farm & ranch tab 2014
DESCRIPTION
Farm & Ranch Tab 2014TRANSCRIPT
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AT Gearbox – includes universal mounting pattern and shorter output shaft which extends bearing life
Visit your Zimmatic dealer for details on the new 8 year/8,000 hour driveline conversion upgrade warranty.
THE LINDSAY ADVANTAGE
DUR ABLE
RUGGED
EASY TO USE
INTEGR ATED TECHNOLOGIES
BROADEST L INE OF SOLUTIONS
Every Zimmatic® by Lindsay driveline is designed for superior performance season after season.
- features industry-leading ef� ciency due to spur gear transfer design
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. 26, 2014
STORY AND PHOTOS BY EMILY CARPENTER
NYSSA
If you want to reach the agricul-ture classroom at the far edge ofcampus at Nyssa High School,
you have to walk past a fenced lothousing three domed greenhouses.The ag teacher, Chad Cruickshank,and his students refer to the green-house farthest from the classroomdoor as the fish lab. This is wherestudents from Nyssa practice fresh-water aquaculture, or agriculturefor water species. Inside the fish lab are five tanksfull of tilapia. They are nothing likea typical rectangular, glass fishtank, however. They look like tall,black kiddie pools.Each one sits next to a table hold-ing a filter and two buckets for fil-tering. A pump sends water up ahose into the first bucket. The sec-ond bucket is mounted lower, so thefirst can drain into it. The secondbucket is also full of bio balls, small,textured balls that collect bacteriabefore the water is sent back intothe tank.
Among other responsibilities,Cruickshank’s students are respon-sible for maintaining the filters.About once a week, they clean thebio balls and the buckets. On a reg-ular day, the students feed the fishand check water levels and watertemperature. Junior Ryan Benjamin explainedthat if the water is too high, thefish will attempt to make their es-cape by jumping out of the tanks.However, they still need enoughwater to provide a healthy environ-ment for the tilapia. Cruickshanksaid the standard ratio is 1 gallon
of water per 1 inch of fish.The feeding can also be an exactprocess, a pound of food per poundof fish. The students feed the fishthree times a day.When the fish are fully grown,the Nyssa ag program markets themthrough Red Apple Marketplace inOntario. Owner and sales executiveLarry Robb said the fish his storegets from the Nyssa aquaculture labare “top notch.”“I just wish we could get more ofit,” said Robb.He said he sees the opportunity tohelp the community, especially
youths, as a benefit of being a small,local marketplace. Working with lo-cal producers like the Nyssa High agprogram allows Red Apple to getfresher products to the community,so it isn’t just a good deal for theyoung agriculturists in Nyssa.Robb said it’s a win-win for every-one.The partnership with Red Applewas Cruickshank’s addition the pro-gram. Nyssa had an aquaculture labbefore he started working at thehigh school nine years ago, butCruickshank opened up the busi-ness end of it.
‘The fish lab’Nyssa ag studentslearn aquaculture,and aquaponics
Nyssa’s agriculture students include, front row from left, Chema Valdez, Noemi Castillo, Nohemy Gramajo, Iysha Rodriguez andteacher Chad Cruickshank, and back from left, Olivia Olvera, Regan Hartley, Hannah Wilson, Gavin Stoneman, Freddy Pascacio,Ryan Benjamin and Mikkie Jensen.
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The ag program received a$25,000 grant from Monsanto thisyear. The program hopes to use themoney for LabQuest products thatwill allow students to better regu-late dissolved oxygen levels, or theamount of oxygen in the tank.Cruickshank also is planning onequipment for testing soil nutrients,because the greenhouses at NyssaHigh School are used for tradition-al plant growth as well as hydropon-ics — growing produce without soil. Cruickshank explains hydropon-ics as “misting a plant.” Ag studentslearn five different hydroponicmethods for growing lettuce andtomatoes. But of course, even with-
out soil, plants still need nutrients,which opens another opportunity. “As the fish get bigger and we startgetting more waste from the fish,then what we’ll do is set up the re-circulating system,” saidCruickshank.That system is called aquaponics, aprocess that involves both aquacul-ture and hydroponics. The nutrientsin the fish waste are used to feed thehydroponic lettuce. The tomatoesand lettuce are used in a barbecue af-ter the produce is harvested. The Monsanto grant also will al-low the ag department to buy a newgreenhouse to replace two of itssmaller greenhouses. Cruickshank
is planning to expand the aquapon-ics program using the additionalspace.Benjamin explained why it is im-portant for the next generation offarmers to understand how to growcrops and raise animals in a green-house environment.
