Billing itself as the world’s premier producer of cool-season grass seed, the Doerfler family has carved out a niche in this tiny town east of Salem.
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POLK COUNTY, Ore. — Soil science has come a long way since Milton Whitney in 1899 began surveying soils in the tobacco lands of Connecticut.
Four generations live on this family farm in Oregon and Idaho. It is currently operated by the second and third generations, and Shay Myers is part of the third generation.
Scott Zielinski represents the fifth generation to work on his family’s farm, which has branched out over its decades of operation.
CULVER, Ore. — In 1947, young Dwight Macy, finding his family’s Idaho farm too small to support both himself and his siblings, moved across the border to Oregon.
Farming is about family for Ritchey Toevs.
With so many fruit and vegetable farms in Central Washington’s Yakima Valley, it might seem difficult for any one business to stand out.
A recent test has shown that drip irrigation is more efficient than furrow irrigation when growing sugar beets.
Growing up in Salinas — the “Salad Bowl of California” — Rudy Jimenez was confronted with a choice by his father, who had been working on farms for 30 years: either go to school, or you are go…
With seed farms and production facilities in nine states, CSS Farms stretches across the U.S. and it prides itself on having a culture of “doing it right.”
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — Vaughn Forbes started his seed business with $50 in the pantry of his home in 1976.
Not long after his 1928 move to St. Paul, Ore., Sam Koch realized his neighbor, the Willamette River, had a nasty habit of flooding his farm.
Grant Brians, an organic farmer in San Benito County, Calif., started his agricultural career at an astonishingly early age.
Although John Vars grew up in the agriculturally rich Willamette Valley of Oregon, he planted his roots on California’s Pacific Coast.
When German immigrant Ed Dickman purchased 63 fertile acres near Silverton, Ore., in 1929, he had no idea what a legacy he had begun.
The majority of California’s sunflower crop is grown in the Sacramento Valley, mostly for seed production.
Though well established as a large, diversified operation, 4 B Farms will never sit still — not with so many new factors to contend with.
It is a relatively small volume crop, grown on about 10,000 acres in California, but garbanzo beans are still significant because the variety grown is the large, cream colored bean used by the…
A multi-generational farm near Paul, Idaho, produces a variety of crops.
Justin McLeod has been farming near Nez Perce, Idaho, for about a dozen years.
Farmer Curtis Lucero likes to tell a joke he heard about farming: “The only way to make a million dollars in farming is to start with two million.”
Mark and Sharla Wagoner and their son Tim grow wheat and alfalfa seed at Touchet, near Walla Walla, Wash., on the farm where Mark grew up.
Grass seed growers had to scramble last year when the true armyworm launched a surprise attack first noticed during harvest. Standing crops and those in windrows did not suffer, but the worms,…
SUVER, Ore. — John Kennel lifts a picture of his father and grandfather from the wall of his Majestic Oak Farms office. The subject of the circa-1950s photo is a point of pride within the four…
Consider this: You are a contestant on a national television show and it’s your turn to get the question. The lights dim and the audience is quiet.
Six years’ worth of higher yields and lower water usage make Nampa, Idaho, peppermint grower Robert McKellip a big believer in drip irrigation.
WILLIAMS, Calif. — A new program helps protect California’s specialty rice fields from an undesirable strain known as weedy rice.
Greg Payne didn’t leave farming for long.
Robert Ehn says there is more to onions and garlic than their distinctive aromas.
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — Rodney Cheyne remembers driving the family tractor as a 5-year-old. He was in the eighth grade when he leased 11 acres to grow hay and began doing custom haying. A year l…
SUVER, Ore. — If necessity is the mother of invention, then Garth Mulkey is its great-great grandson. Mulkey is a fourth-generation seed grower who farms nearly 1,000 acres south of Monmouth.
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — Randy Henderson started farming as a hobby while he was teaching biology at Willamette High School in nearby Eugene. He said it was a means of earning an additional incom…
Bim and Linda Lewman started farming at Notus, Idaho, near Parma, 38 years ago on land that was originally part of Linda’s family farm.
SALEM, Ore. — The West’s native meadowfoam oil, once obscure, has become an international beauty queen, finding its way into dozens of cosmetic products. The dramatic carpet of white flowers t…
JUNCTION CITY, Ore. — Hentze Family Farm has been in the Junction City area for 116 years and four generations. Brother and sister Gordon Hentze and Karen McEldowney-Hay grew up on the farm an…
DAVIS, Calif. — Precise gene-editing technology is bringing the debate over genetically modified crops into a new era, researchers and experts say.
MOUNT VERNON, Wash. — Colin Curwen-McAdams is a Ph.D. candidate working under Stephen Jones at Washington State University.
Duane Eder considers himself a first-generation farmer in a land of third- and fourth-generation farmers. He and his brothers started farming in 1973.
When you talk to Don Wirth of Saddle Butte Seeds near Shedd, Ore., it doesn’t take long to hear the frustration he has with the 90 percent of the growers who underestimate the value of cover crops.
BORING, Ore. — Social media doesn’t come naturally to most farmers. But farms — especially farms that depend on direct sales to restaurants and consumers — might be uniquely poised to benefit …
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Tom Chastain, a professor of seed crop physiology and ecology at Oregon State University, has taught seed production every spring since 1992.
Salem — More than 100 farmers in Oregon are expected to grow or process one of the Northwest’s newest cash crops next year, and it’s not marijuana.
Oregon State University agricultural researcher Lane Selman wants to see more chefs and produce buyers step out of the kitchen and onto the farm.
Matt Alvernaz knows sweet potatoes, which he calls “nature’s superfood.”
ROSEBURG, Ore. — Woody Lane is quick to point out that to make a profit and stay in the farming business, pasture management is key.
SACRAMENTO — By the time Ron Oneto was 4 years old he was sure he wanted to stay on the farm.
ONTARIO, Ore. — With 20,000 acres of onions planted in southeastern Oregon, the area produces nearly a quarter of the nation’s storage-onion crop.
Charley Mathews Jr. grew up working in his family’s rice fields.
With 140 acres near Salem, Ore., Don Mantie says his farm is one of the smallest around.
For organic fresh market growers in the Northwest, February through April can be a lean time. Storage crops are dwindling, farmers’ markets slow, and consumers assume they won’t be able to “bu…
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. — Ways that potato fields can be managed to benefit waterfowl were featured during a “Behind the Scenes: Potato Fields to Wetlands” field trip held as part of the annual Wi…
An agronomic practice of cutting for silage red clover grown for seed may do more than simply providing an additional source of revenue for producers.
The son of a farmer who moved to Washington’s Yakima Valley in the 1940s, Lino Guerra developed a love of agriculture that he shared with his wife and four sons.
Doug Carlquist and his wife, Melanie, live on the farm where he grew up.
Nearly two years after Clare Sullivan started as an Oregon State University Extension field crops agent for Linn, Benton and Polk counties in the Willamette Valley, she has not lost her Canadi…