Oregon Sea Grant’s Guillermo Giannico and his study of the role flooded farmlands can play in fish survival are the subject of a new episode of Oregon Field Guide, broadcast on on Oregon Public Television this week.

Giannico, a fisheries ecologist with OSU’s Department of Fisheries & Wildlife who also serves as Sea Grant Extension fisheries specialist, was part of a team that set out a few years ago to learn whether dry-all-summer ditches that criss-cross Willamette Valley agricultural lands might house fish during the wet winter months.

What they found surprised them – and some of the farmers, too: A thriving winter habitat for several species of native fish.

Watch the Oregon Field Guide video, Ditch Fish:

More information:

• The Life Aquatic in Flooded Fields (Oregon’s Agricultural Progress, 2006)
• Dr. Giannico’s profile at Oregon Sea Grant
• Dr. Giannico’s lab at the OSU Department of Fisheries and Wildlife