'Green Manure' May Protect Idaho Crops

Potato farmers in southeastern Idaho got a look at a possible weapon to fight weeds, insects and erosion: oriental mustard-seed plants.

That plant and others were on display Tuesday at the Fort Hall Indian Reservation, where farmers are getting advice from the University of Idaho on how to use biologically friendly agents to boost the quality of their crops.

UI research and extension scientists planted the mustard-seed plants in August. When they are cut in several weeks, what remains of the plants will leach natural chemicals into the soil that could keep crop-destroying pests away.

Pamela Hutchinson, from the Moscow-based school, led about 40 people on a tour of test fields this week in hopes that these methods using what she called "green manure" _ a term given to plants grown to improve the quality of soil _ will take root. In addition to fighting off pests, such plants also can smother the soil to keep weeds away.

"When we do things at the research station, we want things under control," Hutchinson told the Idaho State Journal. "We've done green manure trials at the station before, but nothing like this."

She said the green manure approach has been used in Washington state, but that the benefits are unknown in southeast Idaho.

Still, some farmers are using it.

John Taberna, a Blackfoot seed distributor, has been working with green manure for several years.

"What the oriental mustards have is a chemical compound that has a fungicidal effect," he said. He has 25 customers using green manure crops such as mustard seed on 10,000 acres. "The majority of the guys have purchased more every year. It's a learning curve."

Worries over pesticides making it into groundwater on the Fort Hall Reservation have led the tribe's business council to try to reduce pesticides by 15 percent over the next two decades.

Tom Liddil, manager of Tribal Agricultural Resources, said other Idaho farmers are watching the mustard-seed plant test.

"When we have a failure or we have a learning experience, it costs us a lot of money and a lot of time," Liddil said. "The real world met the university this time and it was perfect."

Grants from the American Farmland Trust and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have made it possible for the UI program to offer 50 acres of free seeds to three growers next year on the reservation, and to the conservation districts for Power and Bingham counties.

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Information from: Idaho State Journal, http://www.journalnet.com