Calving season

Out at a place called Weiser Flats, Tyler Romano of Romano Farms, is busy with his spring planting of sugar beets. This despite despite no recent rain. The soils are dry and perfect for planting. We asked Washington County Farm Bureau president Tristan Winegar if beets were big here? “Big deal? Yep. Beats and Onions would be two of our main road crop crops here.

Definitely the big moneymakers. And then the onions would be number one. There'd be more acres and more tons of onions that go out of here. But the beets are a big part of their rotation. Beets across the state of Idaho have been a staple crop and we can grow really good beets with really high sugar content. And but it's something that you kind of have to buy into and it has to be part of your farm and part of your rotation because you buy shares in a shares an acre and then you have to grow that many shares every year once you own them. Washington County is ranch country. And at Winegar's ranch they’re calving. So you're carving a lot later than others. Is there a strategy behind that? Well, usually, except for this year, our winters are pretty rough. Until right about now, the end of February, beginning of March is about the time that we start every year just to dodge the worst of the weather. But we still usually get rain and stuff like that. But this year it's been extremely dry and we haven't gotten hardly anything. So it hasn't rained here in six weeks. And that's helped farmers get ahead in Washington County with an easy calving season and more than half of the county's planting completed.