Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) Initiative Saving Historic Montana Crop

July 30, 2009
by Larry Cooper, Montana NRCS Public Affairs Specialist

Montana’s Flathead Valley is known historically for its natural beauty and its cherry production. The valley is the home of the largest natural lake in the western United States. Two rivers, the Flathead and the Swan, supply clean, fresh water to the lake year around. The lake is almost 30 miles long north to south; at its widest point, it is 15 miles across. There are 200 square miles of water surface and 160 miles of shoreline. Two scenic highways parallel the lake.

For many years, small cherry orchards located around the lake have produced enough cherries to create a local demand that significantly increases traffic around the lake at harvest time (usually late July). The cherries are especially known for their sweetness and bright coloring and have long been considered a special treat by many residents of Montana. The historic methods used to irrigate the crop, however, are creating problems. There is also increasing competition, and, this year, bumper cherry crops were produced in California, Oregon, and Washington.

Handline watering (moving pipes and hoses around by hand for irrigation), historically practiced at many of these cherry orchards, is proving increasingly labor intensive and insufficient, resulting in spotty application and overwatering, in some areas causing nitrates to leach into the ground water and flow into the lake. In addition, an increase in home development around the lake has resulted in septic ferment and other pollutants, endangering water quality.

Because the total Flathead Valley cherry production involves only several hundred acres (the largest orchards are ten acres), competing with larger production states like Washington (around 200,000 acres in cherry orchards) is increasingly difficult. The time and labor required to accomplish successful handline irrigation threatens the viability of sustaining cherry production for sale. Several of these small orchard producers are older now, and the physical demands are too challenging to maintain their crops.

Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) technical experts are coming to the rescue. A special Environmental Quality Incentive Program (EQIP) 2008 initiative is allowing many producers to save their orchards by helping finance modern automatic microsystem irrigation systems, water metering, and even fencing to protect the orchards from bears who are very fond of the native cherry production. Nearly one-third of the total acreage is now being serviced under more than 20 EQIP contract projects that are helping to improve water quality and quantity, balance nutrients, foster good soil health, and address wildlife concerns.

This is the first time many of these producers have tested soils and installed water meters that will allow them to time their irrigating to avoid deep percolation of water and nutrients. Management of the soil nutrients ensures the nutrients are taken up by the trees when they actively need it, not flushed away. The environmentally sensitive soils around the lake require close management that will ensure nutrients are held in the root zone to produce better cherries and improve water quality. The NRCS initiative is already being credited by many of these producers with saving this historic Montana resource, improving the water quality for the lake, and sustaining a small but vital and treasured industry.

Last Modified: 08/03/2009