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…
MOUNT ANGEL, Ore. — Running a farm is a risky business. Bill and Janice Scheidler have found ways to reduce that risk.
Nate Jones’ farm was one of the first certified organic operations in Idaho.
SANTA CRUZ,Calif. — Just a few years ago Brussels sprouts were the “Rodney Dangerfield” of vegetables, but the little green orbs are getting newfound respect these days.
RICKREALL, Ore. — For farmers, gardeners and conservation project managers, wet February is a good time to propagate woody plants, especially those that are native to the region.
Brian Darrington knew what he wanted to do for a living when he was still a teenager growing up on his family’s farm.
WAPATO, Wash. — Nonprofit Campbell Farm seeks to nourish and instruct needy people in the Yakima Valley while providing a mission-retreat center for visitors, according to Carman Pimms, the fa…
CORVALLIS, Ore. — Interested in growing native plants from seed, or in seed production? You’re not alone.
Tim Cornie is farming where he grew up, between Hagerman and Castle Ford, Idaho.
ROSEBURG, Ore. — After doing research, Lily Wheaton decided her proposal would focus on growing and marketing asparagus.
PETALUMA, Calif. — Marty Jacobson and his wife, Janet Brown, were working in two very different arenas: He was in advertising and she in sales, but they both really wanted to do something different.
Gemstar potatoes are the star of the show for one Southern Oregon farm.
Change is the only constant at Fewel Farms of Prosser, Wash., according to its owners, Scott and Josh Fewel.
Farms producing crops in uncertain markets can help stabilize their income by contracting with food processing companies, according to Dan Chin, owner of Chin Farms in Klamath Falls, Ore.
When Merritt Mitchell-Wajeeh left her job in Florida to become a farmer in Washington state, she wanted to do something special.
Scott and Esther McIlrath’s farming career began a bit like the 1960s sitcom “Green Acres,” but the outcome has been much different.
This family farm near Ririe, Idaho, has supported several generations.
SHOSHONE, Idaho — The Taber family moved to Idaho from Pennsylvania in 1975, when Chris was 6 years old and Darren was 2. Their youngest brother, Matt, was born in 1982.
Three generations of the Stoddard family have farmed near the tiny town of Grace in southeastern Idaho.
On any given day Alec Kowalewski juggles quite a few plates.
ROSEBURG, Ore. — What started out as a raspberry farm on 1 acre back in 1975 has evolved over the past 40 years into a variety of berries and vegetables on about 88 acres.
Many things have changed since Fordyce Farm opened in 1959, but one has remained constant: strawberries.