Pumpkin Seed Production & Soil Health

Pumpkin Seed Production & Soil Health

Pumpkin Seed Production & Soil Health. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.

The Pacific Northwest Oilseed & Direct Seed Conference is underway in Kennewick, Washington with sessions on soil amendments, precision ag tools. canola and more. One of the popular tracts was a discussion of soil analysis presented by Jill Clapperton of Rhizoterra who had some advice for taking samples.

CLAPPERTON: Your analysis is only as good as the sample you take. A lot of our mistake is that they don't sweep off the organic matter before they take a sample. I want you to sweep the surface because if you put that in most of the soils labs make calculations on soil organic matter and organic carbonated that skews the results and you'll get much higher organic matter and then their recommendations based on the organic matter component combined with your chemical analysis will be different.

Pumpkin seeds just may be a new cash crop for eastern Oregon and western Idaho. Already known for the ornamental pumpkins themselves the health snack industry could just drive the sales of seed production. At least one food company has been looking for a domestic producer of pumpkin seeds. Most seeds currently used in health foods come from China. OSU is working on a cost estimate for production and there are a number of producers showing interest in the crop.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

Previous ReportAvian Influenza Expands
Next ReportConfusing Recall & Ag Gag Bill