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Pasture
test denies crops summer water
Drought-resistant
varieties yield well a year after irrigation was cut off
Tam
Freelance Writer
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Agronomist Steve Orloff tells participants at a UC field day there are indications several pasture grasses will survive irrigation cutoffs in drought years. The finding could open the way to dry-year water sales to help fish. |
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Pasture grasses
cut off from irrigation in 2006 bounced back in this test plot at
the UC Intermountain Research and |
TULELAKE,
First-year results for the variety trials were presented by Steve Orloff,
the project leader, at a late June field day. Orloff is an agronomist
and
What he found supplements work done since the widespread 2001 drought,
when federal irrigation water was cut off to much of the acreage in the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Klamath Project and state watermasters
restricted irrigation for many ranches drawing water from other streams.
In addition, pasture owners in the Scott and Shasta valleys of
The now-established plots contain 26 grass varieties, including bromes,
tall fescues, orchardgrass and wheatgrass. Orloff cut off irrigation to
some on
As expected, yields dropped just as soon as application of water ceased.
For several varieties with the early cutoff, there wasn't any forage to
harvest at the time of a normal third cutting for irrigated pasture.
The surprise was how most plants bounced back this spring - which
included a wet April - giving significant second-year first-cutting
yields.
Oahe, an intermediate wheatgrass billed as drought-tolerant, was among
those with strong recovery.
"I don't fully understand that," Orloff said.
Don Lancaster, a veteran UC farm advisor in
Orloff said he will continue the experiment for a time.
Among the species that still had yields at third cutting with no
irrigation after June 1 were Bromus Parodi, a brome; Enhance, TF0203G,
Drover, Prosper, Barcarella, Baradiso, Fawn and Tuscany II, all tall
fescues; Century and Command, both orchardgrasses; and Bluebunch Newhy
and AGRRAE 1010a, both wheatgrasses.
Irrigated plots averaged 7.2 tons production for the season in 2006.
Yields dropped to 6.04 tons per acre with a July 15 cutoff, and to 4.12
tons per acre when irrigation stopped June 1.
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