By Anna King
Work has been heavy at this farm north of Pasco for around a week now, especially since a burst of asparagus came in with the record high weekend temperatures that hit some areas of the Northwest.
Asparagus pushes out of the ground from their crowns when the soil temperature reaches above 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
This recent burst of work – and so much asparagus, farmers call it “grass” – was a surprise. It’s been so cold this spring that for one of Washington asparagus farmers’ top-selling holidays – Easter – they didn’t have any to cut. They’re hoping Mother’s Day will make up for some of the lost sales.
For soil temperatures to go from 49 to 56 degrees in a week is like a race car accelerating from zero to 60 miles an hour. And the about face in weather creates a mix of bad and good for agriculture across the Northwest: Washington and Oregon growers are racing to protect their apples and pears from fire blight – a bacteria that spreads easily in warm, moist conditions and can kill trees. Meanwhile, in southeast Oregon, ranchers are moving cattle to higher ground as meltwater floods down from the snow-packed mountains.
“Without those workers, there wouldn’t be an asparagus industry anywhere,” Larsen said.
In just a few days, Larsen’s crew of 60 workers cut 195,000 pounds of asparagus. That’s a semi truck load, plus an additional, smaller trailer pulling out of the farm every day, he said.
“I was very happy,” Larsen said about the grass tally. “That took care of a lot of payroll.”
Robin Graham is a manager at Stemilt Growers, one of the largest cherry growing operations in the United States. He said the bloom this year has been rapid. But overall, the cooler weather may delay bings and Rainier cherries about 15 days from usual harvest times to mid June.
“There’s sort of a joke in agriculture,” Graham said. “No year feels ideal, from a farming standpoint.”
But he said there’s been a pattern over the last few years. February is fairly warm – a false spring – then, a cool period reaches out and delays development of the fruit trees into the real spring.
“It pushes bloom out in a more condensed fashion,” Graham said. “When we have these types of area-wide rapid increases in temperature, bloom tends to condense together.”
He said that can affect the marketing of the cherries – because all the fruit will come closer together than having a wider spread across the calendar. And there may be less time for consumers to consume those sweet orbs.
Meanwhile, the combination of recent warmer weather, open blossoms, and expected rain is prompting a flurry of activity in many apple and pear orchards in central Washington.
Cattle drive
Meanwhile, hundreds of cattle and their calves are being driven to their summer range in southeast Oregon.
David Bohnert is the director of Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, out of Burns.
He said the research center moved its nearly 250 cattle last week, a few weeks later than normal. Summer range hasn’t been greening up because of all the spring snow. Now, ranch managers are worried about possible flooding in the lowland meadows from the massive snow pack that has accumulated in the mountains.
Near Burns, the Silvies River was flowing at 300 percent of normal last week. Dally Swindlehurst is the state watermaster for District 10, in southeast Oregon.
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