Final report for WRGR22-002
Project Information
In the 2019 Western SARE Professional + Producer grant OW19-348 entitled, “Enhancing Vegetable Farm Resilience through Dryland Production,” we explored site factors related to dry farming success of tomatoes and winter squash. Important site factors included soil available water-holding capacity, native productivity rating, soil consistency, soil nutrient concentration and pH, and site microclimate. The results suggested that the best sites for dry farming have a high available water-holding capacity, a deep effective rooting depth, a sheltered microclimate (e.g., windbreaks), and adequate soil pH and nutrient concentration. Through participating in the dry farmed trial and receiving a site suitability assessment, ten participants adopted or improved dry farming practices, and were able to locate the optimal dry farming sites on their farms. In addition to the OW19-348 grant, members on this project team have also participated in current and former Western SARE funded projects centered on dry farmed tomato (SW20-917), winter squash (OW16-008), and corn (OW21-366) cultivar evaluation and selection, and have found valuable information about cultivars and breeding lines most suitable for dry farming in the maritime Pacific Northwest.
Now that we gained an improved understanding of site suitability and cultivar selection for dry farming, and observed the positive impacts this knowledge provides producers, we plan to make these educational resources more widely accessible to new and beginning dry farmers, through an ‘Introduction to Dry Farming’ online course and a ‘Dry Farming Accelerator Program’. Combined, these tools will help farmers and agricultural professionals assess the physical and economic feasibility of dry farming on a particular site, identify the most appropriate dry farming locations, improve dry farming performance at a given location, identify varieties that have been successfully dry farmed in the maritime Pacific Northwest, and understand how to make their own dry farmed selections of cultivars.
This project team and collaborating producers have conducted over eight years of dry farming research on diverse crops in the maritime Pacific Northwest, much of it funded by Western SARE. Though we see first-hand its promise as a valuable climate adaptation tool in the region and beyond, we understand that broad adoption of dry farming practices is fundamentally limited by barriers in knowledge transmission to farmers and agricultural professionals, including basic knowledge about dry farming, its promise and constraints. With any change in farming practice, there is an associated risk, which we plan to mitigate through education. In this project, we made basic dry farming knowledge openly accessible to producers and agricultural professionals through an online curriculum, recorded conference presentations, as well as an extension publication (pending submission). In addition to increasing online access to dry farming information, we also engaged a cohort of producers new to dry farming through a hands-on, 1-on-1 and collaborative learning opportunity. Specifically, project objectives were to:
- Increase farmer and agricultural professional knowledge of dry farming site suitability and practices with an open access online curriculum.
- Enable a cohort of producers to determine the feasibility of adopting dry farming practices through a year-long ‘Dry Farming Accelerator Program’.
- Engage with the broader farming community with project outcomes via publications, recorded conference presentations, and social media.
- Evaluate changes in farmer knowledge, intentions and practices as a result of Objectives 1-3 to inform future innovations to these educational tools.
The western United States is projected to be negatively impacted by drought in the coming decades [1], accelerating a depletion of aquifers, reservoirs, and river flow that farmers, fish and wildlife in the region depend on [2]. To mitigate risk of crop losses due to depletion and shut-offs of irrigation water, farmers must adapt by limiting over-reliance on unsustainable irrigation practices. Dry farming is a method of producing crops without irrigation in climates with an arid growing season by accessing soil moisture retained from the wet season, through soil water conservation practices and use of appropriate crop varieties [3]. Dry farming has the potential to be a key sustainable farming strategy in the maritime Pacific Northwest region, where cool season rains of over 20 inches provide ample water to the soil profile.
Despite the promise of dry farming in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, farmers are still faced with barriers to adopt dry farming practices due to lack of practical knowledge about dry farming, and uncertainty about to what extent their sites are suitable for dry farming. Through the Western SARE Professional + Producer grant OW19-348, Alex Stone and team members determined a set of criteria with which to characterize a site’s suitability for dry farming vegetable crops, focusing on tomatoes and winter squash. Through this participatory research project, ten farmers either began adopting or significantly improved dry farming practices. Drawing upon these results, the project team engaged with 10 farmers new to dry farming with a 'Dry Farming Curriculum' course and a 'Dry Farming Accelerator Program'. Central to these educational tools is a no-cost curriculum, consulting on site suitability, and a collaborative dry farming trial. These resources will enable interested farmers to make informed decisions for adopting dry farming practices to reduce reliance on irrigation in the face of historical drought.
