident in which a Kin Co. airplane
allegedly sprayed fungicide on 36 detasselers in a cornfield near Marshalltown.
Attempts to reach Kin Co. President Harvey Songer were unsuccessful.
Sharp, who is past president of the Iowa Agricultural Aviation Association, said
the complaints about aerial applicators increased this year because of the
increase in the number of acres that were treated by plane.
"This is a pretty sensitive state" for applying chemicals by air, said Sharp. Some
out-of-state aerial applicators might not understand that, he said.
Iowa aerial applicators talk to the out-of-state companies about those sensitivities
when they come to Iowa, and advise them to be extra careful, he said.
Publicity about the Marshalltown incident led to a flurry of complaints, Sharp said.
"It made our lives a bit of a challenge," he said. "A lot of the complaints we got
were nuisance complaints. Twenty years ago we used some products that could
cause some problems, but these days these products are very safe and virtually
nontoxic. We use them at low rates, but you still have to keep them off the
neighbor."
The high price of both crops - corn prices are 55 percent higher than a year ago
and soybeans are 66 percent higher than a year ago -made it more economically
feasible to spend the $22 an acre it typically costs to apply agricultural costs,
including an aerial application cost of $7 to $8 an acre.
Sharp estimates that the boost in corn and soybean yields from the aerial
applications will add $400 million to farmers' bottom lines this year.
Prospects for continued high prices for corn and soybeans caused by the
biofuels boom have made Sharp optimistic about the future of the aerial
application business.
"Ten years ago, I thought this was a dying breed," he said.
One of the reasons for Sharp's past pessimism was the advent of genetically
modified corn that can make its own insecticide to kill corn pests, like the
European corn borer.
"Spraying bugs on corn was our bread and butter for about 20 years," said
Sharp. "When genetically modified corn put an end to that business, most of us
thought that was the end of the aerial application business in Iowa."
Demand for corn to make ethanol also has sparked an interest in boosting corn
yields.
"Everybody wants to know how to meet demand for corn to produce ethanol, and
this was a way to make more corn without having to plant more land," Sharp
said. "Now, we've got a core business we can use as an opportunity for the
future."
Now, Sharp said, soybeans appear to be a steady business with more pests
appearing almost every year.
Agri-Tech is a third-generation business.
Sharp's late father, Weston, piloted aerial spray planes for the business when it
was owned by Warren County agribusinessman Chuck Laverty.
Sharp also flew for Laverty, and bought the business from him. Terry Sharp's
son, Jerad, is logistics manager for the company.
Farm Editor Jerry Perkins can be reached at (515) 284-8456 or
jperkins@dmreg.com