Gov. Ted Kulongoski will ask the 2009 legislature to phase out field burning in the Willamette Valley by 2016.

Mike Carrier, the governor's director for natural-resources policy, said from Salem on Monday that about a year ago, the governor had asked the state Environmental Quality Commission for recommendations on how to further reduce the annual summertime burning with the goal of ending the practice.

There have been discussions since then on how to achieve this with the departments of agriculture and environmental quality and a number of stakeholder groups including the Oregon Seed Council, according to Carrier.

Carrier acknowledged that the proposal faces opposition. "There are some groups out there that pretty firmly claim there is no alternative to burning," he said.

Part of the plan calls for more and continued funding of research into alternatives to field burning. Another is an experiment, now under way, of making ethanol from grass-seed straw.

Carrier said the governor plans to ask the legislature to replace the 1991 law that sharply reduced field burning with a new one calling for annual reductions in the acreage burned, with the goal of coming "as close to zero as you can."

Burning limits would be cut back starting in 2009, followed by further reductions until the practice is phased out in 2016.

The burning limit each year could be exceeded by propane-flaming up to 37,500 acres "if there's no viable alternative," Carrier said.

At present, depending on weather and other conditions, grass seed farmers in the valley may burn up to 40,000 acres a year plus another 25,000 acres of specified species or terrain, for a total of 65,000 acres.

From the 1940s through the 1980s, valley grass seed growers usually burned more than 250,000 acres a year after harvest to get rid of straw and plant diseases. Since then most of the straw is baled up and exported for livestock feed, and individual fields are burned only rarely.

In 2007, growers paid registration fees on more than 103,000 acres and, on eight days last summer, burned a total of 32,332.

As part of the governor's plan, the DEQ would get an extra $300,000 in the biennial budget to add two jobs, perhaps to be shared with the Department of Agriculture, which runs the state field burning smoke management program.