{"id":24809,"date":"2024-11-12T21:09:54","date_gmt":"2024-11-13T04:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-perennial-sunflower-planted-in-yellow-jacket-holds-promise\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:02:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:02:37","slug":"a-perennial-sunflower-planted-in-yellow-jacket-holds-promise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/a-perennial-sunflower-planted-in-yellow-jacket-holds-promise\/","title":{"rendered":"A perennial sunflower planted in Yellow Jacket holds promise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A
A transplanted plot of silphium at the Southwestern Colorado Research Center in Yellow Jacket on a sunny day in August. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Southwestern Colorado Research Center in Yellow Jacket recently planted an acre of a promising perennial crop called silphium.<\/p>\n

Native to the Great Plains of Kansas, it has interested researchers because of its potential as an oil seed crop.<\/p>\n

It could ultimately make a product akin to sunflower oil, since \u201csilphium is basically a perennialized sunflower,\u201d said Katie Russell, the manager and research scientist at the Southwestern Colorado Research Center.<\/p>\n

In Southwest Colorado, the plant holds potential to be an alternative forage crop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a very different environment here, compared to where they are in Kansas,\u201d said Russell. \u201cWe\u2019re looking at different elevations, different season lengths, different soil types. As you can imagine, there\u2019s a lot of variability to each individual location.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the variability, reasons for interest in the plant are consistent.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt tends to have bigger root mass, like all perennials, which enables a plant to die off in the winter and resprout in the spring,\u201d said Betsy Trana, who started studying silphium about 10 years ago in Kansas with the Land Institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s less expensive to leave the plant in place, and there\u2019s less tillage, which is damaging to the soil,\u201d Trana said.<\/p>\n

Silphium is also able to survive with little water inputs compared with something like alfalfa, which makes it all the more attractive for areas with low precipitation, said Dami\u00e1n Ravetta, an Argentine researcher who studied a plot of silphium in Yellow Jacket this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do have an area that is heavily reliant on alfalfa, and we know that is a high water use crop. So we\u2019ve been looking at alternative forage crops that are using less water,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not trying to completely replace alfalfa, just offer alternatives, Russell said.<\/p>\n

Sainfoin and kernza are two other forage alternatives, which are a little farther along than silphium in terms of research and understanding.<\/p>\n

Hunter Doyle, an agronomy specialist with the Land Institute, said they\u2019re trying to prove that those three alternatives are more efficient in using water than something like alfalfa.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlfalfa is somewhat drought tolerant, but it depends on what kind of yield you want. It\u2019s high quality, but you\u2019ve got to put water on it,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n

Where other plants use 22 inches or more of water, silphium takes 2 to 3 inches, Doyle said.<\/p>\n

Ravetta remembered how one year, in Argentina, there was a long drought during the heat of the summer.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cIt\u2019d
\u201cIt\u2019d be super cool if this whole area had a whole bunch of silphium plants. It\u2019s like sunflower, it\u2019s just that sunflower is an annual crop. We could have silphium year after year,\u201d said Katie Russell, the manager and research scientist at the Southwestern Colorado Research Center, of the perennial crop. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cSilphium stayed green and had good biomass, while soybeans and corn showed signs of stress,\u201d Ravetta said.<\/p>\n

And biomass is what you\u2019re looking for in a forage crop, Trana said.<\/p>\n

Think \u201clarger leaf structure, slightly shorter stature,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

Around Argentina, they\u2019re growing silphium in four regions, Ravetta said.<\/p>\n

Two are in Patagonia, one is on the Atlantic Coast, which has a lower elevation, and one in the Andes, which has a high elevation and no irrigation, so farmers there don\u2019t water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey rely on the buildup of water in the soil and a few rains in spring before summer,\u201d said Ravetta. \u201cSo farmers are looking for crops that can withstand low precipitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

One farmer in Buenos Aires already bails silphium regularly, and they\u2019re working to establish another in the Andes, though conditions there are the most extreme of the three locations, Ravetta said.<\/p>\n

Doyle said silphium is growing across Western Colorado \u2013 Yellow Jacket, Steamboat Springs, Kremmling, Grand Junction \u2013 and it survived in Kremmling, despite its elevation of 7,400 feet.<\/p>\n

Though nobody is yet using it commercially stateside, Russell did say one local farmer bought sainfoin and kernza to feed their alpacas.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose are not as new, I guess, as silphium. To my knowledge, I don\u2019t think that there\u2019s any commercial production yet with silphium. I think it\u2019s still at the research level,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

The recent acre planted in Yellow Jacket, however, was direct-seeded with a planter, a method \u201cmore similar to what a farmer would do,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

At present, \u201cwe don\u2019t have a lot of knowledge on what recommendations we\u2019d give to a farmer\u201d interested in growing the plant, she said.<\/p>\n

So in addition to recommendations, they\u2019re hoping to get more seeds from this new plot to use in future research, Russell said.<\/p>\n

Because beyond its forage potential, silphium is promising in other ways.<\/p>\n

\"The
The first silphium test plot in Yellow Jacket, transplanted in June 2023. This fall, researchers direct seeded an acre of it to mimic what a farmer might do. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Though it\u2019s \u201cvery much at its infancy,\u201d there\u2019s some understanding that silphium produces squalene, which is used in some skin and hair care products, Russell said.<\/p>\n

Silphium also produces a grain, so there could be a grain production component too, she said.<\/p>\n

And it can be home to local fauna, like birds and native pollinators, Ravetta said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re even working with honeybees because silphium has long, extended flowering,\u201d said Ravetta. \u201cHoney with a silphium component has a distinct flavor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really caught by the plant, it\u2019s really amazing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, we\u2019re primarily interested in the forage value and the intercropping abilities because it is a perennial,\u201d said Russell. \u201cThere are soil health benefits, there could be dual purpose behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell went on to say since it grows tall, it could be a \u201cnatural weed control by closing the canopy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Internationally, breeders are in the early stages of domesticating the wild plant, something they\u2019re taking time with doing, Doyle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a walk before you run kind of thing,\u201d said Doyle. \u201cDomesticated crops lose traits that make them vigorous and better at defending themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

For that reason, as the climate changes, people are looking to wild relatives of crops that might be more resilient to the changes and what those changes bring, like pests, Trana said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, with silphium, we are actually really lucky. We\u2019re outside of the range of most of the native pests for it, so that\u2019s kind of another bonus,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n

In Kansas, researchers aren\u2019t so lucky.<\/p>\n

A Eucosma moth, a silphium-specific pest, popped up a few years into the breeding program there, since the plant is native to the area and was growing in large stands beside one another.<\/p>\n

And so that\u2019s why they\u2019re breeding it slowly: \u201cWild silphium has a lot of defenses against pests,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ultimate goal is that we can say with some confidence that, yes, this is a forage crop that will do well in x, y and z environments with these feed values, these protein levels, under these conditions and use less water,\u201d said Russell.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s really the impetus for the whole project, is trying to basically save water for the Colorado River,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silphium is in early breeding stages to be a low-input, alternative forage crop<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78684,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24809\/revisions\/78684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24809"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}