“As we get more people, it takesmore room to house those people,so we lose room to farm,” saidBenjamin. “This is the best way togrow more food in a more concen-trated spot. You can grow a lotmore in a tighter area.”
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Cruickshank and Nohemy Gramajowatch as Chema Valdez and IyshaRodriguez use a net to catch tilapia in aNyssa High School greenhouse.
Ryan Benjamin stands next to one of thefish tanks he helps maintain for NyssaHigh School’s aquaculture system forraising tilapia.
Chema Valdez and Nohemy Gramajo replace part of the filtering system after check-ing on the fish in a aquaculture tank in the fish lab at Nyssa High School.
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STORY BY JESSICA ELSE
Bees seem to be making acomeback in Idaho andOregon, as well as national-
ly, and local beekeepers are creat-ing a buzz about hive mainte-nance in order to prolong thespecies’ upswing. “In a nutshell, the state of thebees in the Treasure Valley is bet-ter than it’s been in years,” saidSteve Sweet, a mentor and formerpresident of the Treasure ValleyBee Club. “Especially for beekeep-ers that understand the problemsthat accompany the relatively newhoneybee pest, Varroa destructor.”Sweet manages between 30 and40 bee colonies in southeast Boiseand works with Sweet HoneyCompany to produce beeswaxproducts and local honey. He’shad firsthand experience with
the Varroa destructor, an Asianbee parasite. First discovered inAmerica in 1987, the parasite canravage a honeybee colony if left toits own devices.The Varroa destructor mitesnags a ride with the bees into thehive and lays its eggs in the broodcells, which develop at the sametime as the bee larvae. The youngmites attach themselves to the ba-by bee after they’ve hatched andthen leave the cell with their newhost.These mites spread disease andleave open wounds on the bees,which become susceptible to infec-tion. If the infestation becomeslarge enough, it will kill an entirecolony.Apiarists agree it is imperativeto address the mites quickly andnot allow the infestation to con-
Bees make a comeback in Treasure Valley
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PATTI AND SETT MATTHEWS
Patti and Seth Matthews, Weiser residents and owners of more than 300 bee colonies,say proper hive maintenance is key to a thriving bee population.
The Matthews ownMatthews Grain &Storage in Weiser,where they sell honey and otherproducts from theirbees, in addition totaking their products to the Boise Farmer'sMarket.
