Five straight days of rain have interrupted what had been ideal harvest conditions in the Treasure Valley area of Idaho and Oregon.
A stretch of higher-than-normal temperatures with no precipitation ended Sept. 26 with a light rain that turned heavier the next day. A record amount of rain, .34 inches, fell in the Boise area on Sept. 28 and .36 inches fell on Sept. 29. It was also raining Sept. 30.
While grain has been harvested and most of the valley’s seed crops are in, there are still a decent amount of onions and dry beans left in the field to dry.
“The biggest impact will be on the guys with onions and beans still out,” said Caldwell farmer Leonard Andrew.
While some farmers said the rain had a minor affect on their crops, and a few said it didn’t impact them at all, the precipitation has affected some farmers significantly, especially onion and bean growers.
“I’m very worried,” said Caldwell area farmer Sid Freeman, who still has about 12 acres of onions and 8 acres of beans sitting in fields and was one day away from finishing onion harvest when the rains started.
Freeman said the rain will push harvest back at least a week for him and he may have to re-lift the onions still on the ground to stir up the dirt and get them to dry out faster.
Before the rain started, Eastern Oregon farmer Paul Skeen was about three days away from finishing his onion harvest and thought he could be done by the first of October for the first time in 40 years.
But now he’ll be lucky to start up again by Oct. 4.
Skeen said the rains shouldn’t impact onion quality.
“It’s more of a nuisance than anything else,” he said. “You just have to wait until they’re good and dry before you can go again.”
The rains will slow dry bean harvest down but more than 90 percent of beans in this area are in and the wet weather shouldn’t have much of an impact on the overall crop, said Don Tolmie, production manager for Treasure Valley Seed Co. in Homedale.
“If we get three to four days of decent weather, it’s going to be a negligible impact,” he said Sept. 29. “If it continues for another two or three days, then we’ll start to get worried.”
Though some early digging will start this week, the bulk of sugarbeet harvest in Southwestern Idaho is at least a week away and other than making for a slow start, the recent rain won’t hurt that crop, said Greg Dean, the area agronomist for Amalgamated Sugar Co.
For Meridian farmer Drew Eggers, the rain was welcomed because it provided needed moisture for his mint fields as they head into winter.
“I was kind of excited by the extra moisture but I’m probably in the minority,” he said. “I’m sure the guys who still have crops out like onions and beans are probably not too happy.”
Source: www.capitalpress.com