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Spring 2026

Agriculture

Spring 2026

Rain, Wind, Heat: 2025 Weather in Review

December 2025 was a wild month for weather across Washington.

An atmospheric river dumped historic amounts of rainfall on northwest Washington in early December, leading to flooding, landslides, and power outages.

A few days later, a windstorm swept across eastern Washington. Gusts of 83 miles per hour were recorded in Pullman, accompanied by an unusual winter thunderstorm.

In this episode, Josh Ward and Jon Contezac discuss significant weather events of 2025. They are field meteorologists for Washington State University’s AgWeatherNet.

The past year was the third hottest on record for the planet. It was the fourth hottest on record for the … » More …

Fall 2025

The Christmas tree doctor is in.

When Gary Chastagner was a kid in the 1950s, his parents typically displayed their Christmas tree for about a week. The tree went up on December 24—often after he went to bed—and came down after New Year’s Day.

Now, consumers want fresh-cut trees that can be displayed for weeks without losing their needles. Chastagner, a professor emeritus of plant pathology at Washington State University, has spent more than 40 years helping Northwest Christmas tree growers improve their product. For his work, Chastagner earned the nickname “Dr. Christmas Tree.”

In this episode, Chastagner talks about working on solutions to Swiss needle cast disease in Douglas fir … » More …

Fall 2025

Hearts of Gold: A Spokane Valley melon

Spokane Valley was once famous for its cantaloupes.

In 1995’s The Spokane Valley: A History of the Growing Years, Florence Boutwell writes that Hearts of Gold cantaloupe melons became one of the area’s predominant crops around 1925, after insects and disease destroyed local orchards.

By the late 1970s, the prevalence of this heirloom variety, known for its deep-orange, aromatic, sweet, thick, and juicy flesh, had diminished in the region.

But an experimental, volunteer-run community garden in a Liberty Lake development⁠—the 3-acre River District Farm—is bringing them back, growing Hearts of Gold and selling them at its seasonal stand.

The cantaloupe’s memory … » More …

Flowering trees with evergreen trees in the background
Summer 2025

Mapping trees in Tacoma

Nelson Pham spent six hours at Tacoma’s Boze Elementary School one day last summer. Armed with the iNaturalist app and GPS tagging, he identified and mapped every tree on the school’s property.

Some trees were healthy, others were struggling. Only two were providing shade for the crowd of spectators watching youth soccer games at the school’s playfields.

“All these parents were just baking in the sun,” says Pham, a Tacoma Community College student. “I wondered where the trees were.”

By the end of the summer, Pham created an interactive database of trees at 12 Tacoma schools. The work was part of an internship with … » More …