Hello Wheat Life readers! I’m Jeff Malone, and it’s an honor to introduce myself as your new president of the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG). As a fifth-generation dryland wheat farmer in Douglas County, I’ve been blessed to work the same land my family has cultivated for over a…
If you are reading this, you probably know as well as I do that the trend in commodity prices has not been favorable to farmers over the last year or two. Margins for producers have become razor thin, and annual budgets do not paint as pretty of a picture as…
As winter settles in, most farmers’ fields go quiet, but that doesn’t mean nothing is happening. In Eastern Washington’s Mediterranean climate, winter is when the region receives the majority of its precipitation, either as rain or, preferably, snow. Snow insulates crops from wind and excessively cold temperatures and allows soil…
While no two farmers follow the same schedule, winter is generally devoted to more “indoor” tasks. Marci Green from Green View Farms in Spokane County points out that many bookkeeping tasks, such as paying bills, marketing crops, payroll, monitoring budgets, and cash flow, happen throughout the year. In this Q&A,…
During winter, the fields may be sleeping under the snow, but that doesn’t mean farmers are. In shops across Eastern Washington, farm equipment is being cleaned and repaired, all in preparation for another year of hard work. Rob Wilkins, parts supervisor at Papé Machinery in Tekoa, Wash., believes the work…
Crop rotations date back thousands of years. Back then, farmers may not have understood the science behind rotating crops on the same land from season to season, but they used it in practice for crop production. Since then, science and experience have expanded our agricultural knowledge exponentially. Modern-day farms in…
Farming can be stressful at the best of times, so when Dale Childers, a semiretired, long-time Grant/Lincoln County farmer died in August, the local community sprang into action to help the family finish harvest. Ben McKay, a good friend of Dakota, Dale’s son, organized the harvest bee. At first, it…
For farmers in a pickle about pesticide labels, there’s online help available through Washington State University’s (WSU) Pesticide Information Center OnLine (PICOL). While PICOL has been around for more than 40 years, it has just recently been rebuilt and upgraded and is the only database in the country that can…
With the holiday season right around the corner, growers across the Palouse have an opportunity to make a life-changing gift. “Pullman Regional Hospital’s Gifts of Grain program is a great way for landlords and farmers to give back,” explained Wayne Druffel, farmer and president of the board of directors for…
Oct. 15 marked my six-month anniversary with the Washington Association of Wheat Growers (WAWG) team. Thank you to those growers that have reached out to me recently with recommendations of practices that I pass on to our state Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) team. There have been some fantastic recommendations,…
