Photo by August Frank/Farm
Clearwater Canyon Cellars
Grapes ripen at Clearwater Canyon Cellars in Lewiston. A cool, wet spring has caused a slight delay of the grape harvest for winemakers in the region.
Winemaking has been pushed back this year for many vineyards around the region, with bad weather and the effects of climate change making things difficult.
The beginning of the growing season, usually around April or May, was a rainy and cold start for winemakers, who also had to deal with fluctuating temperatures.
Melissa Sanborn, owner and winery director of Colter’s Creek, alongside Mike Pearson, who is the owner and vineyard director, notes that climate change has been a major factor of the difficulty of the season, which has seen harvest pushed back a couple of weeks.
“Growing season is in the prime of summer, and when it gets super hot and dry, it becomes hard on crops,” Sanborn said. “And then, it’s also hard to predict when winter starts; a hard winter can kill off vines or part of a
vine.”
Coco Umiker, winemaker and owner of Clearwater Canyon Cellars, alongside her husband, Karl Umiker, who is the vineyard manager and owner, also mentioned the delay of winemaking for this season, stating that while they usually go until late October, they will end up still harvesting until early November.
“We are a bit behind, in terms of ripening, but I’m not worried,” Umiker said. “We’ll just be harvesting a few weeks longer.”
Although this season has been more troublesome for winemakers, they still mention the love they have for the beauty of their craft.
Umiker said that during last year’s harvest, she and her partner were new parents and cherished being able to harvest and also care for their newborn daughter.
“I had my daughter on a wrap carrier and walked around early in the early morning trying all the grapes,’’ Umiker said with a laugh. “I’ll always remember that.”
Clearwater Canyon Cellars
The vines at Clearwater Canyon Cellars in Lewiston are loaded with grapes but still need some ripening time. Nets are put over the vines to protect the grapes from birds.
Researchers at the University of Idaho developing new treatments to fight foulbrood that don’t involve antibiotics
By Emily Pearce For Farm & Ranch
Most researchers spend their time under the bright fluorescent bulbs of a laboratory, which may be true for researcher Keera Paull, but her work is often done in green fields at the core of beehives.
Paull, a microbiology student and undergraduate researcher at the University of Idaho, has been hard at work saving baby bees and finding solutions for foulbrood, a honeybee disease that kills bee larvae. In her undergraduate research with James Van Leuven, a research professor in the Institute for Modeling Collaboration and Innovation, Paull aims to develop bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria and kill the pathogen affecting bee colonies nationwide.
Honey bees have experienced a tumultuous time as large losses of bee populations have been on the rise. Paull said it’s an unfortunate thing, because bees serve an important role in agricultural practices. Though they may be valued most for their honey,
it’s a fraction of the value in services bees provide.
Van Leuven said bees are critical to crop pollination; about a third of food in America is pollinated by bees. He added crop pollination services is a multibillion dollar industry, with beehives being moved around the nation to pollinate different crops.
Over the past few decades, beekeepers have struggled keeping bee colonies alive. On average, beekeepers lose around 30% of their colonies each year, according to Van Leuven. To combat this, beekeepers replenish their hives by creating new colonies, but Van Leuven said it takes a lot of effort and is costly.
Foulbrood is one of many causes in dwindling bee populations. The disease affects larvae, infecting baby bees developing in the comb inside the hive, Van Leuven said. There aren’t many solutions for treating foulbrood. Beekeepers could use antibiotics, but it contributes to the spread of antibiotic resistance. Paull said beekeepers have to burn infected hives and equipment to prevent the spread of the disease.
University of Idaho
Keera Paull, an undergraduate student at the University of Idaho, is working to find solutions for foulbrood, a honey bee disease that kills bee larvae. Paull is senior from Coeur
beekeepers and beehives could benefit antibiotics used and reduce the spread of antibiotic resistance, Van Leuven said. Looking at the big picture, Paull said phage therapy isn’t yet a common be useful in treating bad pathogens
epearce@dnews.com
1112 AIRWAY, AVE
• LEWISTON, ID 83501 (208) 746-2212
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University of Idaho, Boise State working together on research, with results expected in 2023
University of Idaho
Atwo-year study by Boise State University and University of Idaho probes how wildfire smoke affects potato crops and seeks to identify smoke-resilient potato varieties.
