Capital press., March 11, 2016, Page 7, Image 39

March 11, 2016
CapitalPress.com
Family ‘team’ grows variety of crops
By HEATHER SMITH THOMAS
Doug Carlquist and his
wife, Melanie, live on the farm
where he grew up.
“Originally, I was farm-
ing with my brother,” he said.
“About 12 years ago he had a
son coming back to farm with
him, so we separated our oper-
ations and started farming on
our own.”
On the farm, Melanie is his
top hand. Their children have
helped on the farm as they
were growing up.
“My girls have married and
gone on to other things but my
son Parker is a senior in high
school and still helping me,”
Carlquist says.
The farm grows mainly
row crops but also raises small
grains for several seed compa-
nies, mostly soft white wheat
and some barley.
“We usually sell to Western
enough help to move hand
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he added.
Owner: Doug and Melanie
The typical crop rotation
Carlquist
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Farming since: Late 1980s
rotating to beets, and then a
Location: Hazelton, Idaho
crop of corn or beans, and
Crops: Sugar beets, dry
then back to small grains. This
beans, small grains and corn
seems best for the soil and the
Acres: 820
plants.
“It helps cut down on dis-
says. “We have ideal conditions eases. If you plant too soon
for growing seed crops; there is again with the same crop you
very little disease pressure and end up hurting yourself in the
ZHXVXDOO\KDYHVXI¿FLHQWZD- long run,” he says. “Rotation
ter to bring a crop to maturity.” gives more opportunity to con-
His farm has surface water trol the weeds and insects a lit-
rights from the Northside Canal tle better.”
At this point his son Parker
Co.
“We now have all sprinkler is not sure whether he wants to
irrigation and we converted farm.
“He has other interests.
everything from wheel lines to
center pivots, with hand line or Each young person has to
solid set sprinklers in the cor- ¿JXUH LW RXW´ &DUOTXLVW VD\V
“Some grow up thinking they
ners,” he says.
Moving to pivots has been are never going to come back,
pushed by the labor short- then after they get away from
DJH KH VD\V ,W¶V KDUG WR ¿QG home for a while they decide
Carlquist Farm
For the Capital Press
Courtesy photo
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which they operate as a team.
Seeds and AgriSource, which
are both in the Burley-Hey-
burn area,” he says.
He’s also grown dry edible
beans, for both commercial
seed and garden bean seed.
“We’ve worked with a
number of companies, and
for the garden bean seed
we’ve sold to Harris Moran,”
Carlquist says.
Many seed crops are grown
in the region.
“There are many dry beans
grown here, with a lot of differ-
ent companies contracting,” he
7
that farming is not so bad after
all.”
Their daughters live in
Oklahoma and Virginia, but
one is nearby in the Burley
area — “and we enjoy being
able to babysit our 15-month-
old grandson,” he says.
“They would all like to
move back to smaller towns
and enjoy rural life, but they
have good employment where
they are,” he says.
“Our farm is just a family
operation; my wife is my right
hand ‘man,’” he says. “Her
parents were in the bee busi-
ness but she enjoys the farm.
She does a little bit of every-
thing — helps with planting,
harvest and is able to do any-
thing and everything. It’s a
team effort with a lot of versa-
tility.”
Melanie also takes care of
the bookkeeping, “which I am
grateful for,” he says. “We are
blessed to have a good team.”
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