Ag Alert October 21, 2020

C A L I F O R N I A

FieldCrops A SPECIAL GROWERS’ REPORT OF AG ALERT ®

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Dawit Zeleke, who manages rice growing on Staten Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta for the Nature Conservancy, says rice helps conserve carbon-rich peat soils in the delta. A state agency has been encouraging other delta farmers to plant more rice.

Farmers look to plant more rice acreage in the delta ByBob Johnson

emissionsayear,”saidCampbell Ingram, executivedirectorof theSacramento-SanJoaquin Delta Conservancy, a state agency. “As subsidence continues, this will increase.” TheDeltaConservancyhasdevelopedaprogramtoencourage farmers tokeepcarbon in the ground by flooding fields or planting rice. “In many areas of the delta, water has been removed from the root zone in order to plant corn, because corn cannot be planted in wet soil,” according to the conservancy’s description of its carbon program. “Removing the water exposes the soil to oxygen, and microbesbegintoeat thepeat. Thisprocess reduces thepeat andreleases carbondioxide.” Farmer interest inpreserving thepeat has alreadyhada significant impact oncropping patterns: Rice was planted on a little more than 3,000 acres in the delta in 2017 but has steadily increased since and reached 5,000 acres this year. “Acreage is going up a little because rice is supported by the Sacramento-San Joaquin DeltaConservancy,” saidMichelleLeinfelder-Miles, Universityof CaliforniaCooperative Extension farmadvisor in the delta region. The delta climate results in yields that may be slightly lower than in the Sacramento Valley, but are still more than 8,000 pounds an acre. “Thewaterfowl andsandhill cranes love it,”Zeleke said. “They’ll eat rice, cornorwheat.”

Now in its secondyear, a long-termproject intends to learnwhether rice farming in the Sacramento-San JoaquinDelta can succeed economically while helping to preserve the region’s uniquely carbon-rich peat soils. Dawit Zelekemanages 350 acres ofmedium-grain rice on Staten Island in the delta for theNatureConservancy, aworldwide environmental organization that hasmanaged the 9,200-acre island for the past 20 years. Located between the north and south forks of theMokelumne River, Staten Island in- cludes fields of corn, winter wheat, potatoes, pasture and alfalfa, with harvest schedules crafted to provide habitat for thousands of sandhill cranes that call the island home. The shift toward rice represents an effort to preserve, along with wildlife, the delta’s heavilyorganicpeat soils that are threatenedby subsidenceaswater transfers anddry-soil crops cause the ground to emit carbon. “Bynext spring, we’ll have 1,000acres of riceonStaten Island,”Zeleke saidas he looked the crop over in September. “We’re hoping rice takes off in the delta, because it’s a great crop for the birds, and for the carbon and subsidence.” Conservationists hope a combination of rice production andwetlands restorationwill help save the carbon built up in delta soils. “There are about 200,000 acres of subsided land with about 2 million tons of carbon

See DELTA, Page 8

October 21, 2020 Ag Alert 7

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