Aerial sprayer picks ground near Platteville for airstrip

PLATTEVILLE – As agricultural acreage declines in Northern Colorado, the industries that serve producers are also on the decline.

Northern Colorado is home to six aerial agriculture companies, which apply pesticides, fungicides and herbicides to fields. All of the sprayers are based in Weld County.

In the face of that tight competition, a Platteville-based sprayer is building an airstrip to remain in business.

Ray Edmiston, owner of Aerial Sprayers Inc., is hoping his $900,000 investment will allow him to remain in the aerial spraying business until he retires.

He has rented space at airstrips in the past, but after having to make three moves in 33 years, Edmiston said it was time to make the commitment.

The strip will be 3,200 feet long and 24 feet wide, and the Weld County planning department said Edmiston’s application also calls for a hangar, fertilizer and insecticide storage and offices.

Edmiston, who has moved from Mead to Platteville, said he hopes this move to one mile east of U.S. Highway 85 will be far enough from urban growth.

“All it is out there is pasture and there is no water for five miles,” he said.

As farmers sell their land in favor of development, and as they sell their water rights to the cities, the amount of fields needing pesticides decreases dramatically. To compensate for the loss of acreage, ag sprayers have to travel further to maintain profitability.

“I fly from Denver to Ault and Boulder to Wiggins,” Edmiston said.

Other aerial ag appliers are cutting employees and offering other services to remain in business.

“It’s pretty sad – the farm economy is in the dumps and it’s hard to make a living growing crops. You make more money growing houses,´ said Bob Easton, owner of Easton Aerial Applicators in LaSalle.

Easton recently laid off one of his four employees and he blames the continued drought for the decline of agriculture in the area.

“We have lost so much land in the past couple of years,” he said. “We have lost another two farms in the area.”

The expenses of fuel and the cost of fertilizer are encouraging more farmers to use ground application methods to apply chemicals, yet another hit for ag sprayers.

“It is definitely a shrinking industry,´ said Sandra McDonald, environmental and pesticide education specialist for Colorado State University. “The public perception of pesticides and that they are scary or dangerous – which may or may not be true – drives the industry. People are scared of seeing these chemicals come out of an airplane because of drift, so a lot more people are using ground rigs.”

The trend of building housing developments among farm fields has forced neighboring farmers to strictly use ground rigs – even when aerial would be better suited – simply because they don’t want to have to deal with public outcry from the neighborhood.

“There is definitely a battle with public perception,” McDonald said.

The decline of aerial sprayers is not occurring statewide. According to the Colorado Ag Aviation Association, there are 65 owner-operators in the state, with a majority operating in the Eastern Plains and the Western Slope.

“There are a number of factors in Colorado that are affecting the industry,´ said Dolle Lehrkamp, executive director of the Colorado Ag Aviation Association. “In the areas where the suburbs are able to go they are building homes, and in the east and south of the metro area they are selling the water so they can’t grow the same crops.”

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