Growers face drought, fire and smoke

Farmers in the mountainous region of western North America are facing biblical weather extremes: Heat domes and record temperatures, smoky air and ash-covered crops, fires and forced evacuations, prolonged droughts, floods, softball-sized hail and infestations of unfamiliar insects.

The Intermountain West — eastern British Columbia and western Alberta down to the southern borders of Nevada, Utah and Colorado — is a mosaic of diverse microclimates with elevation changes, rain shadows, varied snowfall and water features, winds and desert conditions. Farms are affected by distinct local geographic features. This article spotlights climate struggles and adaptations at a sampling of farms, but of course does not represent all experiences in this expansive region.

 

Smoke plumes rising from the Dixie Fire beyond Sierra Valley near Prema Farm in Nevada. Photo by Kasey Crispin.

 

Water shortages and higher irrigation demands are a common thread. The Byzantine system of water rights makes farming even more difficult. Flower farmer Jenn Johnson in Clearfield, Utah, put on a head lamp and went out at 2 a.m. one morning this summer to open and shut off her allotted weekly three-hour water flow from a canal connected to her farm. Johnson, who rents the allotment, built ditches and berms to flood irrigate her field. She’s shifting to more native perennials in anticipation of future droughts and water shortages.

The snowpack was low in the West Elk Mountains near Paonia, Colorado, where Twisted Root Organic Farm dug a 100,000-gallon reservoir pond to hold its water shares. They plan to dig another pond. Monsoon rains this year meant their irrigation canal was turned off a month early on August 15. They reconfigured their fall field for more efficient watering and seeded fall successions early to germinate field greens before the water shut off. “If we irrigate very conservatively for the remainder of the season, our pond should hopefully get us through until the end of market season,” Kristin Just said in August. A diversified vegetable farm with fruit, eggs and flowers, they added two acres of drought tolerant ‘Grosso’ lavender.

Ultreia Farmstead in Cedaredge, Colorado, largely used domestic water at higher drought rates. They don’t have water rights, but bartered vegetables for water from a CSA customer with rights. Water allocations were small and stopped completely during the summer so it didn’t go far, said Melissa Newell. They grow in two hoophouses and reduced field crops from one acre to half an acre because of water shortages.

Ultreia can legally use domestic water on crops, but it’s illegal in Washington State. Nonetheless, some farms do it because leasing water rights is too expensive, said Pat Munts, Small Farms and Urban Ag Coordinator at Washington State University Spokane County Extension.

In the United States, banks, hedge funds, corporations and private individuals are buying up Western land with water rights, lakes and aquifers to control water. Some local governments are restricting water use. 

 

Twisted Root Organic Farm in Paonia, Colorado, dug a retention pond to hold allotted water shares until it is pumped to their crops. They plan to dig another pond.  Photo by Kristin Just.

 

Water regulations also are increasing in Canada. “If you’re designing your farm, you design the scale of production to water supply,” said Rachael Roussin, coordinator of Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors in Cranbrook, British Columbia. Starting in 2016, farmers who divert groundwater for non-household purposes have to get water licenses. With a water shortage, some can’t get licenses.

Erratic weather has been challenging for southeast BC farmers. A hard killing frost on June 8 was followed by a weeklong heat dome, then in early July a huge hail storm. During the heat dome, crops were bursting, yet customers didn’t show up at farmers markets, hitting farmers’ bottom lines. 

Climate drives higher expenses

Farmers need upgraded, precision irrigation systems, reduced tillage equipment, coolers for post-harvest, more protected growing space, shade cloth, mulch and other materials. “We also need support for practical ag education and apprenticeships that set new growers up for success in the changing climate,” said Jill Moe, director of the Desert Farming Initiative at University of Nevada, Reno.

Labor costs rose at the farms I interviewed as they managed water more closely, repeated sowings when seeds fail to germinate, replanted when transplants fail to thrive, removed new pests, applied more foliar and drip feeds, added mulch and drip lines and cooled harvests more often. Add to that smoke and heat stress on workers. Some crews started at 4 a.m. “Farmers are famous for enduring grueling things, but with farm labor you have to be so cautious,” Roussin said.

