12 CapitalPress.com
October 2, 2015
‘Growers are doing what they have to do to make a crop’
DROUGHT from Page 1
“So clearly this drought
has forced us to change our
practices.”
‘All of the above’
To get by, farmers have
switched irrigation practic-
es, left ground fallow, grown
crops that require less water
and mature earlier, changed
rotations — anything that will
get them through until the
snow and rain return to nor-
mal.
“It’s kind of been all of the
above,” said Stuart Reitz, an
Oregon State University crop-
ping systems extension agent
in Malheur County. “Growers
are doing what they have to
do to make a crop.”
OSU cropping systems
extension agent Bill Buhrig
said farmers are trying many
ways to make the water they
do have last.
“It’s like a combination
(lock),” he said. “Growers are
trying to turn it and unlock
next year’s success.”
Nyssa, Ore., farmer Paul
Skeen said a lot of farmers
have switched from a 24-hour
watering set to a 12-hour set
and sometimes even six-hour
sets. A set refers to how often
water is moved across a field.
“You’re getting across
the field in half the time, so
you’re ... using less water on
that field, which gives you
more for other fields,” he said.
Farmers are leaving a lot
more ground fallow, which
allows them to use what water
they have for the area’s cash
crops, such as onions and po-
tatoes. They’re growing more
crops that require less water
such as like peas, beans, seed
crops and grains.
But there’s a catch to
switching to low-water crops.
“They try to rotate crops
that take a lot less water ...
but those crops provide less
income, too,” said Owyhee
Irrigation District Manager
Jay Chamberlin. “That’s com-
pletely thrown their rotations
out. It’s going to take years to
get back into their rotation.”
The drought has resulted
in more farmers switching to
irrigation pivots, Buhrig said.
“One grower I talked to
said, ‘My reduced water al-
lotment goes a lot further
through sprinklers than it does
through furrow irrigation,’”
Buhrig said. “He said, ‘After
two years of being reactive, I
feel like I need to get on the
offense a little bit here.’”
Farmers
have
also
switched a lot of acres to drip
irrigation systems.
Skeen switched about 40
percent of his onion crop to
a drip system this year and
Photos by Sean Ellis/Capital Press FIle
From left, Oregon State University researchers Clint Shock, Ron Roncarati and Stuart Reitz look at an onion field trial at OSU’s Malheur
County experiment station in 2014. Researchers there have been working on ways to help area farmers deal with drought conditions.
parts of the system has creat-
ed its own problem.
Because growers have
switched a large portion of
their cash crops, mainly on-
ions, to parts of the system
with more water, it has re-
sulted in shortened rotations.
For example, instead of
planting onions every four or
five years in a field, farmers
might plant them two out of
three years or three out of
four years to take advantage
of the water that is available
there.
Those types of practic-
es aren’t good over the long
term because they can lead to
a build-up of soil-borne dis-
eases and poor crop quality,
Reitz said.
“If you can’t rotate
through to other crops, (the
problem) just gets com-
pounded year to year,” he
said. “For the long term, we
don’t want to see those kinds
of practices continue.”
Through the drought,
much of the work being done
at the OSU research sta-
tion has centered on helping
growers maximize the effi-
ciency of their irrigation.
Drip irrigation
A potato field is harvested near Ontario, Ore., on Aug. 25. A
lingering drought has caused farmers in Eastern Oregon who
depend on the Owyhee Reservoir for their irrigation water to alter
their farming practices. That has included planting more crops
that require less water to save their water for cash crops, such as
potatoes and onions.
Irrigation water flows through a ditch near Ontario, Ore., on July
23. A lingering drought has caused farmers in Eastern Oregon
who depend on the Owyhee Project for their irrigation water to alter
their farming practices. The drought has resulted in some farmers
“that’s probably going to be
up around 60-65 percent this
coming year,” he said. “I’m
just trying to save water and
have a better crop.”
