Wetlands may be part of rotation

H&N photo by Gary Thain Mike Noonan, who farms on and near Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, has flooded 800 acres of private fields to create temporary wetlands.

November 14, 2005 By DYLAN DARLING H&N Staff Writer

TULE LAKE NATIONAL REFUGE - Cattails and bulrush could be working their way into crop rotation in fields around the lower reaches of the Klamath Reclamation Project.

There's not a market for the aquatic plants, but turning fields into temporary wetlands for one to four years produces fertile soil, rid of pests. The practice has been going on for more than a decade on agricultural land leased on the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuges.

Now it could be moving to private land.

“It's really provided an economic value to a wetland, and if you can give an economic value to something, that is powerful,” said Ron Cole, refuge manager. “It's not just a wildlife value or an ascetic value.”

Started in the 1990s, the “walking wetlands,” program has revitalized fields while providing habitat that quickly draws migrating birds and spurs the growth of aquatic plants.

“We are seeing birds nesting ... that we haven't seen nest in years,” Cole said.

Drowning out pests and nematodes with temporary wetlands saves farmers a couple hundred dollars per acre on fumigation costs and boosts crop production by 25 percent, refuge officials said. The refuge's walking wetlands are usually created in February on 200-acre blocks, using canal water.

Making the wetlands sometimes requires building dikes around fields, but it doesn't require the planting of aquatic plants.

The cattails usually are the first to spring up, growing from hard seeds that may have been mixed with the soil for 60 years, said Fran Maiss, deputy refuge manager.

“The seed is there, we don't have to do anything,” he said.

In the fields that stay wetlands for more than a year, bulrush and other plants start to grow, also from seed stock already in the ground, Maiss said.

To ready the field for crops again, it is drained and the aquatic plants are burned, putting seeds back into the ground.

With the boost in crop yields minus the cost of chemically treating a field for pests, the fields are hot when it comes bidding time for lease lands.

“Productive wetlands make for productive croplands,” Maiss said.

Farmers bid twice as much for land that has been in the walking wetlands program then they do for land that hasn't, he said. Also, crops grown in fields that have been under water for three years can be labeled organic.

Now, farmers are trying to figure out if they want to have walking wetlands on their private land.

Mike Noonan, who farms on and near Lower Klamath refuge, has turned some of his fields and private fields he leases into temporary wetlands, but said he wants to see if the federal government will add incentives by providing funds through the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

“We just need some additional help to get this done,” Noonan said. “It's a dollars and cents game.”

If the incentives are right, Marshall Staunton, a Tulelake farmer, said wetlands could work their way into the rotation for Klamath Basin farmers. The rotation could be: wetland, organic crops, conventional crops, then back to wetlands.

“It gives you time to rejuvenate some tired ground,” he said.

“Productive wetlands make for productive croplands,” Maiss said.

Farmers bid twice as much for land that has been in the walking wetlands program than they do for land that hasn't, he said. Also, crops grown in fields that have been under water for three years can be labeled organic.

Now, farmers are trying to figure out if they want to have walking wetlands on their private land.

Mike Noonan, who farms on and near Lower Klamath refuge, has turned some of his fields and private fields he leases into temporary wetlands, but said he wants to see if the federal government will add incentives by providing funds through the Natural Resource Conservation Service.

“We just need some additional help to get this done,” Noonan said. “It's a dollars and cents game.”

If the incentives are right, Marshall Staunton, a Tulelake farmer, said wetlands could work their way into the rotation for Klamath Basin farmers. The rotation could be: wetland, organic crops, conventional crops, then back to wetlands.

“It gives you time to rejuvenate some tired ground,” he said.