NEWS
Wednesday, august 4, 2021
HeRMIstOnHeRaLd.COM • A9
Solving the
dryland puzzle
Researchers seek efficiency, want
to tap into carbon credit market
By GEORGE PLAVEN
CaPItaL PRess
Experimental plots of
wheat unfold across the
Columbia Basin Agricul-
tural Research Center like
a patchwork quilt of amber
and gold.
Christina Hagerty, an
assistant professor of cereal
pathology at the station 7
miles north of Pendleton,
walked through the fields
on an early July morning
pointing out various trials —
everything from tests of new
wheat varieties to new tech-
niques for managing weeds
and diseases.
Each trial could ulti-
mately impact farmers’ bot-
tom lines. “As researchers,
we need to lose our shirt
before the farmer does,”
Hagerty said.
The purpose of the cen-
ter, commonly known as
CBARC, is to improve dry-
land farming practices in
a region that receives little
precipitation.
Research funded by two
new congressional appropri-
ations will help the center’s
scientists from Oregon State
University and the USDA
Agricultural Research Ser-
vice unlock the secrets of
dryland farming and its
impacts on climate change.
One appropriation seeks
to develop dryland farming
techniques that can improve
soil health and save farmers
money by requiring less fer-
tilizer, herbicides and other
inputs.
The other is to study soil
carbon sequestration and the
overall carbon footprint of
dryland farms in the region
— critical information to
determine whether growers
can profit from participating
in future carbon markets.
“Dryland wheat farmers
are the most innovative folks
you will ever meet,” Hagerty
said. “We need to fight for
the good work our growers
are doing.”
The funding also marks a
dramatic change of fortune
for the station after years of
fighting for its budgetary life.
Grower-led initiative
Established in 1931,
CBARC is one of 11 research
centers run by OSU in differ-
ent growing regions around
the state.
The USDA also shares
space at the station, which
it calls the Columbia Pla-
teau Conservation Research
Center. Though technically
separate, they have similar
missions to enhance dryland
farming in the arid Columbia
Basin.
However, the center faced
a crisis in 2016 and 2017,
with budget cuts threatening
nearly half the annual fund-
ing on the USDA side.
The Oregon wheat indus-
try lobbied to save the cen-
ter’s funding, but Greg Goad,
a Pendleton-area farmer, said
more was needed to find a
stable injection of resources.
“It became clear to us that
this was not a good long-term
strategy for dealing with the
problem,” Goad said.
Goad, who describes him-
self as semi-retired, serves
on a grower liaison commit-
tee that works with both the
USDA and OSU research
programs. He said their focus
became identifying propos-
als that could catch the eye
of Congress and policymak-
ers — hence the focus on cli-
mate change.
“We could see where we
could be a help on carbon,
and at the same time help the
growers,” Goad said.
The $2 million Resilient
Dryland Farming Appro-
priation was approved by
Congress in 2019, and the
$1.5 million soil carbon
research appropriation was
announced earlier this year.
Amanda Hoey, CEO of
the Oregon Wheat Grow-
ers League and the state’s
Wheat Commission, said
the projects will provide
much-needed data specific
to the Columbia Basin’s
unique climate and growing
environment.
“It will assure data spe-
cific to the regional differ-
ences in Oregon and will
ultimately lead to increased
profitability and crop yield
— good for our agricultural
economy, our environmen-
tal stewardship and our rural
economies,” Hoey said.
Region-specific data
Wheat is Oregon’s sixth-
most valuable agricultural
commodity, with farmers
harvesting nearly 47 mil-
lion bushels worth more than
$294 million in 2020.
The vast majority of that
production comes from
Umatilla and Morrow coun-
ties, which together have
roughly 61% of the total
wheat acreage.
Annual precipitation var-
ies by location. For example,
the Pendleton station, nestled
along the Blue Mountains,
gets 16-18 inches, while
areas farther west get as little
as 8-10 inches. As a result,
most dryland farmers rotate
their fields between growing
a crop one year and leaving it
fallow the next to rebuild soil
moisture.
Francisco
Calderon,
CBARC station manager
with OSU, said research
must be tailored to this par-
ticular system.
“We cannot use data from
the Midwest,” Calderon
explained. “The answers to
our questions about soil car-
bon have to be developed
locally.”
Calderon knows the dif-
ferences all too well. He
came to OSU after 18 years
working for the USDA in
eastern Colorado.
Despite both regions pro-
ducing dryland wheat, cli-
matic differences mean Col-
orado farmers receive more
moisture in the form of
summer thunderstorms, as
opposed to the Pacific North-
west, where most precipita-
tion falls in the winter.
The timing allows farm-
ers in Colorado to rotate
wheat with other summer
crops such as corn or sor-
ghum. Mother Nature does
not give farmers in northeast
Oregon that option.
In turn, different farming
practices and crops impact
the amount of carbon that
can be sequestered in the
soil.
“There is no cookie-cutter
recommendation,” Calderon
said. “You have to weigh
the local precipitation, con-
ditions and soils to develop
different recommendations
for different regions.”
Team science
The new federal appro-
priations, Calderon said,
will work hand-in-hand to
answer those questions.
Under the soil carbon
research program, OSU and
the USDA will evenly split
the $1.5 million, combining
expertise from both teams
across several disciplines.
