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PENDLETON — “Soil is the basis for all life,” Sam Agyin-Birikorang said.

Agyin-Birikorang, research leader and agronomist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is wrapping up his first year at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center near Adams.

He engages in his research — micronutrients and soil acidity — early in the morning but transitions into his administrative role as the day progresses.

Before moving to Oregon, Agyin-Birikorang worked for the International Fertilizer Development Center. That’s a global entity, but he was stationed in Alabama. For eight months each year, he traveled and worked out of the country and all around the globe, primarily in Africa and southern Asia. He did this for 12 years.

But upon realizing that he needed to change things up, Agyin-Birikorang started applying for new jobs. That brought him to Pendleton, an area that reminds him of parts of Africa in a lot of ways.

Agyin-Birikorang is originally from Ghana, where he became interested in agriculture because “My grandfather and father were both farmers,” he said, “so I have always been around agriculture.”

Within the field, though, Agyin-Birikorang focuses on soil. He truly believes soil is the foundation for all life, and in agriculture, the science of soil is what determines the quantity and quality of crop production more than anything else.

“My intention is to help farmers be more efficient and make profits,” he said.

Creating his own laboratory

Despite having been here for about a year, Agyin-Birikorang should finally be getting his own lab. He has been having to share with the chemistry lab due to the Research Center’s limited space, but he will soon have a brand new work environment. He’s just waiting on some equipment. 

Agyin-Birikorang, working with Research Center technician Rachel Chambers, is currently researching micronutrients and soil acidity.

He feelts that micronutrients often get neglected. Macronutrients like nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus often receive attention simply because they are required in higher quantities, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are more important. All soil nutrients, he said, are vital.

Agyin-Birikorang helps to shed light on secondary elements such as calcium, sulfur and magnesium and then also micronutrients, such as zinc, boron, chlorine and sodium. All of these appear or should appear in small amounts in soil, but that doesn’t mean they are any less important than the larger, more abundant macronutrients.

Agyin-Birikorang uses a water bottle as an analogy.

“Imagine there is a hole in a bottle,” he said. “You can only fill and maintain the water level up until the point where the hole is,” meaning you cannot keep the bottle full. Forgetting about or ignoring a micronutrient is like having a hole in a water bottle. And so as a result, crop yield cannot reach its full potential.

“Crop yield is determined by what is not there, not what is there,” he continued. “So what I do is like what a doctor does. A doctor takes a blood sample to find out what is going on with a person. I take soil samples to figure out what is going on with the land.”

After taking and analyzing soil samples, Agyin-Birikorang can then provide advice to farmers on how to improve and produce more crops by working to get the right amounts of macronutrients, secondary elements and micronutrients in their soil.

“I am always looking for something that is not going well and for something that is going extremely well because that is where I want to test the soil,” he said. “Always looking for extremes.”

He compares and contrasts the soils in each area to figure out what is going well and what is going wrong.

Agyin-Birikorang, for the most part, concerns himself with the top 12 inches of soil. He examines not just nutrient levels but also soil acidity — the accumulation of salt over thousands of years. It can take years to remedy acidity issues.

“There becomes a point when it is too late,” he said.

He is currently looking into more effective and efficient ways to neutralize and reduce the acidity of soil, which he acknowledged is more of a challenge in a drier area. It is typically easier to desalinate soil in regions with more water than Northeastern Oregon.

Dry, but not a drought

Reflecting on the region’s current water situation, Agyin-Birikorang referred to hydrologic technician Dave Robertson.

Based on the center’s weather station, the spring has been very dry.

“It has been the first or second driest period from January through May in 94 years,” Robertson said, “but having cooler temperatures in the spring compared to recent years has helped a lot.”

He did share, however, that we are not currently experiencing a drought.

“It has been abnormally dry, but not a drought,” he said. He explained that high rainfall from last year has carried over to this year, which, again, has helped a lot.

Moving forward, Agyin-Birikorang said, “It’s about the end results, and I am passionate about bringing smiles to farmers’ faces. It is rewarding.”

But he added that building relationships with farmers was the most important aspect of his job.

Agyin-Birikorang went on to emphasize that “farmers are often taken for granted” and that if our farmers are not successful, then no one is.

“My intention is to help farmers be more efficient and make profits.”

— Agyin-Birikorang, Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center near Adams