Consumer demand is moving in the direction of higher quality products requiring precision irrigation. Malheur County in southeastern Oregon contains millions of acres of sagebrush steppe used principally for extensive grazing and secondarily for recreation, relatively small areas of forest, and 250,000 irrigated acres. Rainfall is far less than crop water needs, averaging only 10 inches per year at lower elevations. Rainfall is distributed mostly in the non-growing season. Irrigation water comes largely from snow melt and runoff from rangelands.
Reservoirs capture the seasonal.
The region was developed based on gravity flow irrigation prior to 1940. Sixteen irrigation districts manage water delivery. Family farms predominate and use sound crop rotations that include onions, sugar beets, wheat, corn, beans, potatoes, alfalfa, alfalfa grown for seed, spearmint, peppermint, and other crops. Soil loss, groundwater contamination, and surface water quality problems challenge the sustainability of intensive agricultural crop production in Malheur County. Groundwater became contaminated with nitrate because nitrogen chemical fertilizer inputs were considerably greater than crop N removal.