Experts try to diversify Nevada crops

Monday, Nov. 13, 2000 | 10:52 a.m.

Researchers hope to find ways to profitably produce seed for sagebrush and other plants that covered the Great Basin before cheatgrass infested the region that includes Nevada and Utah, along with parts of Idaho and Oregon.

If money can be made, farmers would be encouraged to grow crops of seed the federal government could purchase for use in the effort to stop the spread of cheatgrass.

The plan to attack cheatgrass, known as the Great Basin Restoration Initiative, comes as state agriculture economists are looking for alternative crops for farmers who depend heavily on growing hay for a living.

Agriculture specialists and the federal Bureau of Land Management are discussing seed crop experiments that may begin this spring at the University of Nevada, Reno's 162-acre research farm in Fallon, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

"There are a host of ways to raise plants and harvest the seed," said Jerry Buk, who manages the Newlands Research and Extension Center. "There is a market."

But to make seed crops profitable, the government would have to guarantee more than a one- or two-year deal.

"The real challenge is to provide enough assurance that there will be continuing funding," said Meg Jensen, deputy director for the BLM in Nevada. "That's a challenge because our budgets are yearly."

Virgil Getto, a long-time Fallon hay farmer, favors the project

"We might put some of our land into an alternative crop," said Getto, who succeeded in growing corn on some of his property this year. "The grasses and seeds to revegetate the burned area is something that can be looked at."

Buk and other experts are looking at a variety of alternative crops in an effort to give farming in rural Nevada, which suffers when hay prices drop, options for long-term economic survival.

"You've got problems," said Jay Davison, a research specialist with the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension. "The vast majority of (farming), 90 percent, is alfalfa. We are trying to find some other crops we can grow."

A conference to discuss the state's agriculture problems and possible solutions is scheduled for Jan. 16-17 in Fallon.