Aerial spray business soars

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This article was published 09/07/2020 (2000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Aerial spraying companies in Westman have been flying off their feet as farmers find themselves unable to get onto their water-soaked fields with their own equipment.

“It’s very busy right now,” said Jon Bagley, who manages Westman Aerial Spraying Ltd. Bagley sold the business, now in its 31st year, to Heritage Co-op this past spring.

Normally, they are hired by farmers who spray fungicide on their wheat and canola crops strictly by air, Bagley said Wednesday.

“But because of all the wet weather, everybody that planned on putting those fungicides on their wheat and their cereal crops can’t do it with a ground sprayer now, so we’ve just gotten a huge influx of extra work that has to get done,” he said, adding there is a very narrow window of three to four days to spray between the time the crops are ready and when that time has passed.

Areas of southwest and western Manitoba have recently been swamped with record-high precipitation amounts totalling more than 200 millimetres.

According to a map from the province, between May 1 and July 5, some areas in Westman saw anywhere from 130 per cent to 194 per cent more precipitation than normal.

On Tuesday, Westman Aerial Spraying — which has a fleet of five aircraft — had 13,000 new acres scheduled for spraying, Bagley said.

They would typically spray about 4,000 acres a day, as well as potato crops that would need spraying this time of year.

“So it was a huge day,” he said, adding another 9,000 acres had been scheduled for spraying on Wednesday, but the winds kept the aircraft grounded.

“Wind is a huge deterrent for us, obviously,” said Bagley, who has been in the aerial spraying business for 36 years.

“This is going to be a huge blow to try and get caught up on the acres that we’re trying to do.”

Depending on when farmers planted their crops, spraying will last another week or two “then it will be all over,” he said.

John Lepp, who owns Rivers Air Spray, has also been extremely busy lately.

“It’s extremely hectic,” he said Wednesday. “We have a lot of acres ahead of us, and now it’s got windy but now we have to wait (for the winds to die down to continue spraying).”

Lepp, who flies his aircraft out of the former Rivers air base, said he booked 21,000 acres for spraying in one week.

On Tuesday alone, he booked 8,000 acres.

“And that’s unusual,” he said, adding 2,000 or 3,000 acres a day would be norm for his one-plane operation.

“I’ve never seen it this busy,” said Lepp, who has been in the business since 1998. 

“It could turn into a record year,” he said, adding he may have to call in a colleague from Carman to help out.

“That’s what us aerial guys do,” Lepp said. “If we get behind, we get in our buddies and make sure the customer’s happy.”

While there is an additional expense for farmers to hire someone to spray their fields from the air as opposed to doing it themselves on the ground, there are good reasons to do so, said Keystone Agricultural Producers president Bill Campbell, who farms south of Brandon.

“There are some benefits to the aerial application in that you do not have tracks in the field,” Campbell said, adding if equipment gets stuck in the mud “getting it unstuck is a heck of a mess.”

“In times like this, you’re left with very few alternatives, and so aerial application is kind of the best route to go, but it will be for some that own their own equipment an additional expense,” he said.

“It’s a tough decision, but in light of weather conditions I think that we need to protect the crop the best we can, and so that means a fungicide application will be required, and if you can’t travel on the field, that aerial application is your best option.”

» brobertson@brandonsun.com