Husband-wife dryland research team has ‘soft spot’ for soil health

{child_byline}By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press{/child_byline}

LIND, Wash. — When wheat farmers gather for the annual field day at Washington State University’s dryland research station, they will be greeted by two new researchers.

Husband-and-wife team Surendra and Shikha Singh joined WSU April 3.

Surendra took over as director of the Lind station, replacing Bill Schillinger, who retired in 2022 after 29 years.

Shikha is a research assistant professor specializing in soil health and herbicide resistance.

She’ll be working on new long-term agricultural research experiment sites at WSU’s Wilke Farm in Davenport. She will be based in Lind, but work at both sites.

Research hasn’t paused

Surendra will take over long-running field trials previously managed by Schillinger. His research didn’t pause during the transition, Surendra said.

He will also start new projects to address grower needs, including soil conservation, soil moisture and weed, insect and disease pressures.

“I’m just really thrilled that we’ve got somebody in there and we did it as quickly as we did,” said Ritzville farmer Ron Jirava, who has hosted research trials on his land for more than 20 years.

Jirava encouraged the Singhs to build on the station’s existing work for themselves, noting that the research is crucial for farmers.

“You have a constituent group that is more than willing to lend advice, suggestions or help where they can,” he said.

The Lind Field Day is June 15 at the station, offering growers updates on WSU’s wheat breeding programs and various research projects.

Research historyPrior to joining WSU, Surendra was a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University’s Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center in Pendleton.

Going from 50-inch annual rainfall in Tennessee, where they previously worked, to less than 15 inches in the Northwest was part of the appeal of the director job.

“I have a soft spot for dryland agriculture,” Surendra said. “When I started at Pendleton, it felt like home to me.”

Surendra joined OSU in August 2020, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Shikha was most recently a postdoctoral scholar at Oregon State University’s Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Her research focused on carbon and soil health in irrigated systems.

As they were moving to Oregon, they started reading up on dryland wheat fallow rotations in the region.

“Pretty much 90% of the papers about dryland wheat in the Pacific Northwest had Dr. Schillinger’s name on them,” Surendra said. “I followed pretty much all of his research before even coming here.”

Farming backgroundsSurendra grew up on a dryland and limited irrigation farm in India, raising wheat, mustard and cumin seeds on about 250 acres.

Shikha’s grandfather has a productive farm, up to 350 acres, raising aromatic basmati rice and wheat.

“Where I’m from, the soil is super fertile,” she said. “That farm is really, really productive.”

Her father, a retired geologist, and his brother do most of the farming.

Both have doctorates from the University of Tennessee.

They were undergraduate classmates, hanging out in the same group, studying together as best friends.

“When we started our future planning, we both wanted to get a master’s degree, we both wanted to (study) soils agronomy,” Surendra said.

“It was, like, understood,” Shihka said with a laugh.

“If you ask the question, ‘Who do you see the future with?’ I couldn’t think of anybody else,” Surendra said. “We married our first loves.”

They started dating in 2010, and have been married six years.

The couple currently lives in Pasco, about an hour away, but they ultimately plan to move closer to the Lind station.

During the interview process, Surendra said he was struck by farmers’ support for the position.

“It has checked all the boxes I wanted to see myself working (for) a long time,” he said of his new job.

Research ahead“Soil is the basis of agriculture,” Shihka said. “It takes millions of years to form that one inch of fertile soil on which the crops can grow. If we lose that, farming will be even more difficult.”

Shihka is interested in studying the integration of livestock grazing upon soil health.

Surendra is most excited about long-term experiments to help make dryland wheat farmers, and their incomes, more resilient.

He intends to continue and add to the station’s legacy of supporting farmers, he said.

“Agriculture is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” he said. “We want to pass on the same land in better condition than we received to the next generation.”