April 24, 2015
CapitalPress.com
15
WSU researcher investigates Industrial reserve
prickly lettuce as rubber source bill falls short in
committee
Weed could also be
possible cover crop
Proposal would have disrupted agriculture,
state land use system, opponents say
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
A Washington State Uni-
versity plant researcher is
exploring the possibility of
Northwest farmers raising
prickly lettuce, a weed, for
rubber production.
When lettuce flowers
and goes to seed, accord-
ing to WSU, a milky white
sap bleeds from the stem.
In prickly lettuce, the sub-
stance could prove to be an
economically viable source
of natural rubber.
The ultimate intent is to
see prickly lettuce used as a
rubber source, since there are
not many good rubber sources
from temperate regions of the
world, said WSU weed scien-
tist Ian Burke, based in Pull-
man, Wash.
Burke is one of the au-
thors of a study in the Jour-
nal of Agricultural and Food
Chemistry.
Most naturally occurring
rubber comes from the rubber
tree, which is an endangered
resource.
“Having a temperate source
of rubber, I think, would be
good,” Burke said. “Figuring
out how to make that work is a
different proposition. There’s a
lot of work to do.”
Lettuce has never formally
been used for rubber, but has
periodically been acknowl-
edged as a good source for
rubber, Burke said. It is cited
in one report as one of the top
five rubber-producing plants
in the world.
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Jared Bell/Washington State University
Washington State University
researchers say the milky sap
in the weed prickly lettuce could
be used as a natural source for
rubber production.
It’s a rare occurrence for a
weed to suddenly be found to
have a useful purpose, he said.
“There are a lot more ex-
amples of the opposite hap-
pening,” he said with a laugh.
“People try plants out to see
if they’ll be crops and they
become weeds — that’s a lot
more common.”
It’s often not so easy to
grow a weed on purpose,
Burke said. Prickly lettuce is
sensitive to downy mildew
and other diseases usually
found in cultivated lettuce.
“Often you discover lim-
itations you didn’t expect,”
Burke said. “I would antici-
pate that with prickly lettuce,
but right now it’s pretty easy
for us to grow.”
It’s not yet clear how much
prickly lettuce would be re-
quired, Burke said.
“We don’t know yet what
it would yield on an acre basis
or how to economically ex-
tract the rubber,” Burke said.
Jim Kennedy/Washington State University
Washington State University researchers are exploring the weed
prickly lettuce as a possible source for rubber production.
The next step is to work to
find an answer to such ques-
tions, he said.
Growers have expressed in-
terest when they hear Burke’s
idea. He hasn’t started work-
ing with any to grow it yet.
“I’m quite sensitive to
the suggestion of growing
weeds,” he said.
Burke hopes to begin
breeding prickly lettuce for
less “weediness” and more
rubber. He hopes to find an
economic way to get the
rubber out of the plant.
Prickly lettuce won’t sur-
pass apples or wheat production
in Washington, Burke said. He
sees it more as a possible cover
crop, with a value-added trait to
help preserve soil and produce
a useful, natural product.
“To make that happen, the
rubber has to be more valu-
able than the energy it takes
to get it out of the fields,”
Burke said.
SALEM — A bill that
would create large-lot in-
dustrial areas outside ur-
ban growth boundaries in
three Oregon counties has
failed to pass a key com-
mittee.
The Oregon Farm Bu-
reau and conservation
groups opposed Senate
Bill 716, which would
have allowed Clackamas,
Washington and Colum-
bia counties to designate
industrial reserves of up
to 500 acres outside an es-
tablished UGB.
Proponents of the bill
claimed that large blocks
of industrial land are cur-
rently rare in the Portland
metropolitan area and
would attract new compa-
nies and jobs to the region
if made available.
Under SB 716, newly
created industrial zones
would be offset by reduc-
ing “urban reserves” in
other areas — which sup-
porters said would result
in no net farmland loss —
but opponents argued that
the program would disrupt
the existing land use sys-
tem.
Large-lot
industrial
reserves would likely be
designated on farmland,
interfering with agricul-
ture and undermining a
“grand bargain” agree-
ment that Oregon law-
makers struck in 2013 to
settle a far-reaching law-
suit over urban and rural
reserves, according to op-
ponents of the bill.
Opponents also feared
that the bill was intended
to spur development in
the “French Prairie” area
south of Wilsonville, Ore.,
which has been designated
as a rural reserve due to
transportation and water
constraints. They instead
urged lawmakers to invest
in “infrastructure” to spur
development in existing
industrial zones.
Members of the Sen-
ate Committee on Envi-
ronment and Natural Re-
sources voted 3-2 against
moving the bill to the Sen-
ate floor with a “do pass”
recommendation during a
work session on April 20.
Committee chair Chris
Edwards, D-Eugene, said
he voted in favor of the
bill because there’s a
shortage of large lots in
the Portland metropoli-
tan area within industrial
zones.
The bill would stim-
ulate needed economic
activity, he said. “Some-
times you’ve got to go
against the grain to make
some changes.”
Turmoil in Yemen stalls 50,000 tons of PNW wheat
Country a top importer of soft white
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Political unrest in Yemen
has stalled offshore several
ships carrying commodities,
including a ship carrying nearly
50,000 metric tons of soft white
wheat loaded in Portland.
