dryland wheat

Inky black ravens light on newly seeded ground.Andy Juris is planting spring soft white wheat at an elevation of 3,000 feet outside of Bickleton,…

(Runtime 1:05)Editor’s Note: Northwest Public Broadcasting acknowledges that all of what’s now Washington state is Indigenous lands. Northwest tribal…

(Runtime 0:55)Jeff Leber of Umapine, Oregon, stands in the baking sun. He listens to the hiss of his grain getting sucked up into the bins, at the…

Even with all the rain and snow in California this winter, it’s been pretty dry in our region, especially in much of eastern Oregon and parts of eastern Washington.

Some stunted wheat fields won’t see the combine this summer. Cattle operators are severely cutting back their herds for lack of grass. Little moisture since February in wide swaths of the Northwest is to blame. And drought is deepening across the West, with federal drought maps showing massive and growing areas of red.