Why We Love Washington Wheat Farmers
There’s a lot to love about Washington wheat farmers. Cookies, cakes, breads, bagels, and so many other tasty treats are made with wheat grown on one of 4,067 wheat farms in Washington.
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Riparian Buffers
Did you know Washington farmers have voluntarily planted MILLIONS of trees and shrubs along our rivers that help keep water clean and cool? These strips of vegetation are called riparian buffers.
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The Crops on the Field Go Round and Round
Have you ever noticed that one farm field may grow several different crops? Even if wheat is a farmer’s primary crop, that farmer may also plant the same field with a series of other crops — such as lentils, garbanzo beans and dried peas — as growing seasons change. This sequential planting of different crops on the same piece of land is called crop rotation.
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WHAT IS WHEAT STRAW USED FOR?
Harvest time is one of the most important seasons of the year for wheat farmers everywhere. It’s the culmination of all their efforts when farmers can finally reap what they’ve sown all year long. The precious grain that fills their bulk tanks isn’t the only valuable part of the wheat plant. The stalks left behind the combine have a variety of uses as well.
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WASHINGTON GRAIN EXPORTS
When trade disruptions such as war, port delays, and politics shut down exports from Washington, we all suffer. The farmers rely on exports to keep their businesses viable. Global consumers rely on Washington to supply their markets with necessary food they cannot grow.
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HOW WHEAT USES WATER
Water isn’t something that necessarily comes to mind when you think about dryland wheat. But like with most plants, water is incredibly important to growing wheat. Through the natural water cycle of the region, Washington’s wheat farmers are able to work with nature to grow wheat in the desert. Though working with the water cycle is something that’s been done for hundreds of years, it’s truly something to marvel at.
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WHERE DOES OUR WHEAT GO?
Wheat is one of the world’s most essential crops, providing 20 percent of the calories necessary to feed the planet’s seven billion people. Washington alone exported more than 5.4 million metric tons of wheat last year alone.
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WHEAT TRANSPORTATION
Much has changed since our ancestor’s loaded wagons full of 100-pound wheat sacks in the fields and headed to the local grain warehouse. Our wagons are now trucks and our warehouses are now large, multimillion-dollar, temperature and pest controlled facilities. Computers run almost everything and, in Washington, we use three main transportation modes: trucks, trains, and barges.
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HOW IS WHEAT AFFECTED BY DROUGHT?
The problem arises later in the growing cycle if the plant doesn’t have enough moisture to “fill out” the tillers that it started. The plant will “abort” tillers at any point in the growing cycle if there’s not enough moisture. Farmers call them “blanks” - empty husks which the plant started but wasn’t able to fill with kernels.
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WHEAT IN THE DESERT
When the original European settlers looked at the countryside east of Spokane, many of them knew two kinds of farming were possible in the arid, grassy hillsides and desolate scablands. First, it was a haven for sheep, especially in the south-central rocky country.
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Don’t Get Cheated by Downy Brome
“It will absolutely decimate your crop,” said Jason Evers, a crop consultant with Nutrien Ag Solutions. “We try to control the downy brome the best we can, to limit the amount of seed that it produces because if you let it go, it will rob all the moisture from the soil. If they rob that moisture, it will decimate your wheat crop.”
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Integrated pest management in Washington wheat country
Pests are real and, if left unmanaged, they can wipe out a crop. Today, farmers use methods that control the pests and protect the environment. Those methods include looking at the fields holistically, implementing pest control based on that view, and using a blend of tools rather than just one.
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What does a crop advisor do?
Farmers need partners. Some of their most important partners are their crop advisors. Meet Gracie, a crop advisor in the Palouse region of Washington.
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How do weeds get into farm fields?
Noxious weeds, like jointed goatgrass, are a pest that Washington farmers fight to remove from their fields each year. These weeds reduce crop yield and quality. We use integrated pest management systems, or IPMs, to solve these problems.
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What's the difference between organic and synthetic fertilizers?
Organic and synthetic fertilizers have the same basic purpose: feeding the crop nutrients. All plants require nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), to grow. Most soil does not provide the necessary nutrients required on its own, plus the plants take up the nutrients during the growing cycle, so farmers add fertilizer on each crop each year.
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What are crop rotations?
Washington wheat farmers use crop rotations to better conserve moisture, manage nutrients, and break up pest cycles.
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The key to the future: precision
The world’s earliest wheat farmers grew their crops in fields as small as a few acres and as large as a couple hundred. Farmers and their workers knew every corner of their fields intimately. Farming was no easy task on these smaller (relative, of course) plots of land. In fact, researchers have found that the earliest farmers burned many more calories growing food than they did hunting and gathering it (NPR, 2013). When a weed grew, they pulled it. They were precise. If locusts invaded, they lost their entire crop and faced a food crisis. They were susceptible.
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