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CENTRAL OREGON AG SHOW SPECIAL SECTION | INSIDE Capital Press EMPOWERING PRODUCERS OF FOOD & FIBER CapitalPress.com Friday, March 11, 2022 Volume 95, Number 10 $2.00 FOR THE BIRD BIRDS S Growers raise sunflowers for birdseed Dennis Urbat A fi eld of sunfl owers, raised by Dennis Urbat in the Clayton, Wash., area for birdseed. Urbat was the fi rst farmer in the area to try growing sunfl owers as a rotation crop. acre, which penciled out to $600 per acre. He estimates the cost of pro- duction is about $100 per acre. “It was quite profi table,” he said. The following year, Urbat increased his acreage to 120 acres. Since then, he has grown 250 to 1,000 acres of sunfl owers each year on his land and for neighbors. Sunfl owers for birdseed make up about 20% of his total operation, he said. “It’s an amazing plant, how it survives in drought-tolerant con- ditions,” he said. “It actually sur- prised us.” By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press C LAYTON, Wash. — Pristine white snow shimmered in the sun- light on Dennis Urbat’s fi eld the morning of March 1, but come summer it will be awash in a golden wave of sunfl owers whose seeds are bound for a feathered clientele. Urbat primarily raises the strik- ing yellow fl owers for their seeds, which are used in bird feeders around the world. He doesn’t grow the fl owers solely because of a love for birds. During last year’s drought, sunfl ow- ers were his only crop that was prof- itable, Urbat said. Urbat farms with his son, Blaine, 20 miles north of Spokane. He also raises alfalfa, timothy, oats, hard red wheat, soft white wheat and canola. He typically plants sunfl owers the last week of April or fi rst week of May, and then harvests them in late September or early October. They can reach a height of 6 feet. More people feeding birds Matthew Weaver/Capital Press Blaine Urbat and his father, Dennis, stand in the snow with their dog Remy in a fi eld March 1 in Clayton, Wash. Come summer, the fi eld will be fi lled with sunfl owers raised for birdseed. Urbat started raising sunfl owers about nine years ago. He was the fi rst farmer in the area to raise them as a rotational crop. “Everyone else was kind of onlookers and seeing if I would be successful with it,” he said. A friend in North Dakota was raising sunfl owers for birdseed, so Urbat decided to plant 40 acres of the crop to see how it would grow. He got about 2,600 pounds per The company Urbat grows sun- fl owers for, Global Harvest Foods, is the No. 1 wild bird food manufac- turer in the world. “If the average tube-style bird feeder holds one pound, we sold enough bird food to fi ll 500 million feeders” last year, said Judy Hoy- sak, vice president of product devel- opment and marketing. See Birdseed, Page 11 Drought conditions persist for Pacifi c Northwest By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press Nearly three-quarters of the Pacifi c Northwest remains locked in drought, cli- mate experts from Oregon, Washington and Idaho say. In the driest areas of southern and cen- tral Oregon, irrigators face another year of water shortages, and fi re districts are predict- ing above-normal risk for wildfi res as early as May. Britt Parker, regional drought information coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said 74% of the Northwest is currently in drought. Approxi- mately 18% is in “extreme” or “exceptional” drought, the two driest categories. “This refl ects long-term precipitation defi cits for much of the interior Northwest,” Parker said. It would take 150-200% above normal precipitation over the next two months to end drought conditions in the most severely impacted areas, according to NOAA. Nick Bond, Washington state climatologist, said the odds of that happening are extremely low. Bond said the region was expected to ben- efi t from La Nina, which typically portends cooler and wetter weather during the winter. However, a ridge of high pressure that normally parks itself over the north-central Pacifi c Ocean was instead closer to the West Coast, defl ecting storms and pushing them north. “That basically dried us out for that period of January and February that we’re complaining about,” Bond said. Even with the recent atmospheric river that brought heavy rainfall to northwest Ore- gon and Washington, precipitation did not fall where it was needed most, farther south and east. Looking ahead, Bond said more of the same can be expected from March through May. “For Central Oregon and Southern Idaho, the forecasts are not nearly as encouraging,” he said, adding that Mother Nature “is not always fair.” Bond did highlight one silver lining: There is no indication this spring will be as warm as it was in 2021. Cooler weather means mountain snowpack is liable to stick Brad Rippey/USDA See Drought, Page 11 Western Drought Monitor Potential county hemp restrictions raise concerns about industry By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Oregon counties may suspend new hemp production under a bill recently passed by the Legislature, raising concerns in the industry about farmers missing economic opportunities. Under Senate Bill 1564, which now awaits the signature of Gov. Kate Brown, county gov- ernments can declare an emergency to stop the issuance of new state hemp licenses for two years. Hemp production in Oregon has already Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File fallen precipitously due to an oversupply, but Hemp is harvested from an Oregon fi eld. A bill that per- county restrictions could hinder an industry mits counties to suspend new hemp production has raised resurgence at a time when new uses for the concerns about farmers missing economic opportunities. crop are multiplying, experts say. “The negative impact is it sends a message to the rest of the country that Oregon is not where you want to do hemp,” said Beau Whit- ney, an economist who tracks the industry. “It puts the state farther and farther behind.” Excitement about the high demand and healthful eff ects of cannabidiol, or CBD, caused a surge in hemp production that was soon followed by a surplus, prompting many farmers to abandon or reduce cultivation of the crop. Acreage across the U.S. dropped by more than 50% last year, while Oregon’s acre- age plummeted more than 80%, according to Whitney. See Industry, Page 11 COME SEE US AT OUR SALEM LOCA TION S280247-1