Growers look beyond grass seed for alternative crops

By MITCH LIES
Capital Press

Corvallis-area grass seed grower Mike Hayes is looking at revising his crop rotations -- and not because of economic reasons.

Hayes is looking for ways to continue farming in a depressed economy after the Oregon Legislature last month initiated a near ban on field burning in the Willamette Valley.

Field burning, he said, provided an economic way to remove residue, weeds and insects.

With grass seed prices well below the cost of production, the Oregon Legislature's near ban on the practice couldn't have come at a worse time.

"It's one of the worst years the Legislature could have picked for banning burning," he said.

Hayes plans to grow more wheat and white clover, increase tillage and bump up chemical use to compensate for the loss of the practice.

The bottom line? "It's going to cost more," he said.

Under the bill that Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed into law July 14, Willamette Valley growers this year can burn no more than 20,000 acres of "regular" species, and no more than 15,000 acres of "identified" species and grass seed produced on steep slopes.

Identified species in the exception are chewings fescue, creeping red fescue and highland bentgrass.

Beginning next year, field burning is banned in all of the Willamette Valley, apart from the 15,000-acre exception for certain species and steep slopes.

Except for a small area in northern Linn County, where the burning exception for steep terrain and identified species will be in place, field burning will be outlawed entirely in Benton, Lane and Linn counties.

For the past 11 years, growers could burn up to 65,000 acres in the Willamette Valley -- including 40,000 acres of regular species and 25,000 of identified species and grass on steep slopes.

The new restrictions are motivating growers to look at alternative crop rotations at a time when finding profitable crops to produce is difficult.

For some growers -- like Hayes -- white clover is an option. But, according to Matt Herb, president of Oregon Seed Council and a seed dealer, white clover contracts are topped out in the valley at their current level of 15,000 acres.

For many growers in the south valley, white clover is out of the question.

"It hasn't worked on the wet soils near Harrisburg," he said. "We tried it."

"The problem," Halsey-area grower Tim Van Leeuwen said, "on a lot of that ground in the south valley, there is nothing else you can raise other than annual ryegrass."

"A lot of it is too wet to grow winter wheat," Linn County Extension agent Mark Mellbye said. "And it's too wet in the spring to plant spring grains."

"Probably half of that ground is unsuitable for other crops," Herb said.

At the current price for annual ryegrass -- 18 cents a pound -- Herb believes growers might be better off leaving ground fallow.

"It takes $150 an acre to plant in conventional tillage and $50 an acre to burn," Herb said. "Add a few hundred acres, and now all of a sudden you're a couple of hundred thousand dollars difference -- and that's an ouch.

"All the governor and the Legislature have done is kick our farmers right in the face when they least can afford it," he said.

Meadowfoam, another crop growers are considering, also isn't suitable for much of the south valley acreage and also has limited demand.

"The meadowfoam market is pretty easy to flood," Herb said.

Van Leeuwen said he looked at canola to break up his wheat, tall fescue and annual ryegrass rotation, but the state also is on track to ban canola production in the valley.

Oregon officials in 2005 restricted canola-for-oil production in the valley to protect the valley's high-value vegetable seed crops. Officials recently announced they are going to renew the prohibitions.

"I would like to grow canola, but the state interferes with that, too," Van Leeuwen said.

Fears are canola will attract insect pests common to canola and brassica crops and that canola will cross pollinate with cauliflower and broccoli, lowering seed purity and eventually driving vegetable seed contractors out of the valley.

For Van Leeuwen, the field burning restrictions add yet another layer of difficulty to surviving in agriculture.

"We'll have to figure out ways around all the blockades Salem can put up for us, or get out of the business," Van Leeuwen said.

Staff writer Mitch Lies is based in Salem. E-mail: mlies@capitalpress.com.