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tinue into the winter in order tokeep the bees healthy and to savethe colony. “Managing the mites is the best wecan do, as there’s no killing thesepests short of outright killing thehive,” Sweet said. There are several solutions tomanaging the Varroa destructormite, including miticides, which arechemicals that kill mites, as well asnatural solutions like using pow-dered sugar, which causes the mitesto drop off of the bees. “Preparations for November,December and January began backin August of this year as the bee-keepers make sure that the Varroamites were controlled,” Sweet said. Patti Matthews, who owns morethan 300 colonies in the Weiserarea with her husband, Seth, agreedwith Sweet that the mites are thebiggest threat to area bees. TheMatthews own Matthews Grain &Storage in Weiser, where they sell
honey and other products fromtheir bees, in addition to takingtheir products to the Boise Farmer’sMarket. “Hobby beekeepers need to beable to take care of their hives,”Matthews said. “They need to keeptheir hives healthy. It’s a lot ofwork.”In spite of the mites, reports fromthe U.S. Department of Agriculturesay the honey bee mortality rate, na-tionwide, for the winter of 2013-14was 23 percent, a 6 percent dropfrom 2012-13 winter. Most bee-keepers reported losses over 18percent, which is still too high to besustainable.Losses can be attributed to manydifferent factors. A lack of diversityin pollen sources can weaken a hive,as can pesticide use on plants thebees visit. Queen failure is another factor inhive health. Bees will replace theirqueen in the wild due to old age,
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. 26, 2014physical condition or if the queen is-n’t producing enough of the righttype of bees. Usually the bees willraise a daughter queen, and then thetwo queens will fight for the title.The queen who lives through thebattle is the hive’s new queen bee. Hives sometimes swarm as anoth-er way to replace their queen. Afterraising a new queen, the old queenwill take around 60 percent of thehive and look for a new home, leav-ing the new queen in charge of theremaining 40 percent of the colony. “Potential queens are fed royal jel-ly, which is this stuff that comesfrom the worker bees’ heads,”Matthews explained.All honeybees eat royal jelly thefirst three days of their lives, but thepotential queen bees continue toeat it as they grow. It helps the lar-vae develop the qualities of a queen,such as fully formed ovaries. If a hive has lost a queen and an-other does not take her place, the
hive dies. The hive will also die ifthere aren’t enough worker bees totake care of the growing brood. Another factor in declining hivehealth is poor winterization, which
is what beekeepers are focusing onnow as the winter months arrive. “The bees right now are clusteredand preparing for winter,” Sweetsaid. “The days will be getting too
cool for the bees to fly, so everyoneis just hanging out in the hive.”The Treasure Valley Bee Club sug-gests checking the hives regularly toensure lids are secure and water-tight. Tilt the hives so water andsnow will run off them, and keepaway excess moisture. Too muchmoisture in the hive can lead todysentery, which can result in thedeath of the hive. The club also suggests taking ad-vantage of periodic warm spells toevaluate bee health. They cautionbeekeepers to never open a hiveduring the winter unless the out-side temperature is above 45 de-grees. In these warmer tempera-tures, the bees break their clusterand move closer to their honeystores. Apiarists can also knock onthe side of the hive and listen for thebuzzing sound for affirmation thattheir hive is still alive. “In September and October, thefocus shifts to making sure that the
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The collapse of bee colonies can be attributed to a number of factors such as queenhealth, diversity of pollen sources, pesticides and infestations like the Varroa de-structor honeybee mite.
colony has adequate stores to allowthem to get through the winter,”Sweet explained. Although sugar syrup and pollenpatties are usually prime supple-mental food for bees, apiarists sug-gest feeding fondant or honey dur-ing colder months to keep moisturelevels low.Bees generally keep moisture lev-els in their honey between 17 and18 percent. Because honey absorbsmoisture from the air around it, themoisture level of the hive can in-crease, which is unhealthy for thebees. “Bees will dehydrate their honey ifit has too high of a moisture con-tent,” Matthews explained. “Theydo it by flapping their wings anddrying it out.”In the winter, however, the beesare clustering and dormant, so foodwith a low moisture content is nec-essary. The Treasure Valley Bee Club al-
so advises ordering queen bees assoon as possible, as demands forqueens have increased. TheMatthews replace their queensevery year, although hobby beekeep-ers are urged to check the health oftheir queen before decidingwhether to replace her. The Matthews, who have been inthe bee business for over threeyears, said they ship their bees toCalifornia for the winter via truckto pollinate almond orchards there.“We put them on the truck anddrive them at night when the beesare least active,” Matthews said. They bring their bees back thethird week in March after the polli-nating season is over in California.They pull them off of the truck andlet the bees readjust to being backhome before inspecting all of thecolonies and getting them ready tojoin other local bees for another sea-son of blossom visiting, honey mak-ing and pollinating crops.
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Winterization is imperative for a healthybee colony. Among the Treasure ValleyBee Club’s suggestions are maintaininga low moisture level in the hive and mak-ing sure the colony has enough foodstored up for the winter.
