HAZEN - Andy Deterding's tractor has wings and it can go 175 mph.

That gets him from one end of the field to the other right quick, laying a chemical blanket smooth and even as lotion on a baby's bottom.

He owns one of 135 commercial aerial spray operations in North Dakota. He makes those heart-stopping, quick-turning passes 10 feet off the ground, dousing fields of green with fertilizer, pesticide and fungicide.

Twenty years ago there were 190 operations like Deterding's in the state. Seven years ago there were 175.

It's the same trend as farms - fewer and bigger.

The turbine jet engine Air Tractor Deterding flew over an irrigated potato field near Hazen has five times more horsepower, goes twice as fast and carries nearly six times the chemical payload as the Pawnee it replaced.

Thursday, it was zip and turn, zip and turn, and he was done. His global positioning screen flashed all green to show he hadn't missed any strips out in the 132-acre field. Using boys who wore bandanas over their face and flagged the spray strips on the ground is a thing of the past.

He reloaded chemicals at the nearby regional airport and talked to his wife on the cell phone before heading off to another potato job south of Riverdale.

It's no surprise that Deterding is male. Every crop sprayer in North Dakota is, and if memory serves, always has been, said Mark Holzer, planner with the North Dakota Aeronautics Commission.

It's a tricky business. However, the testosterone in the business is most likely a result of the very small number of any female pilots licensed in North Dakota.

Spray pilots have to focus on obstacles like power lines, irrigation pivots, and now, cell phone towers and wind turbines. The skyline is an increasingly busy place.

Fatalities don't happen often, based on National Transportation Safety Board statistics. But they do happen. Last month, a Watford City spray pilot caught a wing dodging a power line and died in the crash. Last summer, a longtime Washburn spray pilot died in a plane crash on what he'd said was his last job.

Deterding's been spraying for 25 years. He's had a few scrambles, himself, when the engine cut out on occasion.

It's tricky, but it is lucrative work, he said.

These days, about one-third of his business is potatoes, which are sprayed some 10 times in the growing season, mainly with fungicide to keep the spuds from spoiling in the bin. At $6 an acre, the potato growers will have nearly a $10,000 plane tab on a quarter-section. That doesn't include the chemical cost.

Spraying "is all I do," said Deterding.

He starts the year in Oklahoma, moves to his base in Carrington and then flies out to Oregon, where he fertilizes pastures and Douglas fir farms. From there he goes "coastal," spraying fertilizer for International Paper and Weyerhaeuser, who've found they can harvest trees in 24 years, rather than 40, thanks to chemicals, he said.

He likes the life. His work day is done when the wind comes up in the afternoon and his family travels with him.

There's a good living, but years when it's dry can be off.

There's been a dramatic decrease in the number of acres sprayed by plane, as opposed to with coupes or tractor-pulled booms.

Twenty years ago, 4.6 million acres were aerial-sprayed in North Dakota. Last year, just 2.5 million were.

Holzer said that number could surpass 4 million this year. Crop conditions are worth the investment in spray and some areas are too wet for ground equipment, he said.

Crop sprayers add $82 million to the economy, with 850 employees on the payroll and purchases of equipment, chemical and fuel.

Looking ahead, Holzer said the chemicals Deterding and others spray are increasing complex.

"Training needs to continue," he said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511, or lauren@;westriv.com.)