818-Lancaster Farming, Saturday, September 8,1990
Idaho
JOYCE BUPP
York Co. Correspondent
MOSCOW, Idaho For as far
as the eye can see, golden acres of
ripe wheat wave in a dry, baking
hot breeze. Clouds of dust hover
over the hills, telltale sign that
harvesting is underway.
This is the Palouse (pronounce
pa-loose’), a unique section of
intense dryland grain agriculture
production spanning the border of
Idaho’s panhandle and southeast
ern Washington.
A lava plain, the Palouse is
believed to have been formed eons
ago by Pacific winds blowing
toward the northern Rocky Moun
tains carrying soil from the Col
umbia River basin. The silty-loam
soil piled into sand,-dune-like
giant mounds, creating an area of
random, steep-sloped hills and
undulating valleys.
These topsoils are powdery,
mostly stoneless, very rich, and
reportedly as much as one
hundred-fect deep at some loca
tions. Covering an area of approx
imately three thousand square
miles, the Palouse is believed to
be the richest production area in
the world of soft white winter
wheat. Soft white wheat is lower
in protein and higher in starches,
making it valuable for use in cer
tain types of noodles, staple food,
for many oriental peoples.
With adequate rainfall, the
Palouse could no doubt grow a
wide variety of crops. But ram is
the limiting factor, generally from
14 to 20 inches annually, most of
that between October and April.
Irrigation, used extensively in
some sections of Idaho, is not
feasible in the Palouse, due to the
hilly terrain and lack of water.
Wheat, long the staple crop of
the area, is cropped in a three-year
rotation with barley and dry peas
or lentils, a bean relative. After
grain harvest, fields are left fallow
to gather and hold the minimal
summer moisture. Weeds are con
trolled with the use of a weeder
Though lack of rainfall leaves much of Idaho’s rugged
land covered with sagebrush, irrigation grows lush, green
alfalfa along nearly any small stream large enough to sup
port pumping.
bar implement, which disturbs
only the top inch or two of soil.
Harvest of wheat gets into full
swing in early August, as com
bines finish cutting the last of the
dry pea and lentil plantings. A
bulk of the harvests is trucked to
Lewiston, the nation’s innermost
seaport, located at the confluence
of the Snake and Clearwater Riv
ers. At Lewiston, grains are
loaded onto barges, then moved
downriver to the Columbia, and
on to Portland, Oregon, for export.
An estimated 75 percent of Ida
Agriculture Farming Without Rain
ho’s soft white wheat is exported,
primarily to customer countries in
the Orient.
Wheat yields up to 130 bushel
per acre are not unusual in the
Palouse. Truckers hauling from
the Moscow area related yield
estimates this season running from
80 to 115 bushels. Newspaper
reports indicated that record heat
in Idaho this summer was cutting
spring wheat yields somewhat.
However, analysts still projected a
record wheat production exceed
ing 100 million bushels, for com
bined yields of spring and winter
wheat.
Hillside combines are the
machine, not just of choice, but of
necessity, on this sharply-sloping
terrain. Special hillside mechan
isms have reportedly been deve
loped for this unique grain pro
duction area.
“Some combines level at
48-percent slope - and that isn’t
even quite enough sometimes,”
noted a combine mechanic in a
Moscow equipment dealer’s shop.
By early August, he added, four
combines had already rolled in the
immediate area. In fact, Moscow’s
local newspaper routinely carries
advertisements for the uprighting
and repair of rolled combines.
Cropping of dry, split peas and
lentils is a relatively new addition
to the Palouse area, according to
Charlie Connoly, controller for
the McGregor Fertilizer and
Chemical Company. These
legumes were added to the crop
ping program about the early
1960’s as Palouse growers looked
toward more planting diversity.
Since, like all legumes, they make
their own nitrogen, peas and len
tils generally need no additional
fertilizer.
Peas are fairly stable in price,
usually selling for about eight
cents per pound. Average yields
run from 1,500 to 2,000 pounds
per acre.
Lentils, round, flat legumes
about a quarter-inch in diameter.
pnmarily go for export to coun
tries including Egypt, Turkey and
India. Price is more volatile than
that of dry peas, ranging from as
high as 40-cents per pound down
to as low as 13-ccnts per pound.
Lentils yield about 1,000-pounds
to the acre.
The three-year rotation helps
control disease problems which
can come with minimum tillagle
and straw residues of continuous
grain cropping. Burning of straw,
once a common way to rid fields
of residues and pest problems, is
Gravity wagons shuttle harvested wheat from combine bins to waiting tractor
trailer rigs. Many haulers pull a smaller unit behind their trailer, dubbed a “pup,” to
move a combined capacity of 37 tons of grain.
now largely banned.
Aerial application of both fertil
izers and pesticides is common in
this area of large-acreage fields.
Many farmers are private pilots,
utilizing planes as readily as a
pickup or harvest equipment.
According to Connoly, the
average Palouse farm is about 900
acres, perhaps half of that owned.
Grain truckers relate, that the
largest producer in the area crops
16,000 acres.