When I spoke with Munts in mid-July, Spokane hadn’t had rain since March, temperatures hit a record 110°F and the air was smoky. Farms turned to weed block fabric, added loads of wheat straw and ponderosa pine mulch and relied on close cropping for shade. Farmers in her area can’t afford climate-related infrastructure upgrades and regional grants go to large commodity farms, she said, adding that long-time market farmers are dropping out.

 

Harvest was underway the summer of 2020 at Prema Farm in Nevada while fire crews got water from a local reservoir to combat the Loyalton Fire. Photo by Kasey Crispin.

 

It’s clear farms need support, less clear is whether the USDA and other funding sources will create more climate-related grants for market-scale farms. “Part of it is getting smaller producers involved in those programs as a whole, having greater contact with them so they are in the loop and can take advantage of them,” says Sarah Hanlon, Farm Program Chief at Oregon State Farm Service Agency.

This link to the NRCS’s site for small farms includes program updates and news releases: https://tinyurl.com/e6bph36t. Soon, Growing for Market will post a social media request for farms to report if they have received climate-related funding so we can share resources.

Positive examples, though not directly climate-related, include British Columbia government-funded small business accelerator grants that went to six small farms in Roussin’s region. “It made a big difference, hopefully it will continue,” she said. The Columbia Basin Trust, which supports impacts from dams, has been funding a 75 percent wage subsidy through October for food producers in that area because of increased COVID-19-related labor with extra washing, individual packaging and other changes. Farms have received up to $10,000 each in wage subsidies, which reduces stress on the farmers and allows them to train more young farmers, Roussin said. 

Prema Farm, Nevada

Prema Farm sits at 5,260 feet in the eastern Sierra Mountains high desert just north of Reno and specializes in cold weather crops when farms at lower altitudes can’t grow them. On July 24 smoke triggered the Air Quality Index (AQI) to hit 500, the maximum, which constitutes a health emergency. The following day it dropped to 267, categorized as “very unhealthy,” and prompted Prema to cancel a volunteer workday.

 

Stone Meadow Gardens looking west in clear skies. Photo by Sarah Kistner.

 

Massive fires burned this year near Prema — the Dixie Fire, Beckworth Complex Fire, Caldor Fire and Tamarack Fire — yet none threatened the farm directly. “The smoke this year was certainly much worse than we’ve ever had before as we were sandwiched between two huge fires for the past two months,” Kasey Crispin said in mid-September. “It has thankfully let up.”

“The landscape we live in is changing before our eyes, my five year old daughter now refers to summer as fire season,” Zach Cannady wrote in an email exchange. An organic no till farm, the regenerative agriculture methods used by Zach and his wife, Kasey, provide the best chance of resilience against climate extremes. 

Frost-free days historically run from June 15 to September 15, but it has been warmer earlier, allowing them to transplant earlier, facing threats of extreme temperature dips. Last fall, unanticipated warmer temperatures extended the season 45 days. The lengthened season combined with over planting to hedge against loses meant more food than staff to harvest and led to heavy vole and mice infestations in winter fields. “We now tentatively staff until the end of October,” Zach said. 

 

Stone Meadow Gardens looking west with smokey skies. Photo by Sarah Kistner.

 

This June, stretches of 100°F degree temperatures and high afternoon winds killed two successions of transplanted spinach and a dozen other direct-seeded crops. They got a single cut on their salad mix before it turned bitter. 

“We are mitigating these losses by transplanting late in the evening into wet soil and watering again the next morning,” Zach said. “We use all bolt resistant Salanova varieties for our salad mix to get them through at least one cut. The early heat is changing our successions, varieties, seeding schedules, infrastructure and irrigation.” 

They transitioned from overhead sprinklers to heavy duty drip line to keep the ground wet. Zack installed permanent irrigation to all zones and trenched at four feet and buried 1.5-inch PVC in the middle of each zone to move water all over the farm when needed.

In summer, they cool 30-foot-by-96-foot greenhouses with 60 percent shade cloths. To cope with temperature swings they use automated roll up sides, vents, HAF fans and a giant extractor fan. Propane heaters prevent freezing temperatures. “Automated greenhouses were worth every penny,” Zach said. “Running around trying to roll up and down the side walls was a huge inefficiency. We would become a greenhouse farm if we farmed only to make money, but we love the flavor and heartiness of outdoor veggies and are driven to become a model farm for our region.”  

