Cropping Concepts

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

The Pacific Northwest Direct Seed Association and Washington State University have again partnered up to host the PNW Oilseed and Direct Seed Cropping Systems Conference entitled "Cropping Concepts: Feeding Farmer Innovations" at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick January 20th through the 22nd. Topics to be covered at the conference will include soil health, weed and disease management, marketing and economics, and production innovations and strategies. General sessions held each day will feature crossover topics with keynote speakers and panels of researcher and producer experts.

With the growing interest in oilseed crops canola acreage in Washington has more than doubled since 2012. Ted Durfey, with Natural Selection Farms in Sunnyside, explains how they got into growing canola.

DURFEY: We do land application biosolids and how we got into growing was through a research project of growing canola, and we found that it matched the nutrients needs of the biosolids growing canola. So, one thing led to another and we realized how canola could really be a sustainable crop.

Currently Washington gets most of its biodiesel from soy oil that is shipped in from out of state. The increased interest in growing canola for biodiesel in-state could benefit the state's economy three-fold by creating new jobs, new industries, and greater energy security. For more information on the PNW Oilseed and Direct Seed Cropping Systems Conference visit directseed.org.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray with the Ag Information Network of the West.