Weiser-area farmers weeks behind in getting onions, sugarbeets planted

Weiser-area farmers are trying to get caught up on planting the last of the onions, sugarbeets and corn after rain showers and muddy fields kept tractors idle during much of April.
 Onion and sugarbeet farmers around Weiser typically try to have fields planted by April 1 to take advantage of a full growing season. That didn’t happen this year as showers kept fields muddy for the first three weeks of April.
 The recent days of warmer temperatures and sunshine have helped dry out farm fields, but some farmers are still three weeks behind.
 It’s a repeat of the spring of 2017, when farmers were nearly a month behind in getting onions and sugarbeets planted. The onion crop that year was smaller, and so were onion sizes, but prices went up as a result.
 The good news is that precipitation that fell as rain around Weiser in March and April came down as snow in the mountains and in the Weiser River basin, which is the source of irrigation water for Weiser-area farmers.
 There is still plenty of snow to melt in the higher reaches of the Weiser River basin, although there was significant melting in April, according to the automated Snotel sites.
 The snowpack at Bear Saddle at 6,180 feet in elevation started the month of April at 73 inches and ended the month at 46 inches. Another site in the Weiser River basin, Squaw Flat, at 6,240 feet in elevation, had 82 inches of snow on April 1 and 52 inches at the end of the month.
 One of the lower Snotel measuring sites in the basin at 4,920 feet in elevation is Van Wyck. The site started April with two feet of snow and by the end of the month it was completely gone.
 Vern Lolley, an official with the Weiser Irrigation District, said cold nights have kept the snowpack from melting too quickly in the Weiser River basin and that’s what the irrigation district wants to see.
 The temperature on Monday night at the Bear Saddle Snotel site was 21 degrees.
 The Weiser Irrigation District relies on runoff from snowmelt in the Weiser River basin to irrigate about 15,000 acres of crops around Weiser.  
 Runoff that flows into the Weiser River is diverted into the Galloway Canal upstream of Weiser and conveyed to irrigate farm fields in the Weiser Flat area.
 When the snowmelt is gone, the Weiser River will drop and irrigation district officials begin to release water stored in Crane Creek Reservoir, which is full at more than 50,000 acre-feet of water.
 In an average year, the irrigation district doesn’t have to tap the stored water at Crane Creek Reservoir until about July 1.
 Lolley estimated that local farmers are about three weeks behind and the ground is still wet in areas. Farmers he knows are wrapping up planting onion and beets, and corn and beans will be planted a little later.
 At the end of last year’s irrigation season, the district still had 40 percent of the water left in Crane Creek Reservoir for carryover. With all the runoff, the irrigation season looks good so far, he said.
 “Our guys were very very careful with water,” he said.