By MATTHEW WEAVER

Capital Press

Researchers working to determine the impacts of climate change on the region's agriculture will meet next week.

Participants in the $20 million Regional Approaches to Climate Change in Pacific Northwest Agriculture (REACCH) project hold their annual meeting beginning Feb. 29 at the Red Lion Hotel in Pendleton, Ore.

The goal of the group is to determine what climate change might mean for the region's agriculture and compare possible actions by farmers, said Sanford Eigenbrode, leader of the project.

"We're not talking about an expensive project that's trying to solve problems that will occur 20 years from now," he said. "We're solving problems that occur today, too."

That includes improvement of nitrogen use efficiency and issues such as carbon in soil and pests and pathogens.

As the project enters its second year, Eigenbrode said, they will set up 11 experiments to examine nitrogen management, crop diversification, tillage and residue management.

"These will have results after the first year that we expect will be useful to producers who are interested," he said.

Eigenbrode said the meeting will also serve to coordinate researchers working in different disciplines.

Researchers on the team will examine the project's first report to the National Institute for Food and Agriculture and consult with scientific and farmer stakeholders.

The team will combine models for different aspects of the industry together to form a better overall picture, Eigenbrode said.

"We can do things like look at when cereal leaf beetle egg hatch is going to occur, which is tied when someone who is trying to manage with insecticides needs to think about putting those on," he said. "Is that going to happen at a different time of year?"

The meeting will also include the possible role of rotation crops in economic models and advisory panels with specialists on pests, plant pathogens, education and social reactions to climate change.

Online

http://reacch.nkn.uidaho.edu/

For more information or to register for the meeting, contact the project at reacch@uidaho.edu