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STORY AND PHOTOS BY ZACHARY CHASTAINE
ONTARIO
The long rows of plants outsideOntario suddenly turn to colorfulpatches just outside the Oregon State
University Experiment Station. Like a bigquilt, the station is a patchwork of differentvarieties of plants and crops that could oneday become a staple in the WesternTreasure Valley. Currently the area staples are largely rec-ognized as onions, sugar beets and a few oth-er crops that have been grown here foryears, but that’s not to say other crops couldnot make an appearance in coming years.Introducing a new crop, however — nomatter how popular or potentially prof-itable — requires a lot of work to find vari-eties that can be grown locally and to findout exactly what it takes to get that cropfrom seed to market.
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Research in Malheur CountyOregon State University exploring the future of agriculture here at home
Bill Buhrig, crop extension agent with the Malheur County Extension Office, describes quinoa plants as wonderfully col-orful. The plants grow in different shades of autumn all year long and range in size from just a foot or two high to about6 feet tall.
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. 26, 2014Bill Buhrig is an extension cropagent at Oregon State University’sMalheur County Extension Officein Ontario. He is one of the peoplewho works to see what plants growin Malheur County, how they growand how best to handle them as apotentially viable crop. Several new crops, includingquinoa, have the potential to makean appearance in Malheur County,he said.Quinoa has seen a surge of popu-larity in recent years in part be-cause it is gluten-free. This makes itmore accessible for people withgluten allergies.Quinoa is prepared in a similarway to rice. It’s a colorful plant thatgrows close to the ground in aswatch of yellow, red and green. “It has a lot of the same millingproperties as traditional cereals likewheat, but it is gluten-free becauseit’s not a grass,” Buhrig said.“If you’re going to have a gluten-
free movement, you have to have agluten-free supply. And right now,over half the quinoa in the world isgrown in Bolivia.” While quinoa may be tasty andprovide a good option for thosewith gluten allergies, the question atthe experiment station is, whatdoes it take to grow it?Experiment station employeeshave planted several varieties and
have been carefully monitoring theprogress of each. They’re also tak-ing note of any other observationsthey may see in the process. “We’ve learned a ton,” Buhrigsaid. Buhrig said quinoa has its ownquirks and challenges to growingit as a viable crop. The experi-ment station also is examininghow easily it can be harvested
with existing implements. Quinoa isn’t the station’s only ex-perimental crop. This year they’ve al-so grown pumpkins for snack seeds.Buhrig said pumpkins require spe-cialized equipment to harvest. Dueto the high moisture content in thegourd, they have to be processedquickly. Currently Malheur Countydoes not have the capabilities toprocesses pumpkin seeds the way itdoes to processes other crops, likeonions, Buhrig said.This likely would require some com-pany that produces pumpkin seedproducts to come into the area, headded. While it is possible pumpkinscould be grown as a food crop inMalheur County, the question is ifthe industry will be in the area for it. The experiment station will con-tinue to look for answers to that andother questions as staff membersexplore new crops that could ex-pand Malheur County’s agricultur-al base.