OSU will also receive
one-quarter of the $2 mil-
lion dryland farming appro-
priation to do the plot work
for cropping trials. Hagerty,
who is the project leader for
OSU, said it is an opportu-
nity to conduct “team sci-
ence,” breaking out of their
individual research “silos.”
“We can have a much
better, broader impact for
the growers,” Hagerty said.
“No more one scientist, one
bench.”
As part of the dryland
farming appropriation, Hag-
erty said studies are under-
way both at the station and
at Starvation Farms in Lex-
ington, Ore., which is in a
lower rainfall zone in Mor-
row County.
She highlighted trials to
determine whether certain
types of cover and rotational
crops — such as winter peas,
barley or canola — can nat-
urally improve soil health,
break up soil-borne diseases
and minimize erosion with-
out sapping too much water
from the farms’ cash crop.
George Plaven/Capital Press
Christina Hagerty, a plant pathologist at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center, serves as one of the project leaders
for the station’s Resilient Dryland Farming Appropriation.
“What we’re trying to cies that are unrealistic and
understand here is, do the ask farmers to do something
benefits outweigh the cost?” that can’t be done,” he said.
“The main point is to be
she said.
The soil carbon program, realistic.”
meanwhile, is still being
finalized, but Calderon said Carbon offsets
In 2019, the Oregon Leg-
it breaks down into three
islature seemed poised to
general objectives.
First is maintaining exper- pass cap-and-trade legisla-
iments to see if different tion requiring large produc-
growing practices seques- ers of carbon dioxide and
ter carbon. Second
other
greenhouse
is seeing how weeds
gases to buy “allow-
ances” for every
and plant diseases
metric ton of carbon
interact with changes
they generate.
in soil carbon, and
Such a market-
third is analyzing the
place would have
system’s total carbon
also allowed farmers
footprint.
Wuest
to generate credits
“That
goes
by sequestering car-
beyond just quantify-
ing how much carbon stays bon. Companies could also
in the ground, but how much purchase those carbon cred-
reducing fertilizer applica- its to offset greenhouse gas
tions, tillage or other things emissions.
affect the carbon cycle,” Cal-
Senate Republicans ulti-
deron said.
mately blocked the bill by
Stewart Wuest, a USDA staging a walkout, though
research soil scientist at the Democratic Gov. Kate
Pendleton station, is one of Brown followed up last year
the project leaders on the soil by signing an executive order
carbon sequestration study. targeting ambitious green-
Additional funding will house gas emission reduc-
allow the agency to hire four tion goals — at least 45%
new scientists, including a below 1990 levels by 2035,
bioinformatics expert to do and at least 80% below 1990
statistical work, and an agri- levels by 2050.
cultural economist.
Freya Chay, a policy
For now, Wuest said he is associate for Carbon Plan, a
skeptical of how much more nonprofit organization based
carbon can be sequestered in in Santa Cruz, Calif., said
soils given the limitations of offset credits for soil carbon
the dryland wheat-summer sequestration currently exist
fallow rotation.
in voluntary markets, though
“We want to avoid poli- they are not yet well defined.
“It’s pretty opaque,” Chay
said. “It takes some real trac-
ing to figure out how a ton
(of carbon) was quantified.”
Chay said local research
like that at CBARC is crit-
ical. Without that data, she
said independent regis-
tries will struggle to quan-
tify and credit soil carbon
sequestration.
Meanwhile, farmers say
they are in a wait-and-see
mode.
Darren Padget, who farms
in Grass Valley, Ore., and is
chairman of U.S. Wheat
Associates, the national
organization that serves as
the industry’s overseas mar-
keting arm, said the cost of
inputs such as fuel and fertil-
izer are only going up.
“The question is whether
any credit that we get will
offset our increase in inputs,”
Padget said. “We hope it’s a
net positive, financially. If it
isn’t, then it’s going to be a
pretty hard sell.”
Extreme drought
Amid lingering uncer-
tainty, farmers across the
West are feeling the effects
of extreme drought, under-
scoring the urgency of the
research.
Eric Orem, a Morrow
County farmer, plans to har-
vest about 2,500 acres of
wheat this year. He antici-
pates his yield may be down
by as much as half in some
of his fields, where just 6
inches of precipitation has
fallen since planting last fall.
Combined with a heat
wave in June that pushed
temperatures as high as
118 degrees, Orem said the
crop’s quality may also be
affected. Most wheat grown
in the Pacific Northwest is
a lower-protein variety pre-
dominantly exported to Asia,
where millers use the flour to
make noodles, sponge cakes
and crackers.
Heat stress tends to cre-
ate higher protein levels in
wheat. If the percentage goes
too high, Orem said custom-
ers pay less for the product.
“Conditions have just
been tough,” he said. “It’s
going to be crop insurance
year.”
Orem said he has already
done several things to make
his operation more efficient.
He adopted no-till farming,
which saves him money on
fuel, and uses variable rate
seeding on his seed drills and
avoids over-spraying fertil-
izer and herbicides to save
on inputs.
Orem has also contributed
10 acres for OSU to trial dif-
ferent mixes of cover crops.
The partnership between
growers and researchers in
the area has been great, he
said, with both sides collab-
orating for a common good.
“Looking at these pro-
grams and seeing what farms
can do to benefit our soil
health and the environment
is great,” he said. “It’s a win-
win for everybody.”
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