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SPRING RAIN | UNION COUNTY
Spring rain drives drought
away from Union County
By KATY NESBITT
For EO Media Group
rastic diff erences in weather pat-
terns and markets from one year
to the next are keeping farmers in
Union County guessing as to the
2022 production outlook.
OSU Extension Agent Darrin Walenta
said the weather in May and early June,
though helpful, didn’t make a major dent
in the overall drought.
“The spring rains were certainly ben-
efi cial,” Walenta said. “There is no doubt
it came when we needed it to get crops up
and running and fi lling surface water stor-
D
After a damp spring, the fi elds of the Grande
Ronde Valley were lush and green as seen
from Mount Emily on July 1, 2022.
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
age facilities, but it didn’t take away all the
prolonged eff ects.”
To keep better track of soil moisture
profi les, Walenta said meteorology sys-
tems called AgriMet were installed that
measure evapotranspiration, the combi-
nation of two separate processes where
water is lost from the soil surface by evap-
oration, and from the crop by transpira-
tion. AgriMet monitors are installed in
Baker Valley as well as near Enterprise.
In both locations, when posts were buried
three feet down, the ground was dry even
after the soggy spring.
See Union, Page 17