Kaelyn Blessinger
UPDATE:
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – Many grain farmers across southern and eastern Idaho may be experiencing significant crop losses after a combination of freezing temperatures and dry conditions damaged wheat fields earlier this year.
Some of the hardest-hit areas were farther south, where April frosts devastated winter wheat just as the crop was beginning to grow.
“There’s a grower yesterday from Rockland Valley that said those cold temperatures killed a lot of the wheat he had,” Juliet Marshall, from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said. “He was getting yields as little as 2 to 5 bushels an acre, when we’re really expecting in those dry land areas, 40 to 70 bushels an acre.”
Despite the widespread damage, not every field suffered the same fate. Marshall said many crops planted later in the season were still in earlier stages of development when the cold snap arrived, allowing them to survive and recover.
“A lot of our crop, because it was planted later, survived better and was in a younger growth stage,” Marshall said. “It was able to withstand those cold temperatures, and those crops bounced back.”
While this year’s harvest brought a mix of losses and unexpected recoveries, Marshall says farmers are already looking ahead to next year with concern.
She says weather forecasts pointing toward a strong El Niño pattern could bring hotter, drier conditions, increasing the risk of water shortages throughout the region.
“We are very concerned for whether or not we have enough snow,” Marshall said. “Not only to recreate on the ski slopes, but to provide the irrigation that’s needed.”
A lack of snowpack could force difficult water management decisions across southern Idaho. Marshall says that, in some years, hundreds of thousands of acres in southeast Idaho may have to remain unplanted to ensure enough irrigation water is available for senior water rights holders in the Magic Valley.
The impacts, she says, extend well beyond the farm.
“It could have a huge economic effect because not only do our growers participate in the local economy, they buy tractors, they buy equipment, they buy fertilizer,” Marshall said.
Marshall says weather conditions over the coming months, especially this winter’s snowfall, will play a key role in determining what next year’s growing season looks like for Idaho farmers.
Original:
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) – Grain farmers across southern and eastern Idaho are dealing with a difficult growing season after months of drought, spring frost, and increased pest pressure damaged wheat and barley fields.
Despite the difficulties, University of Idaho researcher Juliet Marshall says the overall outlook isn’t as bleak as they first expected.
Professor Juliet Marshall from the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, associate director of the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station, and an Extension cereals specialist, says the problems began during an unusually warm and dry winter. Because temperatures never stayed cold enough for crops to go fully dormant, wheat and barley continued using up soil moisture throughout the winter months.
“In some cases, it’s been as bad as you can imagine, with farmers having to mow, while in other cases some of the worst outcomes have been avoided depending on when and where the crop was planted,” Marshall said. “Overall, the crops recovered quite a bit more than I ever expected.”
Farmers across the region have noticed this as well. Despite the unusual weather patterns, it did not hit their crop quite as harshly as expected.
“The season has gone pretty well,” Adam Young, a 3rd generation farmer of Bingham County, said. “We started out really hot. We had a series of frosts that I think that will have had some impact, but luckily, the timing of those frosts was such that I don’t think it’s going to have a major impact on our yields. We probably won’t be breaking any records this year, but we expect to have a decent yield across our fields.”
Adam Young is growing 1,000 acres of wheat and 1,000 acres of barley this year. Eastern Idaho farmers, however, may have avoided even greater damage. Because they typically harvest crops like potatoes and sugar beets later in the year, they also plant fall grain later. Those younger crops hadn’t reached the stage where they were most vulnerable when the April freeze hit. Although he will have a slight decrease in his yield, Young says the harshest impact happened to farmers further south.
“The frost did do a significant amount of damage to fields to the south of where we’re at, like American Falls and I believe in the Magic Valley, there was a lot of damage that was done as well. But up in our area, the stage of where the crop was when the frosts occurred was more fortuitous than I think is going to have much less of an impact.”
The warm winter also allowed aphids and mites to survive in higher numbers than usual. Those insects spread barley yellow dwarf virus and wheat streak mosaic virus, both of which have reduced grain yields across southern and eastern Idaho this year.
Despite the challenges, Marshall says the spring grain crop is looking much better than she anticipated earlier this year.
“The spring crop looks really good,” Marshall said. “There was some frost damage, but not nearly enough to cause yield loss.”
While many producers are still facing difficult harvests and lower yields, researchers say some Idaho grain fields have proven more resilient than expected, offering hope as the growing season continues.
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