Land prices for the most pro
ductive Palouse ground runs in the
range of $1,200-$ 1,400 per acre.
Farms are primarily family
operated, with many passing
down through the generations.
By concentrating solely on
grain and dry legume crops, pro
ducers in the Palouse can limit
their equipment inventory. Most
inventories though, are extremely
large scale.
“Probably to start a farmer
would need a D-6 Caterpillar or a
250-275 horsepower tractor, hill
side combine, grain trucks, chisel
plow, drill and a rod weeder for
summer fallowing,” indicates
Charlie Connoly.
Crawler-track tractors are
favored for the Palouse’s steep
slopes, as are the four-wheel
drive, dual-wheeled giants. Arti
culated models, once quite popu
lar, still are frequently seen. Disks,
chisels and related tillage equip
ment, as well as combine headers,
often run to 24-foot widths. Plant
ing rigs are generally three, four,
even five, grain drills operated in
tandem. Due to cost of the large
equipment needed, leasing of
large, new tractors and hillside
combines is increasingly popular.
Palouse farmers face some
similar problems to those of pro
ducers around the country, includ
ing loss of some chemicals for cer
tain crops and increased chemical
use record-keeping. Conservation
requirements for government
program participation is already
changing some cropping prac
tices. Some erosion-control con
touring and strip-cropping is
underway, through strips are
much wider than those familiar to
mid-Atlantic area producers.
While lack of water limits the
Palouse to primarily dryland farm
ing, other parts of Idaho which
have adequate water flow do irri
gate and produce a variety of
crops. Potatoes, com, sugar beets
and alfalfa are grown intensively
under irrigation. Both trench irri
gation and spray rigs of every
shape and size bring lush green
crops to what is otherwise barren,
desert-like terrain, covered with
sagebrush and tumbleweeds.
Wherever a small stream flows
through hilly, dry, grazing coun
try. an alfalfa Held under irrigation
will add a patch of green. Giant
v/ •* ■V'
Crawler tractors are favored by many farmers for nego
tiating the rolling, sheep-sloped hills of the Palouse area of
Idaho and Washington.
stacks of bales line the edges of
these lush fields, awaiting sale or
winter use for the herds of beef
cattle which roam Idaho’s hills
and mountains.
Alfalfa can be grown and
harvested under almost ideal con
ditions here, watering as needed
and simply shutting off the pumps
for the hay to be cut and cured
under usually bright sun and low
humidity.
Alfalfa seed is also grown in
some parts of Idaho, along with
such diverse crops as onions,
mint, grapes, numerous fruits, and
hops.
Hops, an essential ingredient in
the making of malt beverages, is
grown on 18-foot high trellis.
From a distance, fields of hops
resemble giant, oversize viney
ards. The vines of this perennial
are hand-trained to grow up
twines attached to the trellis
Wildflowers Brighten Highways
ROBERT E. LEIBY
and
DAVID L. DUNBAR
Lehigh County Cooperative
Extension Office
Along Pennsylvania highways,
motorists should see a virtual
flower show on 150 acres of
median strips, roadsides and exit
ramps, courtesy of Penn State and
the Pennsylvania Department of
Transportation.
Flowers, such as blue flax,
Siberian wallflowers, bachelor’s
buttons and black-eyed Susans,
will light up highways throughout
the state. Penn State project assis
tant Gregory T. Lyman received
funding from PennDOT to deve
lop a seed mix that would flower
throughout the season.
Lyman evaluated 50 different
wildflowers and selected 17 spe
cies that blossomed well, estab
lished ground cover and competed
with weeds. Lyman also took
flower size into account He points
out that when you’re driving 55
miles per hour, small, delicate
flowers no matter how beauti-
structure.
Harvest, which begins in
August, reportedly continues on a
24-hour basis into September. The
vines of this member of the nettle
(Species are cut and hauled in from
the fields at harvest. The hops
“fruit,” which resemble small,
papery pinecones, are removed by
machine, kiln-dried, and packaged
in 200-pound bales. A pound of
dried hops will flavor about 100
gallons of beer.
The world’s largest planting of
Hallertau hops is reportedly
located at Bonners Ferry in Ida
ho’s northern panhandle, not far
from the Canadian border. Here,
the Anheuser-Busch company
produces this German variety of
hops on 875 acres. Hops are also
grown west of Caldwell toward
the Oregon border in a productive
desert valley irrigated by waters
from the Snake River.
ful won’t make much of an
impact
The result is a mix of perennials
native to Pennsylvania and the
northeastern United States.
In recent years, several state
departments of transportation
around the country have initiated
wildflower programs. Part of the
goal in planting wildflowers is to
preserve plant species that are
being pushed out of natural habi
tats by development and fanning.
Penn DOT maintains 44,000
miles of roads in Pennsylvania,
including interstates, main arteries
and secondary roads. Since
October 1985, the department has
cooperated with Penn State to
investigate roadside vegetation
management. Dr. Thomas L
Watsthke, professor of turfgrass
science, oversees the project.
But when you see wildflowers
along the road, look and don’t
touch. State Highway Law 36-PS
makes it illegal to pick them.
'Z%i.