Sarah Jones never thought she’d be a farmer. She grew up in San Diego and met her husband, Michael, who comes from four generations of farmers, in college in Seattle. But when – after living and working in a couple different cities – they moved to south-central Colorado’s San Luis Valley, where Michael grew up, Jones knew it was where she was supposed to be.

Jones Farm Organics is a fifth-generation family farm that grows potatoes – the San Luis Valley is the second largest potato-growing region in the United States. But when Sarah and Michael Jones moved back in 2017, they started expanding to grains to diversify their business and experiment with rotational winter crops that they can sell. First, they tried classic wheat varieties like Turkey Red and Red Fife, but those didn’t work well for their farm.

Then, Jones tried rye. “The funny thing with rye was that my father-in-law had been planting rye since the ‘80’s as a cover crop,” she said.

As it turned out, rye was the answer.

Rye uses significantly less water than other common rotational winter crops like alfalfa and barley, which require 24-26 inches of water and 18-20 inches of water per acre, respectively. In contrast, rye uses only 10-12 inches of water per acre. That’s a huge water savings when multiplied across a standard 120-acre field.

Jones wondered how that effect could be extended across the valley. “Could we convert or convince farmers to make some changes to grow more rye and less of these other crops?” she said.

In the end, neighbors were excited to join. Jones and co-founder Heather Dutton launched the Rye Resurgence Project, an effort to get more farmers growing rye –  and thus saving water – in 2023.

Farmers Growing Rye in the San Luis Valley: Storms in the High Desert, and Some “Reputation Rehabilitation”

In the San Luis Valley, water is scarce. In fact, the valley is an alpine desert – it sits above 7,500 feet in elevation and receives around seven inches of rainfall a year, much less than other parts of Colorado.

This year, the water situation in the valley, and across the West, is even more dire. “Our snowpack is sitting at 13% of average,” said Dutton, manager of the San Luis Valley Water Conservation District, and Jones’s co-conspirator on the Rye Resurgence Project. ”We have to be that much more innovative to find these solutions where we can use even less water but still support our agriculture community,” Dutton said.

Read the full article about farmers growing rye in Colorado by Ilana Newman at The Daily Yonder.