Farmers know potato crops grown during seasons of heavy, extended wildfire smoke generally have smaller yields and worse quality. Past studies have identified some smoke components, such as ozone, that could impair potato growth, but limited research has largely left the
underlying chemical relationships unexplained. This work tests the industry’s smoke-harm theory in controlled environments, allowing researchers to investigate the effects individual smoke compounds impart on Idaho’s flagship crop.
“Observations from industry started all of this. When we have had bad, smoky years, yields are down and processing quality is down. Our hypothesis is smoke exposure causes that,” said Mike Thornton, a professor in UI’s Department of Plant Sciences.
Thornton and Boise State Chemistry Department Chairperson Owen McDougal are analyzing
University of Idaho
Mike Thornton, center, University of Idaho plant sciences professor, pipes smoke into covered potato plots, simulating wildfire smoke with Deron Beck, UI research associate.
smoke’s chemical effects on potatoes. The study also evaluates if certain potato varieties are more immune to smoke’s damage. Researchers will present preliminary findings this win ter at potato industry meetings. Full results are expected for release after the 2023 harvest.
The existing understanding of smoke’s influence on potatoes points to a mixed bag. Several smoke compo nents are suspected to affect potato crops, such as brown and black car bon, volatile organic compounds and even disease spores. Smoke reduces available light and raises nighttime humidity — worsening environmental conditions for potato growth. But other parts of smoke, such as carbon dioxide, may be advantageous for plants.
“This is the first time, at least in our review of academic research, that anybody has tried to do this on a large scale,” Thornton said.
The new research involves sub jecting three potato varieties — Clearwater, Alturas and Russet Burbank — to smoke emitted from pine needles, sage brush and wood. Burnt in a commercial smoker at tached to a mixing drum, the blend attempts to emulate wildfire smoke.
The smoke is piped to potato plots, where plastic covers trap smoke in with plants, while other control potato plants grow in a smoke-free envi ronment to let researchers compare outcomes. Daily potato smoke treat ment at the UI Parma Research and Extension Center began July 11 and ended Aug. 18.
The two-year project is funded by
$125,000 from the federal Specialty Crop Block Grant Program, autho rized by the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.
McDougal, director of the Boise State Food and Dairy Innovation Center, will oversee chemical analysis into possible changes potatoes experi ence from smoke exposure. Analysis occurs immediately after harvest, after six months in storage and after the potatoes are turned into frozen fries.
“It will tell us what differences there are between a control and a treatment potato so we can pinpoint which me tabolites — chemicals within a potato — change due to exposure to smoke,” McDougal said.
Fries analyzed for the experiment will be processed at the UI Food Technology Center in Caldwell. Noticing potatoes don’t seem to store well after intense wildfire years, McCain Foods lent expertise toward the project. Representatives from UI, McCain Foods and Boise State serve on an advisory committee that over sees the research project.
Thornton anticipates applying simi lar research methods in future seasons to replicate the smoke study with other crops, including onions.
“
When we have had bad, smoky years, yields are down and processing quality is down. Our hypothesis is smoke exposure causes that.”
— MIKE THORNTON, PROFESSOR IN UI’S DEPARTMENT OF PLANT SCIENCES
Agroup of Pacific Northwest farmers has joined sustainable agricultural practic es and transparency into a mission to bring producers and consumers together.
Shepherd’s Grain, founded in 2003, is a cooperative of farmers in eastern Washington, Idaho and Oregon that mixes timeless values and traditions with a commitment to preserve the planet.
“From the sustainability perspective we re quire all farmers to use no-till practices across their entire farm,” said Jeremy Bunch, chief executive officer for Shepherd’s Grain based in Moscow.
“The main requirement of all of our farmers is to have a third-party certification. A food alliance comes out to the farms every couple of years to make sure they’re really doing no-till and also (to verify) what they’re doing for soil health and water conservation.”
That’s not a big issue with the farmers, he said, because “most farmers switched to no-till even before Shepherd’s Grain came about. They saw all the soil erosion and decided to make the change to no-till, anyway.
“One of the things that does make no-till farming really successful is having a lot of al ternative crops. So we’ve done a lot of research with growers on those alternative crops, (such as) flax, sunflower and millet. So we’re really getting a lot of research done to make sure they can do those crops successfully.”
Although Shepherd’s Grain growers are not required to be organic, there is a list of pesticides they are not allowed to use because they’re harmful to the environment, Bunch said.