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Quinoa has seen a surge in popularity in recent years, in part because it is gluten-free.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY APRIL EHRLICH
VALE
Lynn Reagan is a twice-retiredschool superintendent andprofessor in agriculture and
genetics. He knows breeding, so heknows when it comes to culling de-sired traits in animals, goats havethe easiest control factors.“I can apply genetics for genetic im-provement principles faster and eas-ier and cheaper in goats than I couldwith anything else,” said Reagan.“Especially on a 3-acre farm.”For one, the breeding process isfaster with goats than most otherfarm animals. Altogether, it takesabout five months from breedinguntil birth. A farmer can beginbreeding again when a kid goat isabout 6 months old. Goats are also fairly simple and in-expensive pets to keep around:They are natural lawn mowers andwill eat just about any organic — andsometimes inorganic — matter intheir path. Reagan keeps about 20 goats, allwinners at one point or another, andhe is not shy about their success. “We are almost completely sur-rounded by champion ribbons fromour dairy goats,” said Reagan, beam-ing. “We’ve done exceptionally well.”At nearly 76 years old, Reagan re-mains employed outside his dairy
goat farm as a full-time independ-ent contractor for The ArgusObserver, for which he deliversnewspapers every day. “Retirement is the most boringjob there is,” said Reagan.When asked how long he plans ondelivering newspapers, Reagansaid: “Until I can’t drive any more.”Reagan has bounced aroundmany facets of life and has lived inall parts of Oregon. He taught agri-culture at Ontario High School,Saint Paul Catholic School and
Clackamas Community College.He earned a master’s degree in ed-ucation at Eastern OregonUniversity, completed a school ad-ministration certificate programwith Lewis and Clark College in LaGrande, became superintendent forthe Monument School District, andthen later a coordinator for theMalheur Education Center inNyssa. He now lives in his hometown,Vale, at Eastridge Farms.Reagan took up dairy goat breed-
ing in 2005 when he and his wife,Kathy, bought their first base herdfrom several different bloodlines.They got a young buck kid fromthat herd, who won three champi-onships in a single show, whichmade him into a permanent cham-pion at 2 years old.“His daughters became our foun-dation,” said Reagan.A goat must win three champi-onships in its age group before be-coming a permanent champion.After that, it competes for champi-on of the day against other perma-nent champion goats. Walking through the backyard,the goats follow the Reagans every-where, whether out of curiosity oradoration or both, especially the ba-by goats, who clumsily stumble overone another for a better look. Theolder goats, also known as milkingyearlings, follow Kathy Reagan aswell, but for different reasons.“They think it’s milking time!”she said.One goat, Lola, is fat with preg-nancy. Lynn Reagan said he is ex-pecting her to have triplets, butwith her enormous size, she couldproduce quadruplets. “We hope they aren’t quads,” saidLynn Reagan. “They aren’t a goodsize then.”The Reagans’ goats are ivory
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Kids, yearlings and milkers: Raising winning goats
Lynn and Kathy Reagan of Eastridge Farms, in Vale, stand in front of their bedroomwall covered in dairy goat championship ribbons. They are frequent winners at theIdaho State Fair.
white with accents of brown and black, almost likea calico fur pattern, which can seem exotic whencompared to “ordinary” gray goats. “You don’t have to know anything about goats toknow that they are huge,” said Lynn Reagan.While the Eastridge Farms goats produce award-winning milk, the Reagans cannot sell it commer-cially due to licensing restrictions. Instead, they sellreplacement yearlings to commercial dairies anduse the milk byproduct to feed other animals ontheir farm. Reagan boasted about one great milker, Snip.“This doe not only was the champion start milk-er in Alpine as a 2-year-old, she’s a champion starmilker over all breeds,” he said. “She’s got it all.”Snip earned her nickname from a snippet ofwhite fur on her otherwise black nose. At 6 yearsold, Snip has produced a line of championship-win-ning daughters and granddaughters.Her successful breeding line has helped theReagans earn Premier Breeder and PremierExhibitor status, which is based on the total num-ber of awards won by exhibited goats, at the fair forthe last three years in a row.“That’s what this doe has done for us,” said LynnReagan. “She’s put all that into these daughters.”
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Lynn Reagan stands with his championship-winning goats. He and his wife have produced several lines of win-ning breeds, and he hopes to only get better. “When you are breeding, you can only get better, or they get worse,”Reagan says.
