Field Burning Season About to Begin in Willamette Valley

Despite being scaled back dramatically from the late 1980s and early 1990s, field burning is still an important management tool for Oregon's $373 million dollar grass seed industry.

Photo by: Tim King

(SALEM) - Field burning in the Willamette Valley is about to get underway this summer.

If all goes according to plan, Willamette Valley residents will see the traditional plumes of smoke billowing up from grass seed fields but should not be impacted by the smoke, says John Byers of the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Smoke Management Program:.

"Field burning season is on target. They are starting to harvest now, which means that we will burning fields typically mid-July. We will occasionally burn after October first, but most of the fields are burned by the end of September."

Byers says despite a dramatic phasedown in the amount of field burning allowed in the Willamette Valley, many grass seed growers still need to do it.

"Field burning is a valuable management tool for a $350 million a year industry in this valley. It sanitizes the fields, eliminates the use of pesticides and herbicides."

Byers expects growers to burn about 50-thousand acres of grass this summer.

The mandated limit is 65-thousand acres, a far cry from two decades ago when a quarter million acres went up in smoke.

Kevin Hays reports for Salem-News.com and Newsradio 1190 KEX.