Purpose and Policy of the Malheur Experiment Station web site.

Malheur Experiment Station

Information for Sustainable Agriculture

Purpose and Policy of the Malheur Experiment Station web site.

Our Intentions

The station serves a diverse clientele, including everyone from citizens with interests in natural resource management to growers with practical production problems. The station conducts research to promote sustainable productivity, improved product quality, reduced off site environmental impacts of farming activities, and improved cost effectiveness of production. The station seeks to provide widely available and timely results. The publication of results on the web has made our local work better known and has simultaneously reduced the financial burden of providing hard copies of the station annual report, weather data, etc.

The Malheur Experiment Station of Oregon State University at Ontario, Oregon is 390 miles from the central campus at Corvallis and only employs two tenure track faculty and a small support staff. The station completes an ambitious number of projects each year as requested by the Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee, the Oregon Potato Commission, the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board, EPA, Oregon DEQ, and many other grower, private and public organizations. Because of scarce human and financial resources, research efforts are collaborative wherever possible. Research results reach interested parties through regular published reports, circulars, field days, grower meetings, and the station web site. Multiple year trials of particular significance are published in journal articles.

Policy

The contents of our reports and web pages are for the information of the public, cooperators in industry, and colleagues at other universities. Reference to products and companies in these publications is for specific information only and does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation of that product or company to the exclusion of others that may also be suitable. Nor should information and the interpretation thereof be considered as recommendations for application of any pesticide. Pesticide labels should always be consulted and followed before any pesticide use.

Links from the Malheur Experiment Station web site to other web sites outside of Oregon State University have been provided strictly for the convenience of the user and are not an endorsement for any product mentioned on another web site nor a validation of the accuracy of information on the linked web site.

Our Web Site's Special Features

1. The forecast of Potato Late Blight for the Treasure Valley (southeastern Oregon and southwestern Idaho), Central Oregon, and the Klamath Basin of Oregon and California is an active part of the Malheur Experiment Station web site. "In field" data are collected by our network of equipment, data are received by cellular phone, and risks are predicted with our own software.

2. In addition to the recent annual reports of research results, older annual reports of environmental relevance to questions of water quality have also been posted on the web.

3. Best Management Practices are being assembled in cooperation with the Soil Water Conservation District and the Watershed Councils that cover this region (Malheur and Owyhee).

4. As a cooperative endeavor with the Owyhee Watershed Council we have initiated an environmental education Field Day for 5th graders. As a follow up to the Field Day, a virtual field day is present on our web site.

5. Progress of the Western Region "W-128 micro-irrigation" working group is now organized and reported on our web site.

6. Due to the public's desire and pressure for weather data, current data and past data collected at the station are now available in several forms. Of great practical importance are the daily crop evapotranspirations estimated by cooperation between the AgriMet station located here and the Bureau of Reclamation.

Request For Your Help

If you find any inaccuracies or broken links in this web site, please contact us so that we can make appropriate corrections.