August Frank/Farm & Ranch A combine moves through fields of grain on the Palouse. Much of the wheat grown in the region is shipped overseas, but the farmers involved in the Shepherd’s Grain cooperative have committed to selling a portion of their crops in the Northwest.Now almost 20 years old, Shepherd’s Grain organization aims to grow wheat with environmentally friendly methods and sell it locally
August Frank/Farm & Ranch Grain is loaded into a truck on the Palouse on a recent afternoon.
The whole point of Shepherd’s Grain is to help reconnect the relationship between the farm and end users. That’s really at the heart of what we do. Growers own the company and we make that traceability through the supply chain. No-till is the foundation, but we’re really selling wheat flours to a broad range of end users.”
The result is high-quality wheat that comes with assurances for millers and consumers and links these end users directly with the farmers who grew the grain.
“The whole point of Shepherd’s Grain is to help reconnect the relation ship between the farm and end users,” Bunch said. “That’s really at the heart of what we do. Growers own the com pany and we make that traceability through the supply chain. No-till is the foundation, but we’re really selling wheat flours to a broad range of end users.”
Bunch said Shepherd’s Grain prod ucts are sold to everyone from individ ual bakers and small artisan bakeries to larger manufacturers.
“A lot of artisan bakeries in Portland and Seattle love our flour,” he said.
Shepherd’s Grain was started by two farmers in eastern Washington who were tired of raising a wheat crop and not having any connection to where it was eventually sold. About 90% of the wheat grown in this region is shipped overseas, and the founders decided to start the cooperative to create a link to the marketplace.
“Most of the bakeries that sell bread are bringing in types of wheat grown in Montana and South Dakota or Kansas,” Bunch said. The founders
decided “we can grow that wheat here. We just need to figure out how to do it. So they started doing direct marketing.”
Farmers who sign on with Shepherd’s Grain usually dedicate only 10% to 20% of their wheat farm to the cooperative. That requires sep arate storage for the grain that allows for traceability back to the farmers who grew it.
At harvest time, Bunch said, Shepherd’s Grain growers submit samples of their wheat crops for qual ity testing.
“Those samples are taken to a lab and have a bake test to make sure they produce a nice loaf of bread, and to get a bunch of analytical data,” he said.
That data helps end users to know the level of protein in the flour and
August Frank/Farm & Ranch Grain grown on the Palouse is often sold overseas, but the Shepherd’s Grain cooperative is striving to keep a portion of it in the Northwest.
The Shepherd’s Grain cooperative was founded in 2003.
other information such as what is the ideal mixing time for the dough, consistency and performance.
Shepherd’s Grain markets seven wheat flours and one flax seed option. More information about the organi zation can be found at its website, shepherdsgrain.com.
Hedberg may be contacted at khedberg@ lmtribune.com.
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SCIO, Ore. -- Oregon’s beloved blind bison, Helen, passed away earlier this year.
The humped and bearded bison, who roamed the pastures of Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary near Scio, brought light and love to everyone she met, said sanctuary executive director Gwen Jakubisin.
“Anybody who was in the presence of her was automatically transfixed,” Jakubisin said. “She just had this incredible love that just sort of emanated from her. And she was so kind and so patient and so compassionate.”
Helen suffered from health issues,
including reoccurring pneumonia, in the months before her passing but ultimately died of old age. She passed away peacefully in her recently constructed barn on Jan. 24.
She would have been 23 years old this year.
Helen came to the sanctuary after spending her first 14 years in a pasture on Sunnyview Road, east of Salem. She was cared for since she was four days old by Lisa Miller and her husband, Victor, who had saved her from certain death.
Miller convinced Paul Drake, former owner of Grandkid Acres in Sublimity, not to euthanize Helen when she was born at his amateur zoo more than two decades ago.
“They were going to destroy her
because she was blind. But I cried long and hard enough over her that Paul gave in and let me keep her,” Miller previously told the Statesman Journal.
The Millers raised Helen on their twoacre property.
Early on, Miller said, she would sleep and cuddle with Helen in her barn, bottle-feeding her. Occasionally, Miller snuck Helen into the house while her husband was at work.
“She was the biggest, most gentle giant,” she said. “She loved everything, she loved everybody. She loved to kiss your face with her big, black tongue.”
She recalled a time when Victor started playing rock ‘n’ roll music while they did work near the barn. Helen, who preferred classical music, voiced her distaste by picking up his truck with her horns and piercing a hole through the side.