‘Get me over’ crops
Some farmers are turning
to crops such as triticale or
camelina that need little or no
irrigation water, Buhrig said.
Those crops won’t provide
much income but at least they
help a farmer cover some of
the fixed costs associated with
his land, he said.
“They’re not high-dol-
lar crops but they’re ‘get me
over’ crops,” Buhrig said.
“Leaving a field fallow is not
cheap. Your water bill and
taxes stay the same.”
Weeds become a major
issue in fields left fallow,
Chamberlin said.
Weed patches have devel-
oped on some land left idle
“and now they’re going to
have to fight that weed seed
for the next several years,” he
said.
Because sugar beets
and corn for grain are both
high-water crops and need
water longer in the season
than many other crops, acre-
age for both is down by about
a half compared to normal in
the region, Buhrig said. More
shorter-season corn varieties
were planted, he added.
Onions are a high-water
crop, but they are also the
main cash crop in the area,
so those acres have decreased
only slightly during the
drought.
Farmers are getting more
conservative with their fall
fertilizer programs, Buhrig
said.
“It’s getting a little harder
to spend that $300 on fertiliz-
er in a fall-bedded operation
if you don’t know for sure
you’re going to (have the wa-
ter to) be able to grow that
crop the next year,” he said.
Water from the irrigation
district stopped flowing in
August the past two seasons
— about two months earli-
er than normal. But because
the allotment was reduced by
two-thirds, a lot of farmers
ran out of water in July.
The effects of the drought
have been felt most severely
on the 50,000 acres along the
upper parts of the irrigation
district, where growers are to-
tally dependent on water from
the reservoir.
Growers on the lower parts
of the system have access to
supplemental water from the
Snake River, but that also in-
creases their pumping costs.
Shorter rotations
The availability of ad-
ditional water on the lower
Researchers worked on
about 40 experiments this
year involving drip irriga-
tion, said Clint Shock, the
station’s director.
Some of the work, such
as the station’s drip irrigation
trials, has been going on for
two decades. The station has
for years studied irrigation
scheduling — turning water
on and off at the right time,
Shock said.
The drought has caused a
lot of growers to adopt those
practices, which the station
has preached about and stud-
ied for years, he said.
Growers and water man-
agers in the area are keeping a
close eye on the precipitation
forecast for the coming win-
ter. Currently, there’s about
a 50-50 chance of the basin
receiving a normal amount of
snowpack, Chamberlin said.
With only about 5,000
acre-feet of available car-
ryover water stored in the
reservoir — far below the
350,000 acre-feet that would
be expected during an aver-
age year — farmers in this
area are heading into 2016
with even more uncertain-
ty regarding their water
supply.
“Right now farmers are
(preparing) ground for next
spring not knowing what kind
of water year they are going
to have,” Chamberlin said.
“That’s tough when you’re
looking at a (reservoir) that’s
empty.”
Number of wolf attacks alone is not enough to authorize lethal control
WOLVES from Page 1
The number of attacks
alone is not enough to au-
thorize killing wolves. The
plan is complicated and re-
quires multiple other find-
ings as well, including that
non-lethal measures are not
working and that wolves are
an immediate threat, ODFW
spokeswoman
Michelle
Dennehy said.
In this case, she said, it
had been nearly a month
since the last attack and
radio collar data showed
the Mount Emily pack had
moved to other parts of its
range, away from the sheep.
Based on that, the depart-
ment decided not to autho-
rize lethal control, she said.
Producer Jeremy Bing-
ham of Utopia Land and
Livestock formally asked
ODFW for “lethal relief
from the wolves that are
massacring our sheep,” but
did not do so until Sept. 21.
The department, which
hasn’t authorized killing any
wolves since two in 2011,
turned him down. In a Sept.
25 letter to Bingham, ODFW
wildlife biologist Mark
Kirsch said non-lethal mea-
sures had worked since the
last attack in late August.
