Desert agriculture yields interesting observations

It’s the end of March and many of the durum crops are starting to head out. Where am I?

I’ve heard about desert durum, but this is the first time I’ve seen it. As I write this, I’m in Yuma, Arizona. The durum, often used as a rotational crop after growing vegetables, looks excellent. Of course, everything is under irrigation, without which not much of anything grows in this hot, low-rainfall region.

Countless Canadians overwinter in Arizona, so they’ll know a lot more about the state and the attractions than me. I’m a first-time visitor down here to explore alternate weed control methods. The Yuma Agriculture Center has a researcher working on pre-emergent weed control using steam.

Here are some observations from Yuma that you may find interesting.

An amazing amount of tillage is used. It’s not uncommon for a field to be tilled 15 or 20 times in a year. There’s deep ripping, cultivating and seed bed shaping. And there’s a great deal of hand weeding in crops like lettuce where herbicide options are limited.

Specialized tillage machines can remove a lot of weeds around the crop rows, but teams of workers with hoes remove the weeds that tillage doesn’t. It’s common to see a bus with workers towing a trailer of porta-potties from field to field. It’s hard, hot work.

Even in this part of the United States with the Mexican border just a few miles away, labour expense and availability are worrisome for growers. In some cases, vegetable harvest is mechanized. In other crops, it’s all manual labour. Whatever can be done to reduce manual weed control is of great interest to farm operators.

Irrigation water comes from the Colorado River via a system of canals. In most cases, flood irrigation is employed. The fields are laser levelled with a slight slope so the water runs from one end to the other down the deep ditches between shaped seedbeds.

Drip irrigation systems are also in use and occasionally you’ll see a field alive with sprinklers.

Other crops include lemons and dates. Lemon orchards typically stay in production for 20 to 25 years. Flood irrigation is used on these as well.

Weed control in lemon orchards is typically with glyphosate along with some other herbicides. Small sprayers maneuver between the trees with hand wands used to spray areas too tight for the sprayers.

Like everywhere else, consumer resistance is growing against glyphosate as well as other herbicide options. Growers would like to find alternatives.

Here’s an interesting bit of information on citrus orchards. The branches have long hard spikes. Keeping air in equipment tires is a constant battle.

On one day, the tour guide was a veteran farm consultant, entrepreneur and ardent Trump supporter. Rough and tough, he didn’t have any kind words for his current president. “You guys should get rid of Trudeau too,” he said.

Somewhat ironically, he’s a big proponent of regenerative agriculture practices, believing crop nutrition starts with healthy soil rather than just ever-increasing amounts of fertilizer. He also supports alternate weed control methods, all attitudes not normally associated with right wing political philosophy.

While some Yuma residents promote their politics openly with flags and banners, most don’t and everyone I met was friendly and helpful.

But it’s certainly a different system of agriculture as compared to Prairie grain farming with high input costs and complete reliance on irrigation water. Fields of durum and an occasional alfalfa field are about the only commonality.