Last call for Willamette Valley canola planting
Farmers have a final chance to plant canola in Oregon’s Willamette Valley under special legislation before the crop enters uncharted legal territory next year.
The Oregon Department of Agriculture is accepting applications until May 11 to plant canola this autumn in time for harvest in 2019, which marks the end of a six-year program allowing 500 acres of annual production in the region.
Lawmakers imposed the 500-acre limit in 2013 after an ODA proposal to relax canola restrictions in the valley upset specialty seed producers, who feared cross-pollination with related crops as well as increased pest and disease pressure.
Initially, canola was only allowed to be grown in the area during a three-year Oregon State University study, but lawmakers later extended the 500-acre cap for another three years.
The study, conducted by OSU weed scientist Carol Mallory-Smith, concluded that canola doesn’t pose a greater hazard than turnips, radish or other Brassicas.
A recommendation to the Legislature about canola’s future is due from ODA later this year, but right now, it’s unclear what plan the agency may propose and whether lawmakers will accept it in 2019.
In the meantime, applications to ODA will help determine how much demand exists to cultivate the crop, said Anna Scharf, president of the Willamette Valley Oilseed Producers Association.
“We need to be getting a better picture of how many people want to grow,” Scharf said. “A lot of them are already growing brassica crops so they already know how to grow this.”
Canola is permitted to be grown outside isolation distances for related Brassica seed crops that receive priority on a pinning map maintained by the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association, she said.
For that reason, it helps to have more potential acres from which to choose — typically, up to 1,500 proposed acres are necessary to identify the 500 acres allowable for production, Scharf said.
“The biggest challenge is we have to have thousands of acres to find the 500,” she said.
Among farmers, the two biggest misconceptions about growing canola under the current legislation is that they must be members of the oilseed producers association and have a contract for the crop, she said.
In reality, members of WVOPA receive no preferential treatment, Scharf said. “You simply have to apply and hope to get your pin in the map.”
As for contracts, none are necessary — growers can sell canola to Willamette Biomass Processors in Rickreall, Ore., but they can also deliver it to another facility that accepts the commodity crop in Washington or elsewhere, she said.
“It is absolutely no different than if you were growing wheat,” Scharf said.
Over the course of using the pinning system, it’s become apparent canola growers want to plan where fields will be located a year ahead, said Greg Loberg, public relations chair for the Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association.
Loberg said the OSU study hasn’t necessarily resolved questions about canola’s coexistence with other Brassicas, since a larger acreage of the crop may prove disruptive even though 500 acres did not, Loberg said.
“You can’t really know how 10,000 acres will work without growing 10,000 acres,” he said.
Growers who want to see if they’re within the Willamette Valley control area for canola, or one of the three other control areas for the crop, can use an online “geographic information system” map developed by ODA, said Sunny Jones, an agency employee overseeing canola issues.
Fields within the Willamette Valley control district are subject to the 500-acre cap, so growers within its boundaries must apply to ODA to grow canola. The map can be found online at oda.direct/canola.
Officials from ODA plan to solicit feedback from farmers about canola’s future in the valley during meetings in May or June, but no firm dates have yet been set, Jones said.