“Let me tell you, he turned that music down as fast as he could and she calmed right down,” Lisa laughed.
But Miller became unable to care for Helen due to injuries Miller sustained in a 2011 traffic accident on Interstate 5.
In 2014, Helen was loaded into a trailer, left the only pasture she had known since birth, and moved to the Lighthouse sanctuary.
Giving her up was awful, but Miller said feels privileged to have been her caretaker.
“She was family,” Miller said.
Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary, a nonprofit organization dedicated to animal rescue and rehabilitation, has been around for 21 years and cares for more than 350 animals, making it the oldest and largest sanctuary in the state. Pigs, goats, sheep, horses, cows, donkeys and birds live on the 54-acre farm.
When Jakubisin took over as the executive director in 2014, the sanctuary was on the verge of foreclosure. An examination of the books revealed the sanctuary was $6,000 behind on its mortgage. Jakubisin moved into the on-site house with her partner shortly after Helen’s arrival.
For Jakubisin, losing Helen was losing her best friend.
“She’s been a part of my life every day,” she said. “Every day starts with feeding her breakfast and giving her snacks, and every day ends with me tucking her in and saying good night to her.”
“Queen Helen,” as she was affectionately nicknamed, spent her days grazing pastures, munching on apples and grain sandwiches. Helen’
By Anthony Kuipers For Farm & Ranch
When it comes to importing wheat from Pacific Northwest growers, Taiwan has earned a reputation for being one of the region’s most reliable customers.
last year’s drought that cut down wheat supply, Squires said.
Squires said the Taiwanese use wheat for a variety of products like cakes, pastries and other sweet goods.
MOSCOW — Ranches across the American West could make their grazing practices more sustainable with a virtual fence system being developed through a joint University of Idaho and Washington State University project.
Newly awarded federal funding last month kickstarted a four-year field project for researchers at UI and Washington State University to test the safety and efficacy of a prototype virtual fence system that uses novel features to manage cows, sheep and other grazing livestock with minimal ecological footprint.
Livestock and well-managed rangeland require barriers to divide pastures and manage grazing. But physical barriers — expensive to construct, alter and maintain — disrupt wildlife migration and
fragment habitats. The new technology under development aims to provide a low-cost tool for sustainable livestock and land management that performs reliably in mountainous Western states, where existing virtual systems struggle to provide reliable GPS data.
“As wildlife habitat becomes increasingly fragmented and recreational activities on rangelands continue to grow, maintaining unobstructed corridors for movement of wildlife and humans is critical,” said Karen Launchbaugh, director of the UI Rangeland Center. “Advances in wire fence designs have reduced issues for wildlife, but wire fences continue to disrupt wildlife movement.”
Commercial virtual fence systems deliver an electric shock to a cow’s neck when the animal approaches a virtual barrier. These systems
eliminate the need for wire fencing by relying on GPS technology, but require subscriptions and costly on-the-ground signal towers. Virtual fence systems simplify moving fence locations, but they require routine updates, battery replacement and recharging. The equipment also costs up to several hundred dollars per cow.
The new virtual fence system being designed by UI and WSU researchers uses proximity sensing technology that functions in mountainous terrain and shocks the ear, rather than the neck. Both changes can make the system cheaper, less energy demanding and more durable.
The Rangeland Center, leading UI’s project efforts, partners with livestock producers and land managers to identify critical issues affecting rangelands to guide and inform research. The project was awarded a $1 million grant from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture last month.
Glen Squires, CEO for the Washington Grain Commission, said demand is high in Taiwan even when the price of wheat fluctuates from year to year.
“They’re not price buyers,” Squires said. “And so that’s good for the market because we’ve got customers that need and want our soft white wheat and they’ll buy it almost regardless of the price.”
Typically, Taiwan purchases around 1 million tons of U.S. wheat every year, Squires said. It purchases between 110,000-160,000 metric tons of Washington’s soft white wheat each year.
It is usually among the top 10 U.S. wheat markets annually, Squires said.
This consistent demand helped Northwest wheat exporters through
Taiwan, like many countries, value clean label wheat products that have fewer additives. According to a July article in Wheat Life Magazine, the clean label trend is positive for U.S. wheat because it increases the demand for high-quality wheat products.
