Transcript
Captioning provided by Disability Access Services
at Oregon State University.
[program music]
Man 1: This is the quinoa that we're going to be planting.
I've got three varieties.
This one right here is called a red head.
And this one is the brightest brilliant rainbow.
And this is the cherry vanilla.
There are definitely differences in colors and stuff
like the brightest brilliant rainbow,
it's just really neat looking stuff, very colorful.
[door creaking]
[dirt crunching]
Most of the work is prepping the ground.
All the preparation is what takes the work.
Putting it in the ground doesn't take that long
as long as everything goes good.
Keep your fingers crossed.
[tractor rumbling]
What it does is it makes a really nice seed bed.
What it actually does is it pulls moisture
to the top of the surface,
so that when you plant your seed in there,
your seed is going into moisture.
This is all dryland agriculture.
That's one of the keys of knowing when to plant
is when to get your seed in the ground around here.
All dryland agriculture.
Man 2: Rain fed agriculture.
Man 1: Rain fed.
That's it, rain fed agriculture.
[tractor rumbling]
Plot one is in the southwest corner.
Man 2: The extreme corner.
Man 1: In the extreme corner.
I'm going to start saying the names of them
and you're going to tell me if they're there, ready?
Red head.
Man 1: Cherry.
Cherry.
Cherry.
Red head.
Cherry.
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1: Brightest brilliant.
Red head.
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1: Brightest brilliant.
Man 2: Yep.
Man 1: Cherry, or I mean red head.
Stephen Machado: There are thousands of varieties of quinoa
so we don't know exactly which ones grow best here.
So one of the experiments is just to grow the varieties
in different areas.
So we need to check which varieties do well.
When do you plant them?
At what spacing?
And then monitor them, what diseases?
Are they going to be affected by insects?
Come up with the weeding practices,
and then how do you harvest it?
How do you store it?
How do you prepare it?
How do you market it?
So all of this, lots of things are new to us
so we're trying to come up with a packet of instructions
and pass them to the farmers when we find
the successful varieties.
Man 1: This is our organic ground.
There is no chemical applied here.
It's just strictly organic.
[tractor rumbling]
It's in a little teeny, tiny envelope,
and we just dump it in there.
The supply of quinoa in the United States is limited right now.
Much of it is imported from South America,
so it's a market opportunity.
Stephen Machado: Everybody wants to eat quinoa
and people are marketing it as a healthy product.
It's kind of the fashion right now.
Everybody wants quinoa.
[program music]
[END]
Quinoa is exploding in popularity in the United States and around the world. Yet most of the grain-like seed is imported from South America, which has sent prices soaring. Now, Oregon State University is experimenting with planting quinoa in the Pacific Northwest's unique climate — hoping to create a market opportunity for local farmers.
Related: Quiona production also happens on the western side of the Cascades in Oregon.
Want to learn more about this topic? Explore more resources from OSU Extension:
Field crops