 

Johnsons Backyard Blossoms is allotted water flow 3.5 hours weekly. They dug furrows and built berms to direct the water. Photo courtesy of Jenn Johnson. 

 

To protect the greenhouse plants from prolonged high temperatures, Zach set overhead Netafim sprinklers on a Baccara ii.ri timer (a smartphone-operated irrigation timer) to 30 seconds every hour to bring the temperature down. Wash station tubs filled with 40°F degree water from the farm’s 250-foot-deep well take the field heat out of harvests. Hot temperatures mean more post-harvest trips to the tubs.

They planted thousands of trees around the perimeter and a native hedge row on the east side of the farm to create a break against brutal winds. No-till increased the soil organic matter four times in six years. “Transitioning to no-till has been the single best decision we’ve made thus far,” Zach said. “We see great moisture and nutrient retention markers in our soil tests, better health in our plants, and a prolonged shelf life in harvested veggies. Most farms are so caught up and invested in where they are, it’s hard to see outside of that and pivot. Until the world is burning at our doorstep, I don’t think we will make the changes that are necessary for us to survive as a species.”

 

Stone Meadow Gardens, British Columbia

This year was the hottest and driest at Stone Meadow Gardens in Castlegar, British Columbia, just north of the US-Canada border. Owners Carl and Sarah Kistner specialize in dahlias, growing more than 100 cultivars and selling tubers at the end of the season. They grow many other flowers to supply their 250-member bouquet subscription and other customers. 

In a narrow valley prone to wildfires, Stone Meadow was spared a fire this year but inundated by smoke and ash. Strong winds often move the ash off the flowers, but heavy smoke decreases photosynthesis. “The only thing I found to keep photosynthesis going is foliar feedings, giving plants the micro nutrients,” Carl said. “If it’s smoky for three weeks everything will grind to a halt, you cannot see the sun.” 

It’s hard on plants and lungs. Smoke penetrated the indoor bouquet-making work area with a perpetual campfire smell. Farms 20 minutes away were on high evacuation alert. A Stone Meadow staffer on a search and rescue team was busy going door to door to issue evacuation alerts and orders. “We all felt stressed thinking about the possibilities,” Sarah said.

 

False chinch bugs (Nysius raphanus) migrated north and cover stock plants at Ellen’s Flowers in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Farming without chemicals, Ellen vacuums them up. Photo by Ellen Kerchner.

 

In late April and May, they irrigated as if it were mid-summer. The dry air meant frost at night. They shifted from starting cool weather flowers in the spring to the fall, letting them grow roots during the winter under 4-foot hoops. Spring flooding is historically common, but their farm hasn’t flooded in a decade and normal June monsoons haven’t occurred.

While July through mid-September are dry, this year was hotter and drier. They added more drip lines to each bed. Their drip irrigation fertilizer routine during summer heat is fish and sea products like kelp. The carbohydrates and nitrogen push water into the plant and out to the leaves preventing foliage burnout. Smoke delayed some blooms, especially dahlias. Yet, prolonged daytime heat and warmer overnight temperatures caused four successions (seeded three weeks apart) to bloom at once.

Snow melts into the nearby mountain rock and aquifer, and there’s a creek behind their property. They have an irrigation license and direct water into a tank. They drilled a well this past winter for extra water, which they’ve needed.

Starting three years ago they began reorienting all the beds on two acres to north and south for more shade — one side gets morning sun, the other afternoon sun. They add compost and cover the beds in landscape fabric to keep the soil moist and cover the paths in wood chips to hold moisture.

They practice minimal tillage but granite two feet down at the base prevents roots from going too deep. To create an ecosystem with more diversity, coolness, shade and wind blocks, they are planting more perennials and shrubs, focusing on drought tolerant plants and installing hedgerows and trees. Carl said an important influence is the Regenerative Agricultural Podcast hosted by John Kempf, founder of Advancing Eco Agriculture. 

 

Renegade Farm, Washington 

Joe and Carolyn Piver excavated hillside terraces to create Renegade Farm. Four years ago, a wildfire incinerated the farm’s irrigation system and crops. They installed fire breaks around their farm and home. Heavy smoke persists for at least a month each summer for the past five years. “Fire is our biggest fear and lack of water,” Joe said. “The drought slowed our spring down. We’re assuming it’s going to continue that way.”

