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Multitasking canola
FIVE POINTS: A hardy but pedestrian plant is doing triple duty in California.
Farmers, water managers and agriculture researchers are closely watching an experiment using canola plants to absorb the salt from soil and water. The seeds are then crushed to extract oil for blending into environmentally friendly biodiesel.
If that were the end of the story, it would be just another case of farmers turning food into fuel. Yet at John Diener’s Red Rock Ranch in this town, the selenium-rich canola byproduct has an even higher calling: cattle feed naturally infused with an essential micro-nutrient.
“It’s all part of what we have to try to do here to turn a profit,” said Mr. Diener, who also grows almonds, tomatoes, grapes and corn on 2,000 hectares.
In a trial, the canola meal — grown on once-fallow land — was fed to dairy cows on the east side of the San Joaquin Valley, where selenium does not occur naturally and has to be added to food rations.
If the experiment mounted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture is successful, officials say they will try to persuade other farmers in the region to start planting canola and other selenium-tolerant plants.
“These challenges force farmers to become smarter, and that’s where science comes in,” said Gary Banuelos of the USDA’s research station in Parlier, who manages test plots at Mr. Diener’s ranch.
There is urgency to the effort because an ongoing drought and court-ordered water rationing to protect threatened fish species means farmers who have relied for decades on water deliveries via canals are being forced to turn to groundwater pumping.
Whether canola can cure the Californian valley’s groundwater and soil problems and become a viable crop is the challenge facing the USDA.
On the Net, the U.S. Canola Association is at http://www.uscanola.com — AP
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