B34—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, November 14,1981
Buffalo, adverse elements
FAIRBANKS, Alaska Neither
marauding buffalo, nor a 30-day
crop-spoiling ram nor an August 1
frost weakened the wills of a band
of farmers determined to make a
go of it north of the 64th latitude in
Alaska.
Still, when the harvest was in
last summer, the farmers pointed
to what they called a “respec
table” barley crop on 9,000 newly
cleared acres.
Don Quarberg, agricultural
agent for the Cooperative Ex
tension Service, who advises
farmers for the county, state and
U.S. Department of Agriculture,
says these farms are part of 500,000
acres the State of Alaska has
designated for cultivation by 1990
In 1982, the Alaskans say, they’ll
put more land to work. Of the
60.000 acres they’ve cleared thus
far, they expect to farm about
1 1.000 acres next summer. They’ve
grown gram near Delta Junction,
about 100 miles southeast of
Fairbanks, for two seasons.
Quarberg says the Alaskan
farmers have sound reasons for
believing their endeavor called
the Delta Project is doing okay
He claims the grain yields
produced during Alaska’s short but
intense growing season have ex
ceeded the expectations of the
most ardent optimists.
Barley fields, he said, have
recorded yields of better than 70
bushels per acre, although buffalo,
/am and frost brought last year’s
yield on some farms down to 35
bushels per acre.
Many farmers like barley as a
crop because it is an excellent
livestock feed, and a growing
number of farmers in the project
are acquiring livestock, says
Quarberg. Four of the farmers now
have been cattle herds ranging
from 30 to 200 brood sows; one has
17 dairy cows; another has 60; a
third is building a dairy herd.
Still another farmer is launching
a hog-raising operation with 70
sows and plans to increase this
number to 150 in another year.
Next spring, the state plans to
offer additional acreage in an
expansion to be known as Delta 11.
Soil surveys are under way to
determine which lands will be put
on the block for Delta 111.
The project was begun in August
1978 when state land east of Delta
Junction and north of the Alaska
highway was divided into 22 tracts
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and sold by lottery, with the
stipulation that the land be used
only for agriculture. The tracts
averaged 2,700 acres larger than
most Kansas and Nebraska wheat
farms.
Here, modern-day pioneers
planted crops on land that had
never been fanned. They dealt
with conditions that might have
tried even the persistence and
adaptability of their great
grandparents moving west in the
rmd-1800’s.
However, this group has help
that their ancestors never
dreamed of.
That help comes from scientists
with the USDA’s Agricultural
Research Service who work with
state and university researchers in
a continuing program aimed at
meeting the needs of Alaskan
agnculture.
These scientists tailor their
research to develop means of
meeting the special needs of
Alaska’s soil, climate and short
growing season They also take
into account the need for
genetically adapted crop varieties,
marketing expertise and other
factors peculiar to Alaskan far
ming.
In one research project, two
promising varieties of six-row
barley were introduced from
Finland in 1978 and 1979. Both
produced yields exceeding 100
bushels per acre in trials near
Delta Junction.
One variety, Hankifa’s Eero, is a
dwarf type patterned after Green
Revolution wheats and averages 16
to 23 inches tall. The other variety,
Paavo, averages 31 inches high, 5
to 7 inches shorter than most
varieties grown by Alaskan far
mers.
Both varieties are early
maturing and appear well adapted
to conditions in interior Alaska.
Delta Junction farmers found,
however, that even the new strain
of barley planted in some of then
tracts wasn’t ready for the heavy
rain that pelted the Delta area for
30 days during August and Sep
tember last year, leaving a
disappointing harvest for some.
For others, a herd of some 300
marauding buffalo destroyed more
than 900 acres of gram just before
harvest. Early frost on Aug. 1
damaged green barley kernels,
adding to the list of farm
casualties.
can’t dim Alaskan dream
Yet, these fanners cling to their
optigusm, along with extension
workers and USDA researchers
who share their dream. They
believe, said Quarberg, that the
buffalo problem will be solved and
that they will find ways to deal
with whatever happens.