Squires credits the Taiwan Flour Millers Association for creating products that the Taiwanese people consistently buy. According to Wheat Life Magazine, the TFMA purchases all U.S. wheat for all 16 of Taiwan’s mills as a group.
The Washington Grain Commission donated a Solvent Retention Capacity testing apparatus to Taiwan in 2018 to improve research into soft white wheat. Squires said Taiwan representatives typically visit the U.S. on goodwill buying missions.
These relations have helped solidify Taiwan as a “very, very consistent buyer,” Squires said.
Glen Squires
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— LAUNCHBAUGH, DIRECTOR OF THE RANGELAND CENTER.Karen Launchbaugh
crop researcher with University of Idaho’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences is working out the agronomics of raising WINTER PEAS
food-quality fall peas as a high-yielding rotation option for farmers in the state’s northern Panhandle. Fall-planted peas significantly outyield spring varieties, though there are increased risks such as winter kill. The Austrian winter pea varieties that have historically been available to the region’s growers have a purple-brown seed coat and small seed size that isn’t attractive for culinary use. Farmers
in the Panhandle have mostly raised winter peas as seed for cover crops, which are planted specifically for soilhealth benefits, or for forage.
Kurt Schroeder, a UI Extension cropping systems agronomist, is in the first year of fall food pea trials in Moscow and the Camas Prairie planned to span four years. He’s testing six newly released winter varieties with clear seed coats and larger-sized
University of Idaho
Kurt Schroeder, a UI Extension cropping systems agronomist, is in the first year of fall food pea trials in Moscow and the Camas Prairie.
peas, making them a good fit for the food pea market.
The varieties he’s testing were bred by U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Pullman and by ProGene Plant Research in Othello. The pea breeding programs continue working to improve fall food pea winter hardiness.
Schroeder will harvest his fall pea plots soon, but the results in Moscow already appear promising.
“The stand there is incredible,” Schroeder said.
Plots in the Camas Prairie were hindered by plant disease and management with fungicides was delayed because of frequent rain. By contrast, spring food peas commonly grown in the region typically yield between 2,000 pounds and 2,500 pounds per acre.
Schroeder has also been studying the ideal seeding rate and seeding depth for planting fall peas. He’s finding winter peas do best when planted 2 to 3 inches deep. Regarding the seeding density, he’s planted plots at between eight and 12 seeds per square foot. His preliminary data suggests increasing the density boosts yields enough to more than offset the added seeding cost. A bonus of the denser stand is improved weed competition.
Schroeder’s winter pea research will be expanded during the 202223 growing season with a $62,000 grant through USDA’s Pulse Health Initiative.
Consumer interest in plant-based proteins is on the rise and fall peas present growers the added benefit of maintaining live roots to hold soil in place throughout the winter.
“Winter peas are pretty exciting to me because of the yield potential,” Schroeder said. “It’s something that has got a lot of potential for being a really viable rotation crop in the area.”
He plans to expand his future fall food pea research to include trial plots south of Genesee.
Schroeder also intends to evaluate how the region’s generally acidic soil pH may affect survival of various formulations of the bacterial inoculant that establish a symbiotic relationship with pea roots and enable the plants to fix nitrogen, thereby providing growers an additional source of fertility. While the bacterium can persist for years in the soil, populations decline in acidic soils, necessitating more frequent application of inoculum.
“The main goal of this project is to develop strategies for winter pea production to increase yield and reduce risk,” Schroeder said.
By Alex Schwartz Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Ore.)
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. – The aptly named Lakeside Farms, on the southeastern shore of Upper Klamath Lake, has regularly produced more than 300 acres of grain and potatoes since the World War II era.
Soon, the land will start growing birds and fish, too.
Once part of a fringe wetland complex that spanned thousands of acres of what’s now the Wocus Road and Shady Pine areas, the mix of land and water that became Lakeside was diked and drained in the early 20th century.
Hanks Marsh, now part of the Upper Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, is all that remains of the
ancient wetland, once a haven for millions of waterfowl and young fish.
But now, a slender 70 acres of the reclaimed land has begun a transformation back to its original state. Spiky tips of tule, cattail and bulrush peek above the surface of the shallow water, separated by deep, meandering channels. Excavators have perforated the dike that once bisected the wetland into disconnected mounds, which will eventually become island homes for willows and resting areas for ducks and geese.
Karl Wenner, one of five partners who own the land, said a recent duck count yielded as much as 10,000 individual birds using the wetland. That’s about half the ducks counted at the same time on the entire Lower
Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, which is critically dry.