“We are sorry your expe-
rience with Oregon’s forest
lands has been problematic
this year,” Kirsch conclud-
ed in his letter to Bingham.
“It is our hope you complete
your grazing season with no
further loss.”
Courtesy of Jeremy Bingham
A herd guard dog reportedly killed by wolves in northeast Oregon’s Umatilla National Forest. Producer
Jeremy Bingham asked state wildlife officials to kill wolves but was turned down despite qualifying
sheep and dog losses.
Department officials also
noted Bingham would be re-
moving his sheep from the
area in October under the
terms of his seasonal grazing
permit in the Umatilla Na-
tional Forest.
Department spokeswom-
an Dennehy said the Mount
Emily pack now is frequent-
ing the central and southern
part of their known range
area, and the sheep are in the
northeastern edge. Three of
the pack members wear radio
collars that allow biologists
to track their movements.
“ODFW has an agenda and it is only
about politics, not science.”
Producer Jeremy Bingham of Utopia Land and Livestock
Bingham is furious, and
said ODFW officials are
dishonest and “two-faced
politicians.” He said he was
slow to request lethal control
because he knew the depart-
ment would decline it. He
said a wildlife official had
indicated such in a local me-
dia interview.
“It’s unfortunate I trust-
ed them,” he said by text to
the Capital Press. “The only
interest to them is that the
wolves eat the economy of
Eastern Oregon.”
Bingham said he’s been
patient and followed Ore-
gon’s wolf plan rules in the
face of repeated losses to
wolves over the past two
years. He estimates he’s
lost more than 100 ewes.
One guard dog was killed
this year; in 2014 two were
injured and another dis-
appeared and is presumed
dead.
“We have not harmed any
wolves but we are not in the
business of sacrificing assets
to feed (ODFW’s) pet dogs,”
Bingham said by text.
ODFW investigates re-
ported livestock attacks but
follows a strict protocol that
includes examining wounds
and measuring bite marks
and tracks before confirm-
ing wolves were respon-
sible. ODFW depredation
reports do not correspond
to Bingham’s claimed loss-
es. He said he didn’t report
many attacks; other pro-
ducers have repeatedly said
livestock often disappear in
wolf country. They suspect
wolves kill many more cattle
and sheep than are confirmed
in depredation reports.
Bingham is general man-
ager of Utopia Land and
Livestock, a family compa-
ny based in Burley, Idaho.
He grazes sheep in Idaho,
and for the past three sea-
sons held a grazing permit
in the Umatilla National
Forest in Oregon as well.
The permit allowed him to
graze 2,000 ewes and lambs
for a little over four months.
He must remove them from
public land Oct. 9.
The Mount Emily pack,
which at the end of 2014 was
thought to consist of seven
wolves, has been a problem.
In
September
2014
wolves attacked Bingham’s
sheep on consecutive nights,
killing a total of eight sheep
and injuring two of five
guard dogs; a third dog was
missing, according to the
initial ODFW report. The
incident was the first time
herd dogs were attacked in
Oregon, the department said
at the time.
Bingham said he’s tak-
en steps to fend off wolves.
He hired a herder who is
with the sheep 24 hours a
day, placed five to seven
guard dogs with each sheep
band, penned sheep at night
on occasion and deployed
alarm lights and a siren that
is activated by a wolf’s ra-
dio collar. He said a feder-
al Wildlife Services agent
voluntarily sat with the herd
overnight several times.
Bingham said Wildlife
Services and the U.S. Forest
Service, which administers
the grazing allotment, have
been “incredible” agencies
to work with. He said ODFW
led him to believe there was
recourse for the wolf attacks
but now won’t do what’s al-
lowed under the state plan.
He said allowing wolves to
kill multiple sheep is “just
training pups to be chronic
depredators.” He predicted
elk and antelope populations
will decline due to wolves
and said attacks on humans
will happen.
“ODFW has an agenda
and it is only about politics,
not science,” Bingham said.