Like the pioneers of the “old”
West, these Alaskans suffer from
the isolation. Neighbors rarely live
close by. Many families have no
electric power lines. No
telephones. It gets lonesome.
“But these are minor concerns,”
said Quarberg. .
“These people have made a big
investment in Alaska’s future and
they’re making it work. ”
Alaskans believe they can avoid
making many of the soil-wasting
errors their ancestors made in the
“lower 48” states in the past
century. They cultivate their fields
of barley between rows of moss
and pieces of spruce trees left over
when the land is cleared.
Called “berms,” the ground
cover between crop rows are
burned in the fall and winter.
U.S. benefits from Polish research
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A team
of U.S Department of Agnculture
forestry experts have reported
current Pohsh-U.S. remote sensing
research could bring benefits in
the forests of both countries, ac
cording to Joan Wallace, director
ot USDA’s Office ot international
Cooperation and Development.
Wallace said the team, back
from a two-week scientific ex
change trip to Poland, reported
that country is using remote
sensing to measure pest
populations, do aerial photography
and apply biological measures to
control pests Other areas of in
terest to both countries include
remote sensing sampling and
interpretation of air pollution
damage to forests, monitoring
water pollution, and using forest
inventory data bases to test new
monitoring, mapping and sam
pling techniques, she said.
The forestry team also said
Poland could benefit from some of
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Alaskans worry abuUt winds
carrying the nch, top layer of soil
away from the land, so they create
windbreaks. They do this when
they clear the land by leaving rows
of trees standing every one-fourth
of a mile.
Weeds, a major headache in the
“lower 48” states, aren’t much of a
bother in Alaska. Few weeds grow
on this newly-cleared land. Minor
annual weeds do plague some
older, developed Alaskan far
mland, but proper cultural
practices bring most of these
under control Few chemicals are
needed.
Wild plants and animals are
protected in wildlife preserves
within the Delta expansion project.
A greenbelt along the river in
Delta West has been set aside to'
insure that the salmon spawning
grounds will not be affected by
siltation or human encroachment.
On Delta East, headwaters of
Clearwater Creek are protected in
the same manner, along with an
historic peregrine falcon nesting
ground.
the more sophisticated remote
sensing techniques being
developed in the United States for
land use classification and map
ping, and other applications, such
as monitoring strip mining
rehabilitation sites, the inventory
of forest resources and area
sampling techniques.
Members of the U.S. forestry
team included: Raymond Allison
and Frederick Honing of the USDA
Service, Washington, D.C.,
and Gyde Lund, stationed with the
Forest Service at Fort Collins,
Colo.
Wallace said a four-member
Polish team of cartographers and
remote sensing experts visited the
United States last September to
observe U.S. applications of aerial
nhntngraphy and Tandsat satellite
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Agriculture storage facilities
and a transportation system to
haul farm products tomarket are
critically needed, say the farmers.
They especially need facilities to
transfer grain from trucks to
railroad cars at North Pole, a
small town south of Fairbanks, and
then from the railroad cars to ships
at the Port of Seward.
The fanners say a ready market
awaits their grain in the Pacific
rim countries.
A shipping terminal is planned
for Seward, and there is talk of a
grain terminal in Valdez, the
coastal town where oil from
Alaska’s pipeline is put abroad
ships to enter world commerce.
The Alaska Fanners Cooperative
has expanded its grain storage
facility by 6,000 tons to!3,000 tons,
and a transportation network to
service the fanned tracts is on the
drawing board.
Doubt the future of farming in
this cold land and the Alaskans will
tell you:
“Come back and take another
look in 10 years!”
data by USDA agencies. Con
tinuing scientific exchanges in
volving agriculture, as well as
forestry, are planned with Poland,
Wallace said.
Forests cover 28 percent of _the
total jand area in Poland. SomeBo
percent of the trees are coniferous,
including large stands of pine and
spruce. Poland has 21 national
species of trees and 20 imported
varieties.'
It, is generally believed in Poland
that problems with insect pests
there have increased because of a
system of monoculture, or the
commercial growth of one kind of
tree. U.S. team members said
Polish scientists feel the need to
promote silviculture methods
which develop more natural stands
of forests.
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