10 CapitalPress.com Friday, January 22, 2021 Idaho farmer trades clean fields for healthier soil By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press KIMBERLY, Idaho — Todd Ballard’s family has been farming just east of Twin Falls for more than 100 years, and each gen- eration has taken pride in clean fields, nicely tilled and weed-free. But Ballard is slowly changing things up, leaving stubble in the field, planting cover crops and direct seed- ing — all to build soil health and keep more money in his pocket. “The old way wasn’t really penciling out,” he said. The farm used to be grav- ity irrigated, which requires corrugates that have to be maintained. But he and his father, Ron, phased in sprin- klers over the last 20 years and have taken a vastly dif- ferent approach to farming — using no-till and mini- mum-till practices. “We used to work the ground to death, we almost had to for gravity irrigation,” he said. The father and son started Leading battle against potato pest By BRAD CARLSON Capital Press Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press Todd Ballard on the family farm in Kimberly, Idaho. He is converting some of his fields to no-till and minimum-till to boost soil health and save money. experimenting with cover crops about eight years ago and direct seeding three years ago, increasing the no-till ground yearly. A lot has changed, and it’s taken some adjustment. “The main thing is the look of the field,” Ballard said. The heavy tilling of days past produced nice, pretty, consistent fields, he said. “Now there are all these dead gray plants, stubble, ARENA GROOMERS COMPLETE GROUND PREPARATION IN ONE PASS 4 standard sizes – All of them attach to tractor with 3-point hitch for quick, easy hook-up. Available pull tongue option for those without 3-point hitch hook-up. TODD BALLARD Occupation: Farmer Age: 58 Location: Kimberly, Idaho Acres: About 300 Crops: Beans, alfalfa, malt barley and wheat Management: Cover crops, no-till and low-till Family: Wife, Teresa; son, Riley clumps of straw. It looks trashy,” he said. That was the hardest thing to get used to, and it’s taken him a while to accept unmanicured fields. But armoring the soil with what conventional farm- ers would view as unsightly growth has resulted in no blowing soil and no water runoff. “We try to keep the fields covered, with living roots (below),” he said. Although he’s a soil health enthusiast now, he was a reluctant convert to no-till. “I was trying to lower my fertilizer usage, going for more soil health,” he said. This story was first pub- lished June 19, 2020. LOUISE-MARIE DANDURAND New weapons in the bat- tle against the pale cyst nem- atode — a major potato pest that has cost farmers millions of dollars since it was found in southeast Idaho in 2006 — include a bio-fumigant and a surprisingly efficient “trap crop.” Researchers are also making progress in devel- oping PCN-resistant potato varieties. “Understanding the biol- ogy allows us to target the weak point in the life cycle,” said University of Idaho Associate Professor Lou- ise-Marie Dandurand, proj- ect director of the Globodera Alliance. Globodera is the genus of the potato cyst nematode. The alliance is a five- year, $3.2 million project funded by USDA to assess the risk of and work to erad- icate potato cyst nematodes. The 16 alliance members include researchers and edu- cators from the Northwest, New York, Canada, Scot- land and France. An advisory board includes industry rep- resentatives and federal and state regulators. The project, in its final year, is seeking funding to continue its work. Cysts with viable eggs, which can number in the hundreds, can persist in the soil for decades. There they remain relatively resistant to chemical and biological stresses, an alliance news- letter said. The group also stud- ies the golden nematode — found in New York, where resistant potato varieties are available — and the related Globodera ellingtonae, Occupation: Research associate professor, Depart- ment of Entomology, Plant Pathology and Nematol- ogy, University of Idaho. Project director, Globodera Alliance. Age: 61 University of Idaho Louise-Marie Dandurand in the University of Idaho pale cyst nematode Lab- oratory. which as yet lacks a com- mon name. Dandurand said G. ellingtonae has been found in Oregon and a couple of Idaho locations, but does not appear to reduce potato yields. Alliance members are studying it because it behaves like the golden nematode. “When we see invasives, the whole industry becomes at-risk,” she said. Pale cyst nematode is of particular concern because it can reduce yields substan- tially, and resistant potato varieties are not yet avail- able for Idaho, where PCN for years has been the tar- get of government-ordered eradication. “These encysted eggs can survive in soil anywhere from 20 to 30 years,” Dan- durand said. If they have a host plant, the nematodes will hatch, swim to the potato plant’s root, invade it, “and reproduce to form more cysts that contain anywhere from 300 to 500 eggs.” A 2016 study by UI Agri- Hometown: Lives on a small farm near Moscow, Idaho. Grew up on dairy farm near Franklin, Vt. Education: B.A., botany, University of Vermont, 1981; M.S., plant science, University of Connecticut, 1985; Ph.D., plant pathol- ogy, University of Califor- nia-Riverside. Family: Widowed (husband Guy Knudsen, a UI soil microbiology professor and fellow Globodera Alliance member, died in 2016), two grown children. cultural Economics and Rural Sociology Profes- sor Chris McIntosh found PCN cost Idaho $25 million that year in potato farm-gate revenue, lost jobs and other impacts. The loss would have been about $30 million if not for replacement crops like barley and wheat. Non- host crops like grains can be planted in fields where PCN is present if equipment is san- itized per federal standards. USDA on Jan. 10 announced deregulation of five Idaho fields, a total of 404 acres, after sur- veys showed no PCN. That brought the total regulated area to 7,150 aces, 3,446 of which were infested. This story was first pub- lished May 22, 2020. 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