A spring-fed tank that provides about 1/3 gallon per minute means they must be judicious with water. Joe regularly checks the tank levels and budgets water use. Water from washing crops for market goes to the farm’s apricot, plum, and tart cherry trees. They added more drip lines and also watered with a hose to soak row cover spread over beds. 

“When we can afford it, we want to drill a well,” Joe said. “That would change our lives. We’d pay for the well in one or two years having all our beds going. We have more demand than we can satisfy.”

Even if they had $10,000 to $15,000 for a well right now, local drilling companies are booked far into the future. In mid-July, Washington’s Department of Ecology issue emergency permits for water and approved temporary transfers of water rights because of declining water levels, including in wells.

Warm spring temperatures wreaked havoc with crops. The sugar snap peas are usually heavy producers and push the limits of 6-foot fences. When temperatures hit 100°F degrees in May, they stopped at 3.5 feet, flowered and produced early. Peppers started producing earlier, so Carolyn cut plants, fed them fish emulsion and they produced more normally. Heat locked up the calcium in soil around the tomatoes causing blossom end rot. They applied a high calcium foliar spray and added bone meal. 

Later in the season when temperatures hit 115°F to 116°F degrees for a few days, they lost a lot of salad mix, spinach bolted, crops failed to germinate, and a late carrot planting didn’t come up. They flipped beds and replanted. They stopped growing water hungry crops like broccoli, cauliflower and celery, and limited cabbage. They shifted to root crops that do better. Pie cherries and apricots did well.

Joe said they used to grow head lettuce all season without shade cloth, but now only grow a little in the spring and fall. Heat sensitive crops such as salad mix and cilantro are planted in the shade of pine trees. They plan to purchase shade cloth, now a necessity, in the off season. First and last frosts have been inconsistent, so they built hoops over crops and use row cover so they can supply markets until the end of October. 

They’d expected to avoid off-farm jobs this winter. Because of added climate-related costs and less market income (markets were cancelled during the July heat dome), Carolyn will substitute teach and Joe will drive for the school district this winter. 

 

Ellen’s Flowers, Colorado

Ellen Kerchner at Ellen’s Flowers in Colorado Springs said the biggest changes are shorter seasons, crazy hail storms and new pests that migrated from the south. “There really isn’t a spring and fall anymore,” said Ellen, who grew up in the Cheyenne Mountain foothills and has deep ties to the Colorado Rockies. “We go straight from winter to summer and back again.”

Water resources are coming on earlier in the spring, then river levels drop precipitously during the summer begetting water shortages at the end of the season. She is shifting to more overwintered and spring cultivation to respond to the changes, requiring more covered growing space. Cover also protects plants from unexpected, damaging hail storms like the softball-size hail that hit two summers ago. 

Plants and flowers were covered in false chinch bugs and sap beetles that migrated north. Ellen, who has a degree conservation biology, worked with extension staff to identify them since they are new agricultural pests. Grasshoppers are more of a problem in recent years since warmer winters fail to kill overwintered adults, she said. 

Growing organically, she sucked up the false chinch bugs with a shop vacuum in the field and drowned them. They are resistant to chemicals anyway, she said. They destroy flowers by attacking apical meristems. Sap beetles en masse go after fermenting nectar in flowers and render them unsellable. 

Although Ellen has water rights seniority, she is efficient with drip lines and waters sparingly. Up to late August, she hadn’t lost watering days, although others had to turn off their ditches or go down to one day a week. She wonders how farmers will support each other as climate issues bear down harder. “How do we mentally prepare ourselves for what is coming?”

By September, wildfires continued in some states and some farms experienced rainfall and cooler temperatures. “We breathed a DEEP sigh of relief as big, beautiful clouds floated across the skies last weekend and manifested into a gentle (for the most part) rain storm that lasted the better part of two days,” Stone Meadows posted on Instagram.

Relief, while bracing for next year.

 

Jane Tanner grew cut flowers and specialty crops at Windcrest Farm and Commonwealth Farms in North Carolina, and helped manage the biodynamic gardens at Spikenard Farm in Virginia.