H&N's: Teff growing strong in Klamath Basin

Teff growing strong in Klamath Basin

Brian Charlton, an Oregon State University research assistant, holds a small stalk of teff at OSU's Klamath Experiment Station. Teff, which is fast growing but frost sensitive, could find a market in the Klamath Basin.

August 25, 2005

Klamath Falls Herald and News

A patch of grass seed growing near Klamath Falls has roots in the African country of Ethiopia.

There, water is short and days are long and hot. In the arid fields a grass called teff grows green and tall.

"It grows quick when it's hot," said Brian Charlton, a research assistant at the Oregon State University Klamath Experiment Station near the Klamath Falls Airport.

And it could be growing in more and more fields around the Klamath Basin.

Scientists at the station have been testing how the plant grows in the Basin for the past three years, and this year two farmers are testing how it could fit in their rotation.

In Ethiopia teff is mostly grown for its grain, which is about the size of a mustard seed.

"It is dinky, it is really small," Charlton said.

Teff is ground into meal to make bread and is also used as an ingredient in home-brewed alcoholic beverages, according to OSU literature.

But here, it's hay and horses like it, Charlton said.

During the three years of testing, teff is showing that it grows quick and can yield a good crop, five tons per acre, to sell to horse owners, he said.

Ross Fleming, one of the two farmers trying teff, hadn't planned on planting it on any of his 500 to 600 acres of fields this year. But when root rot shriveled 40 acres of potatoes early in the season, he needed to find something that would grow quick and produce a decent crop.

Hello, teff. The seeds were sown just after the Fourth of July.

Fleming said he plans to sell the teff hay to horse owners. If it works out, he said he might start planting teff regularly. It could be a niche product.

So how is it working out?

"It's too new to tell," Fleming said.

A two and a half acre field of teff grows at Oregon State University's Klamath Experiment Station. An Ethiopian grain, teff could find a market in the Klamath Basin.

The market for teff is also just coming into focus. Charlton said the hay cut at the station has fetched about $90 to $140 per ton, but, depending on how things develop, that could change.

"We don't have the market for it yet," he said.

There is a risk with growing teff in the Basin. The plant is sensitive to frost, which can come early or late, or just about any time during the Basin's growing season.

Late in the first season, the station had a teff crop growing and the crop was growing past 2 feet high after its first cut. Then, frost. About a foot of the plants withered away.

Charlton said that if farmers time its growth right and avoid the frosts, the plant is a good fit for the Basin.

There's already been one cutting of teff at the station, on Aug. 5,

"We'll get another, barring we don't get another 24 degree morning," Charlton said.

Interest in teff among scientists at the station started in 2001, the year the federal government didn't put water through the Klamath Reclamation Project at the start of the growing season.

Word was that the plant could grow with little water and be productive. It was already growing well in the Willamette Valley, where water is in surplus in the cooler seasons, but there is little irrigation and drier conditions in the summer.

Teff was worth a try.

There are two and a half acres of teff at the station.

The station's teff experiments ended up in a February article in Hay and Forage. After seeing the article, 300 people called in from 46 states, with questions about the plant and wondering if they should give it a try.

Now OSU is funding more tests of the plant in Klamath Falls, as well as in Medford and Ontario and possibly elsewhere. The focus of the tests are on frosts and figuring out a way to protect tender teff from it.