In the 19th century, the early settlers of the Palouse arrived here in survival mode. In some cases they were fleeing from political persecution in Europe and Scandinavia, and they came to a land that reminded them of their homeland. As each family arrived, their immediate goal was to get prepared for winter, establish shelter, procure firewood, and produce and preserve food. These settlers brought with them the food production techniques that they knew from Sweden, Germany, or the various other countries they came from. Barley and wheat were staples, and this landscape that reminded them of home just so happened to produce those staple crops very, very well. By the early part of the 20th Century, these settlers had plowed virtually every acre of ground that could be plowed, and what was too steep to farm was grazed with livestock.

Many of those areas were quickly overgrazed. Other crops were cultivated in the early years of the Palouse settlement. There are records and pictures of sunflowers and corn being grown, along with other crops that are still grown here, like peas. But as production of crops began to mature in the region, wheat clearly performed the best. Local growth is still dominated by wheat production. Two out of three years, fields are sown with wheat in the higher rainfall zones. And the lower zones see even more continuous wheat production. But with all the repetitive wheat growth, the soil is depleted of nutrients.

When a loaf of bread is made, nutrients from the soil go into the wheat kernel, into the flour, and into the bread. The farmer has to figure out how to get those nutrients back into the soil in order to grow the next crop. These processes are complex. If you want to boil it down, farmers manage a few processes in order to produce food. Nature offers energy cycles, water cycles, and nutrient cycles, and these processes need to be brought together in order to bring a crop to harvest.

Energy cycles are about maximizing photosynthesis opportunities. Water cycles are about getting as much rainfall to enter the soil, and then get as much water into growing plants as possible. And lastly, plants need nutrients to grow. The settlers that first came here certainly understood these principles to an extent, but their immediate goal was to survive and prosper in their new home. Today, farmers look back at the last hundred years and see the astronomical amount of topsoil that the Palouse has lost due to intensive plowing and tillage. And the canyons going down to Lewiston are full of thistles due to overgrazing. But with new technology and better science, farmers here today are looking to that native Palouse Prairie to understand how they can mimic and optimize the energy, water, and nutrient cycling processes that better preserve this place we call home.

Jeremy Bunch is a Research Agronomist Specialist and the CEO of Shepherd’s Grain, a company that for 20 years has pioneered in direct food supply chains built on regenerative agricultural practices and produces world class flour. As an Agronomist, Jeremy is concerned with the health and well-being of crops used for food production and uses science to carry out experiments that create new techniques for agriculture production.