“There’s some hope in all this,” Wenner said. “It’s been pretty bleak all the way around, whether you like ducks or you like potatoes, and certainly if you like suckers. This is an effort to change that.”
To an extent, Lakeside Farms was required to do this — or something like it — which would help it meet the total maximum daily load (TMDL) requirements for Upper Klamath Lake. The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality established the requirements nearly 20 years ago, requiring all residents in the lake’s drainage area to come up with plans to reduce nutrient levels in water they discharge into the lake.
For Upper Klamath Lake’s shoreline farms, which were mostly reclaimed wetlands that flood irrigate in the fall and winter and pump the nutrient-rich water back into the lake in the spring and summer, that meant changing irrigation practices or installing treatment wetlands that could intercept nitrogen and phosphorus before it could enter the lake.
Lakeside is wet by default. Even without pumping water in from the lake, fields still flood through seeps and springs located throughout the farm’s footprint. Wenner, a retired surgeon and longtime Klamath Basin conservationist, said the farmer who leases the land wanted to keep flood irrigation part of the picture, especially considering how hard it is to keep water off the property.
“It wants to be part of the lake, because it used to be,” Wenner said.
To comply with the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s enforcement of the TMDL, landowners have met with various restoration partners over the years to identify projects limiting agricultural runoff. Leigh Ann Vradenburg, project manager of the Klamath Watershed Partnership, said Lakeside provided a perfect opportunity to try out a hypothesis: Can birds, fish and farming coexist all at once, on the same plot of land?
“I want to see this kind of holistic approach to this project. I don’t want to dry it out and put in center pivots and get rid of water pumping that way,” she remembered thinking. “From
Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Ore.) flock of geese over Lakeside Farms.the get-go, it was like everything but the kitchen sink.”
Vradenburg got a grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to do initial scoping and technical investigations. The rest of the funding came in spring 2020, with an $11 million federal windfall for Klamath restoration activities secured by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.
That allowed Vradenburg and Wenner to bring in Dustin Taylor, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Partners Program, to work on the design for a treatment wetland that can also provide valuable waterfowl habitat. Thanks to the federal appropriation, USFWS then provided the bulk of the funding to bring it to life. The project broke ground late last year.
“It’s mimicking, we hope to some degree, what was here historically,” Wenner said.
Taylor formulated the structure of the 70-acre strip they decided on, deciding where open water channels would separate floating islands of wetland vegetation. He then replumbed the rest of the farm to direct all runoff into the wetland, where plants will happily absorb the nutrients and,
ideally, sequester them before the water is pumped back into the lake. Meanwhile, the nutrients will naturally fuel the growth of duck food.
“This property’s really had sustained duck use for almost a month and a half or two months,” Taylor said. “It’s been really fun to watch — usually with projects, the response isn’t that quick.”
The integration of waterfowl habitat on agricultural lands, whether rotating or permanent, isn’t new. In fact, when there’s water available, it happens throughout the Klamath Project and on leaselands in Lower Klamath and Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuges.
But what’s unique is the addition of a small pond adjacent to the wetland, which will host roughly 500 endangered suckers come spring.
The pond also contains a mix of deep water and shallow wetland, which will give juvenile C’waam and Koptu the habitat they need to grow and avoid predators. The young fish will arrive from one of the larger cohorts raised at the Klamath Falls National Fish Hatchery, USFWS’s hatchery operation on Lower Klamath Lake Road run in partnership with Klamath Project farmer Tracey Liskey and former aquarium fish farmer Ron Barnes.
Until it’s expanded over the coming years, the hatchery doesn’t have the space to accommodate larger juveniles, who still may not be old enough to weather the water quality swings of Upper Klamath Lake. Lakeside Farms will pick up the baton, raising the suckers until they’re old enough to be released into the wild.
Adam Johnson, acting field supervisor for the Klamath Falls Fish and Wildlife Office, said the Lakeside project is an example of how other properties could integrate species to everyone’s benefit.
“We’re really grateful for the opportunity that the landowners at Lakeside have given us to showcase a project that provides mutual benefit to species and ag producers,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the pond will be fed by an existing spring on the property and that there is currently no set timeline for when the fish would be released back into the wild. Each fish will be tagged to allow biologists to track their movements and survival in the lake.
