November 2, 2009

Driving east along the Columbia gorge, the beauty of the gorge and the imposing evergreens are a thing of beauty.  Once past Hood River, the imposing Cascades start to flatten out into rolling hills as one enters the Dalles, with its hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River, and the landscape dotted with cherry and pear orchards, along with wind farms that disappear with the hills into the horizon.

Further east, one runs into the world’s largest hybrid poplar plantation, which uses state of the art and computerized irrigation and nutrient system through nearly 20,000 miles of irrigation tubing!  The poplars, which were planted for the paper and pulp industry, are now poised to contribute to the renewable energy needs.  Past the town of Boardman with its hybrid poplar plantation, the highway continues to run through the beautiful, rolling hills of the Columbia Basin.  This is “traditional” agricultural country – home to a huge number of wind farms along with an amazing diversity of crops, including wheat, onions, vegetables, specialty seed, potatoes, grass seed, and other species – all of which are being worked on by our faculty and staff at the experiment stations in Hermiston and Pendleton, with significant local support of stakeholders.  The Pendleton station benefits significantly from the presence of an excellent group of USDA Agricultural Research Service scientists who undertake complementary research on soil, carbon and nutrient cycling, and other questions.

What is really cool is that although it is in the eastern part of the state, the station at Hermiston has faculty working on the impact of row crop agricultural practices on salmon.  This latter effort is thanks to the innovative and prescient partnership created by stakeholders such as Bryan Wolfe and others in the Hermiston area along with those that support our experiment station in Newport on the Oregon coast.  South of Interstate-84 in Wasco and Sherman County is the arid, high plains wheat country in the Columbia Basin, uncannily similar to the Kansas countryside where I lived for a few years, including the presence of wind farms with their eerily blinking red lights as we drove through on a beautiful evening lit by a full, China moon!  Rainfall in this part of Oregon ranges from five to 15 inches, and I am told going just a few miles in each direction might mean one less inch of rainfall.  Our partners in Moro support our research efforts with a significant endowment, which is beautifully depicted in a huge mural on the side of the station building.

My wife, Gita, and I participated in the renowned Pendleton Roundup (http://pendletonroundup.com/), which occurs over a few days in September.  Arriving into Pendleton, we saw the town was full of trailers carrying all manner of animals for the rodeo, along with people in their Western gear, huge belt buckles and all.

I broke down and bought a “Western” belt to go with my orange and black plaid shirt and blue jeans! The OSU dinner at the Hanley was an opportunity for us to meet and greet the large number of our alumni and friends, along with a number of local, state, and federal elected officials. Gita and I had the privilege of meeting OSU basketball Coach Craig Robinson, brother of Michelle Obama, who as the after dinner speaker regaled us with stories of the winning 2008-2009 season. Of course there were the mandatory questions and quips about being the First Brother-in-Law.  The next morning after breakfast, we did a radio show and got ready for the parade.  Riding a horse in the parade was awesome.  I have ridden horses before, but I was apprehensive that my horse might somehow read the motto of the Pendleton Roundup – “Let ‘er Buck” – and start bucking.  Luckily, my horse, Speckles, was a quiet, well behaved, 20-plus year old, and belonged to Kyle, a young son of one of my Extension colleagues, Matt Liscom. The nice thing was Matt stayed with me.  With bravado I was saying to everyone – “well, I ride a Harley-Davidson, and riding a horse is no different” – but deep inside my heart I hoped the horse wouldn’t take off or start bucking!

The loud boom of a canon, which startled all of the horses, but luckily no mishaps, was the signal that the parade had started.  As the group of 4-H riders, OSU President Ed Ray, Extension Director and Vice Provost Scott Reed, and the rest of us on horses, along with the President’s wife, Beth, and Gita riding in a wagon, went along the downtown streets, it was cool to see people yell and acknowledge OSU and the Beavers! Go Beavs – yelled the people lined up and we responded similarly.  The day included attending the rodeo with Virginia Tubbs, the Grand Matriarch of Pendleton, and being her guests at a dinner.  The rodeo itself was pretty awesome – bucking horse and bull riding, roping calves and steers, bareback horse racing by the Native Americans, wild cow milking, and other events.  The Pendleton Roundup lived up to its reputation as a fun event depicting the frontier life of the past.

East of Columbia Basin, one drives through the gorgeous, glaciated Blue Mountains, with its own, very unique alpine trees such as Ponderosa pine, Piñon juniper, Lodgepole pine, Western larch, and others, but not as imposing as the really huge, old growth Douglas fir in the cascades or coastal range mountains – may be in part due to the significantly lower rainfall this section of the state receives, along with fires.  We drive across rivers with names like Snake, John Day, Grande Ronde, Powder, and Malheur.  Our college offers an Agricultural Program at Eastern Oregon University in LaGrande, with a growing number of students in majors of huge relevance to the eastern part of the state – Range Ecology and Management, Agribusiness Management, Crop & Soil Science, Environmental and Economic Policy and Management, and Natural Resources, along with a number of relevant minors.  Speaking to the smart and thoughtful students, I discovered the program is hugely attractive and successful, and includes internship opportunities as part of the educational program, and that the graduates are placed very well.  What was highly gratifying was to discover amongst the students I met, the second generation of students coming into the program, following their parents, and younger siblings following older ones.  The program is also attracting students from neighboring states and overseas; and I met a student from Nepal.

While the OSU Ag Program at EOU is immensely successful and popular, we are losing money.  We are engaged in conversations with the administration of EOU to ensure that the costs of the program are met equitably.  These conversations are critical in light of the significant budget challenges we face.  While at the campus of EOU, I had occasion to inaugurate my colleague, Lynn Ketchum’s, touring exhibit of photographs about food and agriculture from our magazine, Oregon’s Agriculture Progress – Savory Images –  (http://extension.oregonstate.edu/eesc/savoryimages/), and got to meet Rep. Greg Smith, an excellent and thoughtful supporter of education and agriculture.  Greg’s support, along with that of others, to provide for a tax increase have mitigated the significant impact of the budget cuts on our research and Extension efforts.  Unfortunately, this tax increase might be in jeopardy, come January 26.  I hope the local constituents see this sort of support as being important for our state’s well being, and more immediately for the well being of our educational, research and Extension programs that have significant local impact in eastern Oregon.

A number of the students in our Agriculture Program at EOU seek experiential opportunities at our experiment station in Union, which was established over 100 years ago and focuses on range, forestry, flora and fauna of wildlands, forages, beef cattle, nutrition, and other issues of relevance to eastern Oregon.  The breadth of research is amazing – everything from beef nutrition to sage brush to range/forest interactions to the birds of the region to wolf predation on cattle to impact of fire to impact of cattle grazing on mountain streams to grazed riparian pastures to the floristics and faunistics of the Great Basin desert, to name just a few.  All of these efforts are having significant impact locally.  Our partners in the Union area, like those at the other locations, are highly supportive of the local efforts, and I hope they will continue to support our efforts at reorganizing our college.

I have noticed an interesting conundrum as I meet and speak with our partners and stakeholders.  While everyone is highly supportive of our efforts, many are also against the tax increase that was passed during the last legislative session. I have stated to the that the tax increase being voted down will seriously and immediately impact our college, but that the long term impact on our educational and research efforts are going to be significantly impaired.  I hope that the voters and our partners and stakeholders think of the potentially devastating impact on our state.