John Wesley Powell had a profound understanding of the western territories of the United States (US) and he made a strong effort to influence the geographical boundaries of territories and states that were formed in the 19th century. Had he been successful with those efforts, our state lines would more closely follow watershed boundaries and the nature of the negotiations for water in the west would be significantly different.
Powell was born in Mount Morris, New York in 1834. Powell’s family moved to Ohio then Wisconsin before settling in Illinois in 1851. From an early age he was always interested in history, literature, botany, zoology, and a broad range of natural sciences. In 1852 he became a teacher and attended several colleges but never did receive a degree.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Powell enlisted in the Union Army at 27 years old, serving as a first lieutenant topographer, cartographer, and military engineer. On 6 April 1862 at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, Powell was hit with a minié ball in his right arm, and it was amputated by field surgeons at the elbow. After recuperation, he returned to service and was promoted to the rank of Major before the end of the war (Ross, 2018 and Cope, 2019).
After the war, Powell directed much of his interested and energies to the open territories in the western U.S. The one-armed war veteran organized his first expedition to explore the Green and Colorado Rivers that began on 24 May 1869. The expedition was completed on 30 August 1869 when Powell and five other men climbed out of the canyon. Powell’s second expedition on the Colorado River extended from 22 May 1871 to 7 September 1872. The second trip offered Powell and his team an opportunity to focus on the collection of scientific data and information that included photographs, detailed maps, and observations that were later used for the development of scientific publications.
He became the second director of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) from 1881 to 1894 (Figure 1). His experiences in the west had huge influences on Powell and he became an ardent advocate for strict water resource conservation policies for the American West’s river systems. He saw this as particularly important at the time since most American policy makers in Washington and in the western territories did not want to accept the basic facts regarding the aridity of the west and the limitations of development due to water.
In 1869 at the Montana Constitutional Convention, Powell stated that “All the great values of this territory have ultimately to be measured to you in acre feet.”, which was not fully comprehended or incorporated into water policy. Another good example of Powell’s prophetic opinions on the management of western water was offered in Los Angeles at the 1893 Irrigation Congress where he stated, “I tell you, gentlemen, you are piling up a heritage of conflict and litigation over water rights, for there is not sufficient water to supply these lands.” and that advice was also generally ignored.
In 1891 the USGS published its 11th Annual Report (USGS, 1891) that contained several excellent maps. Perhaps the most famous map from that publication is a map of the arid region of the U.S. (Figure 2) and it is commonly referred to as the John Wesley Powell Map. This map defined the arid region of the U.S. extending west of the 100th meridian to the Pacific Coast Range. Working in the west today, that line is still a good demarcation opening the arid lands of the western U.S.
He resigned from his duties as the USGS Director in 1894 due to the resistance and heavy opposition to his water resource conservation efforts from western politicians. Dealing with the water resource challenges that we have in the west today, particularly in the Colorado River basin, we can recognize the wisdom and good advice that Powell offered. We can also see the consistency of political operators tending to ignore natural resource facts and limitations. Some things do not change.
Now we are primarily dealing with conflicts regarding Colorado River allocations between the upper and lower basins, consisting of states defined by political boundaries and straight survey lines. We are dealing now with many of the problems that John Wesley Powell was trying to warn people about and possibly prevent or reduce the levels of conflict.
Thus, it is interesting to consider the Powell Map versus the state maps that we have and what those implications might have been. We can at least appreciate his capacity to look ahead and the importance of our being able to do so today.
Figure 1. John Wesley Powell at his desk in the
USGS office, ca. 1891.
Figure 2. John Wesley Powell’s Map of the Arid Region of the United States,
published in the Eleventh Ann. USGS Report, Part II, PL LXIX, 1891.
References
Cope, M. 2019. Major John Wesley Powell: 1834-1902. Utah Geological Survey, September 2019.
Ross, J.F. 2018. The Visionary John Wesley Powell Had a Plan for Developing the West, But Nobody Listened. Smithsonian, 3 July 2018.
USGS. 1891. Eleventh Annual Report, United States Geological Survey, 1891.
