1st 2015 DOWNPOUR

 [Update: 5/29/15] --This past week the Palouse has had a series of thunder storms, and in scattered locations have resulted in serious damage to exposed ground.  Unstable weather is predicted to continue in the region.  When you look at the national weather events and see the extremes, one wonders when those extremes will engulf us, --either drought like California, or deluge like Texas.  World wide, weather appears to be increasing in severity.  My thought is that it will happen here, --but when and with what severity?  A Texas size storm would obliterate our land regardless of cropping practices; however, there is a lot of gradation between the Texas type storms and the little bangers we have received, which we can armor our land against.  It's as simple as eliminate loosening the soil with cultivation, keeping the soil surface covered, and keeping the soil anchored with roots (alive or dead) from the surface down.  These two things give us the best protection from unusual events whether temperature or water related.
     Saturday evening, May 16th, Thunderstorms hit eastern Whitman County with rains that did serious damage to some fields.  Fortunately the damage was limited to a narrow strip of land; however, the impact is going to be felt over a wide area.  Creeks in the effected watersheds were running thick.  They look more like mud flows than creeks.  Thousands of tons of soil along with attached fertilizer and chemistry left the farms and will end up in lakes, rivers and ocean.
    The fields I saw didn't even have the basic conservation practices applied.  They were denuded of residue, cultivated and seeded vertically, and the surface worked to a fine texture.  We are living in the age of 500+ horsepower tractors and the environment and ground is paying the price.
    An event in February, 2014, showed me that even fields with good armor and soil structure are subject to runoff; however, in our case the water loss was clear.  (see post of 2/27/14)
     Operations that abuse the ground, and there are many in the Palouse, will not be held accountable as past experience proves; however, they are big contributors to the publics attitude towards farmers and their out cry for for more regulations and restrictions that effect all of us.  If the appropriate regulators would target gross abusers and work with them to clean up their act we would all be better off.