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STORY AND PHOTOS BY LESLIE THOMPSON
NYSSA
With nearly 171 million tons of sugar be-ing produced in 120 countries aroundthe world, and subsidies and trade
deals governing its production and trade, it’sclear there is a global sweet tooth. Americans are voracious consumers of thesweet stuff. In fact, we consume so much sugarthat even after producing nearly 7.7 million tonsin 2012, we still imported another 3.3 milliontons to satisfy our cravings.Sugar is collected and processed from a variety ofsources including honey, sugarcane and sugar beets.Beet sugar accounts for nearly 30 percent of theworld’s production and about 50 percent of theU.S. supply. This year, Idaho has contributednearly 6.1 tons of sugar to that total and Oregon228,000 tons, according to the U.S. Departmentof Agriculture.There are many variables that can affect thesugar-bearing root. While the acreage in Oregonis historically less than that planted in Idaho,Oregon has even lower numbers than usual thisyear, which could be reflective of the watershortage in Malheur County. Water issues drovedown the amount of acreage planted by almosthalf this year, according to Stuart Reitz, croppingsystems agent with Oregon State UniversityExtension Service of Malheur County. “This year, acreage is down to about 4,700
acres,” Reitz said.While acreage is low, sugar content and yieldsare high. Eastern Oregon fields have producedabout 30 tons per acre, Reitz said.“Most growers last spring chose not to growwhen they knew we would be short on water,”said Clark Millard, district agricultural managerfor Amalgamated Sugar Co.Amalgamated Sugar is a grower-owned co-op-erative for sugar-beet growers. While some grow-ers held off this year, others decided to take achance on the roots, and a few acres were grownbefore water was shut off in August.The ground ended up being so hard in someof those fields that Transystems had to bebrought in to dig up the beets. Once they weredug, workers harvested the beets quickly andtook them directly to the factory, Millard said,explaining that dehydrated beets aren’t able tobe stored and have to be processed right away.There is a science to growing and processingthe sacchariferous roots. It wasn’t until aftermuch trial and error that the first successfulcommercial production of beet sugar in the U.S.began in central California in 1870.
During those early attempts, it was discoveredthat sugar beets fare better in crop rotation cy-cles than in monoculture. Back-to-back plantingis not recommended. “A steady diet of that crop in that field willcause eventual decline,” Millard said. “We wouldprefer no closer than one year out of three beingsugar beets, and one out of five is better.”The co-op has crop consultants who will advisegrowers, at no charge, on the best practices,which makes both the grower and the co-opmore money.There are always things that can impact the fu-ture of beets, but it’s looking pretty bright rightnow, Millard said, adding that the growers areone of the key factors contributing to the group’ssuccess in the future, Millard explained. “We have a dedicated group of sugar beet grow-ers who grow excellent crop,” he said.One thing that could hurt the industry morethan anything, Millard said, is the Farm Bill andwhether it will support local growers over im-ports or allow them to co-exist. For instance, there is currently a glut of sugarin the U.S. because of excessive importation of
Toothsome tubersSugar beets still an important crop in Western Treasure Valley
Truck drivers on Pete Parkin’s harvest team carefully navigate around each other on a Grant 4-D Farms sugar beetplot on Hop Road west of Ontario Oct. 28. The initial part of getting into the field can be tricky, Parkin says, becauseyou can’t drive on the beets, so until the first few runs with the defoliator and harvester are made, extra caution hasto be taken.
The leafy tops on these sugar beets look healthy be-cause they got plenty of water during the season. NearVale, there were a few fields that ran out of water aroundAugust. Those plants had burnt leaves, Pete Parkin ex-plained.
sugar from Mexico, which was allowed be-cause the North American Free TradeAgreement gave Mexico unlimited accessto the market.Because of NAFTA and other trade deals,America has to import sugar from 41 coun-tries regardless of its needs. Those tradesare overseen by the U.S. sugar policy, whichoperates under the Farm Bill, and are basedon balancing supply and need. Each year, the USDA forecasts U.S. sug-ar consumptions and decides whether tolimit the amount U.S. producers can mar-ket. At the same time, USDA allocatesmarket share.In October, the USDA’s Sugar andSweeteners Outlook said beet sugar pro-duction increased 170,000 short tons, rawvalue to $4.970 million based on analysisof crop forecasts.While sugar prices have plummetedmore than 50 percent since 2010 and sub-sidized imports from Mexico have createdrecord surpluses, the plan locally is to keepthings growing as many beets as possible.“We’re going to keep producing at thesame rate,” Millard said.
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Freshly defoliated sugar beets wait for the harvester to pluck them out of a field on Hop Road. Defoliation is a criticalfirst step to getting the beets out of the field and into a pile without spoiling. The process removes the top of the sugarbeet, so the leafy part can be left behind in the fields.
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