This study was conducted at the Yuma Valley Agricultural Center. The soil was a silty clay loam (7-56-37 sand-silt-clay, pH 7.2, O.M. 0.7%). Spinach ‘Meerkat’ was seeded, then sprinkler-irrigated to germinate seed Jan 13, 2025 on beds with 84 in. between bed centers and containing 30 lines of seed per bed. All irrigation water was supplied by sprinkler irrigation. Treatments were replicated four times in a randomized complete block design. Replicate plots consisted of 15 ft lengths of bed separated by 3 ft lengths of nontreated bed. Treatments were applied with a CO2 backpack sprayer that delivered 50 gal/acre at 40 psi to flat-fan nozzles.
Downy mildew (caused by Peronospora farinosa f. sp. spinaciae)was first observed in plots on Mar 5 and final reading was taken on March 6 and March 7, 2025. Spray date for each treatments are listed in excel file with the results.
Disease severity was recorded by determining the percentage of infected leaves present within three 1-ft2areas within each of the four replicate plots per treatment. The number of spinach leaves in a 1-ft2area of bed was approximately 144. The percentage were then changed to 1-10scale, with 1 being 10% infection and 10 being 100% infection.
The data (found in the accompanying Excel file) illustrate the degree of disease reduction obtained by applications of the various tested fungicides. Products that provided most effective control against the disease include Orondis ultra, Zampro, Stargus, Cevya, Eject .Please see table for other treatments with significant disease suppression/control. No phytotoxicity was observed in any of the treatments in this trial.
Interested in the latest automated weeding technologies? University of California Cooperative Extension will be hosting the 2024 Automated Technology Field Day where twelve of the newest commercial and academic thinning and weed control technologies will be demonstrated in the field. Featured technologies, some showcased for the first time to a general audience, include a high voltage electric weeder that kills weed seed pre-emergence, laser weeders (two types), “smart” precision spot sprayers (four types), “smart” in-row cultivators (four types), and the UA/UC Davis smart steam applicator for killing weed seed and soilborne pathogens pre-emergence. Company representatives and university personnel will be on hand to discuss their equipment. The event will be held from 9:00 am – 12:00 noon, Thursday, June 27th in Salinas, CA. For additional information, see the event flyer below.
In our last newsletter we talked about the importance of proper weed identification before making decisions on control measures. We mentioned some of the literature that the Vegetable IPM Team uses at the Yuma Agricultural Center.
An increasing number of PCAs and growers are using several phone applications for weed ID.
In this update I would like to share some data that was collected from a group of students of the 2024 PLS 300 Applied Weed Science class.
Professor Barry Tickes asked his students to download two phone applications and test the accuracy of the weed species ID. The recommended applications used were PlantNet and PictureThis Plant Identifier, which according to some Pest Control Advisors are reasonably accurate.
We provided a display of 9 weeds to the students to take images and upload to the phone apps for ID and here are the results obtained:
Weed PictureThis PlantNet
Annual bluegrass 6 0
Creeping woodsorrel 8 6
Nettleleaf goosefoot 4 3
Prickly lettuce 8 0
Spiny sowthistle 6 1
Spinach 8 6
Malva 6 1
Silversheath knotweed 5 0
Littleseed canarygrass 0 0
PictureThis Plant Identifier performed better than PlantNet in this evaluation. Interestingly in 2022 the weed science class evaluated PlantNet with results showing that 84.6 % of the time the application was correct. If you have another application that you recommend, please send it in your comments and we will share it with others in this newsletter.
Get your free copy of the Weed Seedling Identification Pocket Guide at the Yuma Agricultural Center.
Results of pheromone and sticky trap catches can be viewed here.
Corn earworm: CEW moth counts down in all traps over the last month; about average for December.
Beet armyworm: Moth trap counts decreased in all areas in the last 2 weeks but appear to remain active in some areas, and average for this time of the year.
Cabbage looper: Moths increased in the past 2 weeks, and average for this time of the season.
Diamondback moth: Adults increased in several locations last, particularly in the Yuma Valley most traps. Below average for December.
Whitefly: Adult movement remains low in all areas, consistent with previous years
Thrips: Thrips adult movement continues to decline, overall activity below average for December.
Aphids: Winged aphids still actively moving but declined movement in the last 2 weeks. About average for December.
Leafminers: Adult activity down in most locations, below average for this time of season.