“The biologists are pretty confident that they’ll do well in this,” Wenner said, adding that the Klamath Tribes are also on board and, down the road, may even introduce some of their own hatchery’s juveniles into one of
Lakeside’s other permanently flooded areas.
Working with USFWS gave Lakeside the flexibility to host the suckers. They’re being considered an experimental population, allowing for more wiggle room under take provisions of the Endangered Species Act.
Wenner said the project wouldn’t have been possible without a dizzying array of partners, including USFWS, OWEB, ODA, ODEQ, the Oregon Department of State Lands, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Army Corps of Engineers. Everyone was kept in the loop throughout the design and construction to ensure they were satisfied with the project’s goals and progress.
“This is very much a collaborative thing where everyone had their two cents in,” he said. “We really looked hard at how to make this work.”
Vradenburg said it’s crucial to keep up with the project even after it’s completed, especially since similar efforts around the lake have failed in previous years in part because landowners weren’t as involved in the conversation around design and maintenance. Even though TMDL requirements must be met, there’s a difference between a
project that will provide mutual ben efits for all parties involved and one that’s pushed onto the landowner.
Whereas some treatment wetlands around the lake were reincorporated back into farmland after landowners’ agreements with USFWS expired, Wenner said Lakeside’s owners have every intention of keeping this one in perpetuity.
“The coordination and collaboration with the landowners here was at an elevated level,” Vradenburg said. “We don’t want to just build this and say, ‘OK, we’re good,’ because at the end of the day that’s not going to satisfy everybody.”
Of course, there were tradeoffs. Half the 70-acre wetland had been farmed, requiring Lakeside to take roughly 35 acres of grain out of production. But the funding from the project will help to partially offset that loss in revenue. Wenner said the farmer who leases the land had input every step of the way — the choice was either give up a small chunk of farmland or completely change the way the property would be irrigated. He chose the former.
Other programs exist to help fur ther offset the cost of retiring some farmland, including a new Natural Resources Conservation Service ini tiative that pays farmers for main taining wetlands on their property. It’s not eliminating agriculture outright: Essentially, farmers can be paid to grow fish and wildlife.
“Because we’ve given up some rev enue, they do have programs to help us recoup that,” Wenner said. “I’d like to see those expanded so that all the farmers in the basin can do this kind of thing, and not just out of the good ness of their hearts — that it makes economic sense.”
Vradenburg said expanding those programs will be crucial for other landowners in the basin who want
to incorporate wetlands, whether permanent or rotating, on their own properties.
“A lot of these guys, they’d like to see it, but it doesn’t pencil out for them to just cut off half of their farm to have a wetland,” she said.
By capturing the phosphorus from 350 acres of farmland and providing habitat for a few thousand birds and suckers, Lakeside Farms’ impact isn’t insignificant — but it’s certainly not a panacea for the Klamath. Wenner said the real accomplishment has been the involvement of a variety of partners, all of whom had their voices heard and were able to use water to satisfy multiple needs.
“It’s not going to solve the problem. It’s a nice piece, but what’s important about it is how we did it,” he said. “It was a very collaborative effort, and that’s what needs to happen across the basin.”
For Vradenburg, Lakeside also shows that restoration projects in the basin can and should aim to check multiple boxes. There simply isn’t enough water to allocate to fish, birds and farms if they’re all confined to separate areas; a single piece of land needs to fulfill more than one role just like the watershed’s wetlands do naturally.
“We look for one-answer kind of things, and this shows that there’s a way to meet multiple objectives,” she said.
To make a real difference, Wenner envisions a litany of projects like this implemented throughout the Klamath Basin, where the quacking of ducks, humming of tractors and splashing of suckers can all be heard next to each other. With funding and support from a variety of partners and a valued seat at the table for landowners, he said the pieces are all there — they just need to be connected.
“We can’t go back to 1860 and we can’t restore the same ecosystem that we had, but we can make it rhyme,” Wenner said. “And to make it rhyme, you’ve got to have wetlands.”
So if you’re ready to start cultivating your dream, give us a call. We’d be happy to help. you see the fruits of your labor, there’s the humble beginning.
Every new producer has to start somewhere. And it’s far from easy. We help give young, beginning and small farmers and ranchers a leg up with special financing options, educational opportunities, and hands-on, strategic advice to help you get started.
Herald and News (Klamath Falls, Ore.) channels were created when restoring the wetland on Lakeside Farms near Klamath Falls, Ore.