Just as soon as all you jokers up in Portland stop gagging everybody with your automobile exhaust.

I like it. Reminds me of many an autumn gone-by.

I seriously doubt the grass smoke has any adverse effects on your health, at least not half as much as the everyday air pollution in Portland proper.

Yeah,

Document the hazards for us. Some of us like it and, just because there's no grass in New Jersey to burn is no reason to deny us a few guilty pleasures.

I'll bet you use that hand sanitizer, too.

And don't bring "Oregon's reputation" into it, either - "Oregon's reputation" has plenty of baggage you disagree with, remember - like planning and all that - it's all or nothin', babe.

Who you runnin' from, anyhow?

Don't you worry. That Frankensteinian genetically modified creeping bent grass will soon put an end to Oregon's dominance in the grass seed industry.

http://www.nwrage.org/index.php?name=News&catid=&topic=31

They burn fields in Idaho all the time. I grew up there.
Seems like a pretty petty complaint in the big scheme of things---you know, War, and an F'ed-Up Government.

Cool. Image a genetically engineered lawn that would mow itself, or better yet, one that eats squirrels and starling.

They could make a mint off that idea.

As a boomer growing up in Southern Oregon, I still remember the black, acrid smoke from the old orchard smudge pots. Waking up in the morning heading off to school under pitch black skys. Q-tips became a necessity. Thank God we had very little clout with the DEQ. Now it's natural gas heaters and sprinklers during the spring time freeze. Oh yeah, and the poor or industrious kids had to fight the drowsies in class after their work all night lighting the damn things.

They burn fields in Idaho all the time.

Last I checked, that was no longer the case.

A few years ago Oregon enacted a law to give tax credits to grass seed growers who needed to invest in equipment to plow under instead of burning.

Growers got the credits, but still burned. The Gov. ducked accountability, as the Enviro and Tax departments weren't expected to share the information.

So taxpayers footed the bill and got nothing in return except the same old same old. Oregon is for dreamers.

But first we need to convince the city folk they don't need their perfectly uniform and lush green lawns and the Desert golf courses don't need constant reseeding as green colored sand will look great.

Field burning is essential to grass seed farming so long as environmentalists prevent farmers from using pesticides and herbicides that are necessary to grow grass seed. Anyone who has tried to maintain a Portland lawn knows how difficult it is to keep out crabgrass, clover, weeds, and moles in their tin 50x100 lot. Imagine trying to grow your law to seed and keep it 99.999% pure. That is what an Oregon grass seed farmer goes through. Burning fields purifies the ground and eliminates the needs for tons of chemicals to do the same.

Growing up in the valley, I miss the good old grass smoke (no, not weed), and the job as a field burning man was quite exciting. Field burning smoke was much better than wood stove smoke...glad they made them pellet stoves.

Over in the middle part of the state, we only have forest fire smoke. It just ain't the same.

Burning fields purifies the ground and eliminates the needs for tons of chemicals to do the same.

Many, if not most, grass seed farmers don't burn any more. When restrictions were placed on the practice following a disastrous freeway pileup caused by one of these clowns years ago, the same arguments were made and rejected. They said their industry would be destroyed. That was a lie.

Field burning is simply the cheap way out, and it harms the lungs of millions of people who live downwind of it. Major health organizations think it should be stopped. I agree.

The disastrous freeway pileup you refer to was caused by jackasses driving headlong into smoke that was plainly there to be seen.

I agree field burning is not a perfect method, but the alternative is pesticides. Choose yer poison Jack.

A large portion of the industry would go away of sports fans (like you Jack) didn't need nice grass playing surfaces and if city folks didn't like nice green lawns and golf courses. When's the last time you saw a pasture feeding livestock replanted with grass seed? So it is really the city folks driving this, both in the cities and in their rural enclaves like Sunriver, etc, with golf courses and nice green lawns.

I burned fields in high school. It was fun. Worked in a grass seed processing plant as well. Oregon is the center of the universe for grass seed last I checked. A quality product comes at a price. I'd rather have "natural" smoke from burning straw, than pesticide runoff.

The disastrous freeway pileup you refer to was caused by jackasses driving headlong into smoke that was plainly there to be seen.

That's the funniest thing I've read on this blog in quite a while. Thanks for the belly laugh.

A large portion of the industry would go away of sports fans (like you Jack) didn't need nice grass playing surfaces and if city folks didn't like nice green lawns

Funny, all the lawns in my 'hood are brown.
(Nobody waters their lawn. Which I dont understand, because it looks like crap..)