Farmers in what is known as the intermediate rainfall zone of eastern Washington traditionally have planted winter wheat one year, a spring cereal the next and then idled their land the third year to bank moisture for the next wheat crop.
A public-private research effort at Washington State University’s Wilke Research and Extension Farm near Davenport in Lincoln County may change that practice. If the long-term project is successful, growers will get new sources of income and reduce wind erosion of topsoil as well.
Low commodity prices and limited crop options are fueling growers’ interest in the undertaking, known as the Wilke Direct Seeding Project.
“This area is very well suited to growing wheat,” said Diana Roberts, WSU Spokane and Lincoln County Cooperative Extension educator. “That’s great, but with current wheat prices and farm programs going out of existence, farmers need to be able to spread their risks better. That’s one reason for going for different crops.”
Another reason is soil health.
“That’s a very big factor,” Roberts said. “Alternative crops like canola, mustard and millet can break disease cycles and also give us different time windows and herbicide options for managing weeds.”
Roberts and other members of Cooperative Extension’s Ag Horizons Team are working closely with area farmers, WSU research faculty, personnel from state and federal agencies and interested farm support businesses to develop the rotations.
The Ag Horizons Team is a group of Cooperative Extension faculty in northeast Washington who work together to promote environmentally sound, socially acceptable and economically sustainable farming systems.
Collaborators are customizing existing annual cropping, direct seeding systems and developing new ones for portions of six counties in eastern Washington that receive 12 to 17 inches of moisture annually.
"We are testing three-year and four-year rotations,” Roberts said. “What we’re doing is eliminating summer fallow. We’re trying to get away from that so the farmer gets a return every year and can reduce wind erosion.”
Trials are done on plots of at least 10 acres in size. “We’re using farm-size equipment on everything except the small alternative crops,” Roberts said. “Farmers really like that. They can see what happens if you go up and down over the hill and into the ditch. It makes a lot of sense to them.”
Five growers in a 25-mile radius of the Wilke Farm are replicating the rotations on their own land to learn how the rotations perform under different conditions. “There is a lot of variation in rainfall, soil type and topography,” Roberts said.
The project was initiated by area farmers in 1996 after a dozen traveled to South Dakota to see direct seeding systems developed by South Dakota State University.
“One of them—Karl Kupers—came back and wrote a grant to start doing some of this work on his farm,” Roberts said. “He asked me to be the technical advisor for that grant. And then we set up some big 40-acre plots on his farm. That fall we went back to South Dakota with six more farmers who were interested in the system.”
When they returned, they formed a support group. The Wilke Farm soon became the hub of research efforts and continues to be on a roll.
The $7.5 million Safe Food Initiative passed by the Washington State Legislature in April provided funding for a new Cooperative Extension Dryland Farming Systems Specialist, who will support the effort at Wilke.
A new source of funding for the project was announced at the Wilke Farm Field Day on July 7. A gift from Karl and Lexi Kupers will enable faculty to buy needed capital equipment not usually permitted by grant funds. Proceeds from a performance-based trust established by the Harrington farm couple could provide up to $13,500 annually for 15 years.
“It’s something we’re very proud and pleased to be able to do,” Karl Kupers said. “Any knowledge that the Wilke Farm can get, we will gain from because we are doing no-till on our farm, 100 percent.”