Cooperators
- (Educator and Researcher)
- (Researcher)
Education & Outreach Initiatives
Increase farmer and agricultural professional knowledge of dry farming site suitability and practices with an open access online curriculum.
This online curriculum about dry farming is divided into 3 modules:
- Introduction to Dry Farming: Overview of the basic definition, concepts, strategies and practices of dry farming.
- Site Suitability: Outline of the the key considerations when assessing the suitability of a location for dry farming, including climate and soil features.
- Crop and Variety Selection: Discussion of crop traits, cultivars, and marketing strategies
This course consists of recorded presentations that include informational slides, recorded interviews of five experienced dry farmers, and links to additional resources on an accompanying webpage. This curriculum is freely available online, and has the potential to expand to more specific modules in future years.
This free online course curriculum will educate farmers, gardeners and agricultural professionals about the basic theory and practice of dry farming, with particular focus on the Willamette Valley in Oregon, and more broadly the Maritime Pacific Northwest region that includes Northwestern California, and the areas west of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and Washington. We began sharing this resource at the 2024 Dry Farming Collaborative Winter Convening, and 2024 Oregon State University Small Farms Conference, as well as in-person Dry Farming Collaborative Meetups across Western Oregon, and the Islands Agriculture Show in Duncan, B.C. So far, there have been over 70 views of the Introduction to Dry Farming Module, and 32 and 21 views of the Site Suitability and Cultivar Selection module videos, respectively. Of the 9 Dry Farming Accelerator cohort members who completed the survey, all agreed that the course provided valuable information about dry farming (6 "Strongly Agreed" and 3 "Agreed").
Engage with the broader farming community with project outcomes through publications, recorded conference presentations, and social media.
This project helped to facilitate a peer-reviewed publication in HortTechnology journal (see citation below), based upon the work completed previously funded by Western SARE (OW19-348). This publication reports on site factors found to be associated with dry farmed squash and tomato performance across diverse sites.
Additionally, we are finalizing an Oregon State University Extension Publication on the topic of site suitability for dry farm vegetable production, which will include a broad overview of our understanding of the topic, as well as case studies, tools and resources that may be useful to producers interested in adopting dry farming on their farm. Once published, this publication will be linked to on the Dry Farming Accelerator Program webpage.
Davis, M., Stone, A., Gallagher, A., & Garrett, A. (2023). Site Factors Related to Dry Farm Vegetable Productivity and Quality in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. HortTechnology, 33(6), 587-600. Retrieved May 30, 2024, from https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTTECH05287-23
These site suitability publications will share WSARE funded research results to a broader audience of producers and agricultural professionals around the world, and will also be used to guide and inform our own educational materials to better inform growers about site factors that ensure successful farming of dry farmed vegetables.
Educational & Outreach Activities
Participation Summary:
Farmer cohort
We recruited a cohort of ten Dry Farming Accelerator Program participants who had dry farmed for 0-2 years prior to this project and managed land ranging from 1/4 acre to 36 acres. Operations included eight farms (4 production farms), an educational farm (i.e, Chemeketa Community College), and a farm managed by the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians. In fall 2022, the program coordinator traveled to each of the sites with a soil expert to provide a consultation, including selecting ideal locations for dry farming, and a detailed report on a 5-ft. deep soil from their site. Cohort participants met quarterly for information sharing, planning, and sharing observations and results with the group. In early 2023, cohort members took the Dry Farming Curriculum; in spring through fall of 2023, cohort members maintained a dry farming demonstration, where each trialed North Georgia Candyroaster winter squash variety, and took weekly soil moisture readings in the root zone of the squash, among trialing other crops and making observations.
Outreach events and presentations
Most cohort members attended one or both OSU Dry Farming field days at OSU dry farming demonstration farms (60 and 90 total stakeholders in attendance at Oak Creek and the Vegetable Research Farm, respectively) in August of 2023. In February 2024, we featured the Dry Farming Accelerator Program at the 2024 Dry Farming Collaborative Winter Convening (virtual; 170 registered, 110 in attendance), and the 2024 OSU Small Farms Conference (in-person, 80 in attendance). It also was highlighted at the Islands Agriculture show in Duncan, B.C. (February 2024) and the CONNECT+ conference in Bend, OR (April 2024). At these events, we directed participants to the DFAP webpage, where our free, online curriculum is available, and showcased the Dry Farm Mapping Project dry farming suitability map.
