Re: CULT: Small rhizomes
- Subject: Re: CULT: Small rhizomes
- From: n*@charter.net
- Date: Tue, 17 Jul 2001 15:33:59 -0000
--- In iris-talk@y..., Arnold Koekkoek <koekkoek@m...> wrote:
"...the climate of Caldwell, IDaho is not a banana belt...."
Arnold, compared to most of the Intermountain West, and especially
compared to the rest of Idaho (with the exception of the Lewiston
area), Caldwell and Canyon County is most definitely a "banana belt"
and is locally refered to as such. The elevation rises from right at
2000' at Weiser to 2600 in the Boise area, then keeps on rising in a
broad sweep up the Snake River plain all the way to Yellowstone at
about 7000'. The whole area is nearly surrounded by elevations often
a mile higher than the adjacent basin floor. Hells Canyon, some 7900
feet deep, drains the area through a narrow and not easily accessed
gorge.
The consequence is that the area is in the rain shadow of the
surrounding mountains, the Caldwell area getting somewhere between
six and nine inches of rain, nearly all of it falling between
Thanksgiving and Palm Sunday. Agriculture, and of course, the iris
gardens and fields in the area, are dependent on irrigation water
from the mountains to the north and east.
The problem this year was that the winter snow fall in those
mountains was more than a bit short of normal, and the shortfall is
compounded by the energy crisis. The water rights for irrigation are
in conflict with the need to generate electricity (for California in
part) downstream on the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Much of the area
has been cut to 2 acre feet per acre for this year, where the norm is
5.
I am amazed Riverview is able to ship a quality as good as they are
this year. More power to them! I am very glad to see the positive
comments about survival and bloom from their stock.
Neil Mogensen --an Idaho former orchard and iris grower now
expatriate in zone 6b/7a near Asheville, NC
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