Articles, publications, and media coverage
During summer of 2023, the Dry Farm Mapping project, and our Oak Creek dry farming field day, were featured in Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) local radio program. The Dry Farming Accelerator Program was featured in a news article in Oregon Small Farm News, Winter 2024. Team members successfully published a peer-reviewed publication on site suitability during this project period, which was based upon WSARE research conducted in 2019. Project team members are finalizing an extension publication on site suitability, which will provide basic information, tools, and resources to farmers and ag resource providers interested in learning more about dry farming as an option.
Learning Outcomes
Project Outcomes
Dry Farming Accelerator Program cohort
Broadly speaking, this project enabled us to launch the Dry Farming Accelerator Program, to facilitate and inform farmer adoption of dry farming practices. The heart of this program is to engage a cohort of producers that are new to dry farming, by guiding them through site suitability consultation, an online curriculum, and a farmer-to-farmer learning model with regular meetings, field tours, and a collaborative dry farming trial. The 2022-2023 cohort included 8 producers (4 of them with farming as primary income), a community college, and farm manager for a local native american tribe. Of those who participated, 9 were able to complete and share about the dry farming trial and provide feedback in a follow-up survey. All participants claimed as a result of what they learned in this project, they were likely to diversify their production, increase the market value of some of their crops, and increase their networking with other producers, including exchanging knowledge and information about dry farming. 8 of the 9 respondents felt confident they would adopt dry farming in some form and reduce irrigation usage. Furthermore, the soil moisture sensors provided to the cohort were unanimously considered to provide useful information and would be used in future years.
Dry Farming Curriculum
The Dry Farming Curriculum is an important component of the Dry Farming Accelerator Program, providing a baseline of dry farming knowledge to producers and ag professionals interested in dry farming. The first 3 modules of this curriculum were well received by project participants, who all agreed the curriculum provided them with valuable information about dry farming. We released the free, online curriculum to the public in February 2024, via our farmer-focused outreach events, and over 70 people have viewed the Intro to Dry Farming module. While we are still awaiting more feedback from user surveys, we have received overall positive feedback of the curriculum. We aim to expand the Dry Farming Curriculum by adding more targeted, specific modules as further research and funding allows.
Broader impacts
Our project team shared the Dry Farming Accelerator Program with attendees of the farmer-focused Dry Farming Collaborative Winter Convening, Oregon Small Farms Conference (Corvallis, OR), and Islands Agriculture Show (Duncan, B.C.). We additionally shared the project at CONNECT+ conference (Bend, OR), which was focused on agricultural and conservation professionals of Oregon, including Soil and Water Conservation Districts, NRCS, Watershed Councils, and Oregon Department of Agriculture. Beyond the specific details of this particular project, we shared an educational model that can be copied in other locations and by other service providers.
In addition to this educational model, this project helped us better understand the important concept of site suitability for dry farming, and share it more broadly with producers and ag professionals reading extension publications and peer-reviewed journal articles.
One of the members of the Dry Farming Accelerator Program cohort, an underserved producer near Portland, OR, has become a local leader in dry farming education. They chose to be on the panel of the 2024 Small Farms Conference dry farming session, where they presented to about their no-till dry farming system. Furthermore, they have become a dry farming demonstration host for the Western Water Resilience Collaborative, a multi-state NIFA Climate Hubs initiative. It has been our hope that past cohort members becomes leaders to help support other farmers, and potentially new cohort members, who are interested in adopting dry farming practices.
Also, here are some quotes from several growers in the cohort who shared what they liked about the Dry Farming Accelerator Program:
"I appreciated hearing from other farmers about what techniques they used and what their results were - both in the cohort and in the curriculum video interviews. Also I appreciated seeing the results of the experiments overall."
"I found the online educational materials well organized and easily accessible. It was incredibly helpful to have knowledgeable people show up at my farm to take (and discuss) soil samples install moisture sensors, and answer questions."
"With it being my introduction into dry farming, I learned so much throughout the season. Varieties to use, soil moisture readings, pros and cons of using plot of land for dry farming, etc. With the knowledge I have gained I will definitely be using it on my own land and continuously gaining insight."
"I appreciated the diverse network of producers experimenting w/ dry farming and gaining insight from the experience of others (what worked and didn't work)."
"Loved the site visits - soil testing and planting. I always learn the most through in person interactions questions/answers, etc. I would never have used a soil moisture sensor, but this experience made me understand how and why they are useful."
"The soil data and moisture sensor data were extremely helpful in understanding my sites and choosing best practices going forward. Although we had no success with crops this year I do feel that we are better informed in how to proceed going forward."