According to Reuters,
warships from a Saudi-led
coalition have blocked a ship
carrying more than 47,000
metric tons of wheat from en-
tering a Yemeni port, demand-
ing United Nations guarantees
that the cargo would not go to
military personnel.
The Saudis are concerned
about ships carrying arms to
Houthi rebels, and want to en-
sure that the food being deliv-
ered does not go to them, said
Scott Yates, director of com-
munications for the Washing-
ton Grain Commission.
Yemen has been as high
as the fourth largest importer
of soft white wheat from the
PNW, but has come in fifth
in recent years. Yates said the
ranking will likely decline in
the 2014-2015 marketing year.
The PNW shipped 250,000
metric tons this marketing
year, with no orders on the
books for more, he said. In the
2013-2014 marketing year,
Yemen purchased 353,000
Lorenzen reappointed
to NW Power Council
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Balancing the demands and
capacity of the Northwest’s
electrical power system while
taking wildlife and alternative
energy sources into account
has become an enormously
complex task, a member of the
Northwest Power and Conser-
vation Council says.
Henry Lorenzen, 70, a
Pendleton, Ore., attorney and
third-generation wheat farmer,
recently won unanimous reap-
pointment to the council from
the Oregon Legislature. Oregon,
Washington, Idaho and Mon-
tana each appoint two members
to the council; Oregon’s other
representative is Bill Bradbury,
a former secretary of state.
The council, formed in
1980, is charged with balanc-
ing the region’s energy and
environmental demands, with
special attention to preserving
the Columbia River’s ability to
benefit both.
The region is projected to
have adequate power supply
for the next several years, but
Lorenzen said the Columbia
River hydroelectric system is
nearly “tapped out” in its abil-
ity to cover the fluctuations
of alternative sources such as
wind power.
A wind turbine, common
in the eastern reaches of the
Columbia River Gorge, may
produce 4,200 megawatts of
electricity one day and 100
megawatts the next, depending
on the wind, Lorenzen said.
Balancing the system to
handle peak demand is “enor-
mously complicated” but
makes the council position en-
joyable, he said.
“It’s a wonderful oppor-
tunity to deal with issues at a
policy level, which I am abso-
lutely passionate about,” Lo-
renzen said.
It also allows him to stay
home in Pendleton. Even as
he was leaving for college at
Oregon State University, he
was promising himself that he
would return to the family farm.
He had some marks to make
first. He earned an electrical en-
gineering degree at OSU, then
attended Harvard University for
a master’s degree in business
administration before picking
up a law degree from Lewis &
Clark College in Portland.
He clerked for legendary
federal Judge James Burns, then
spent six years with the U.S. At-
torney’s Office. He did criminal
defense work for one year and
civil litigation for the next five.
But the farm was calling. In
1984, he and his wife, Marcia,
moved back to Pendleton and
he joined a law firm in town.
Among other work, Lorenzen
represented multiple electrical
cooperatives in the region.
He also served on the state
Environmental Quality Com-
mission as it issued the permit
to destroy the nerve gas stored
at the military’s Umatilla de-
pot. At Lorenzen’s suggestion,
the incinerator design included
a carbon filter to capture any
accidental emissions.
metric tons of soft white
wheat, and no other classes.
The market in Yemen is
divided between large flour
millers and home use, where
consumers buy grain, store it at
home and have it ground into
flour at local mills in the village.
Because of the danger, U.S.
Wheat Associates last sent a rep-
resentative into the region rough-
ly five years ago, Yates said.
The commission used to
regularly visit Yemen. Former
CEO Tom Mick, now retired,
visited Yemen roughly sev-
en years ago, and Whitman
County representative Randy
Suess went with him several
years before that.
There were safety concerns
even then, Suess said. Ev-
“It is very sad when food is used
as a tool of war.”
— Scott Yates
Communications Director, Washington Grain Commission
ery time he and Mick would
check into their hotel, their
vehicle would be checked
for possible bombs, and they
were provided an armed driv-
er to take them around.
One of the flour mills
Suess and Mick visited was
recently shelled by terrorists,
Suess said.
“We thought maybe we’d
end up losing some market
shares in that area just be-
cause of the distance and the
expense of transportation to
get it there,” he said. “We
didn’t anticipate it would be
because of terrorism.”
The United States is being
squeezed out of the entire Mid-
dle East region, more because
of the closer proximity of such
exporters as the Black Sea re-
gion, particularly Russia, and
the European Union, Yates said.
The cost to Yemen for wheat
from Portland is around $260
per metric ton, while Russian
grain is about $200 per metric
ton and has a transportation ad-
vantage, Yates said.
U.S. Wheat continues to
service the area, but has shift-
ed focus to Latin America, the
Pacific Rim and to Europe,
Yates said.
Suess hopes the situation
can be worked out, citing the
importance of the Yemen mar-
ket to PNW farmers.
“I hope something can
change to get it back to what
normal was again,” he said.
“It is very sad when food
is used as a tool of war,” Yates
said. “We are very apprecia-
tive of Yemen’s purchases of
soft white over the years and
wish citizens of the country
the very best.”
Washington Senate honors Roseleip
Search for new
president underway
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Retiring
AgForestry
president Dave Roseleip re-
ceived a special honor from
Washington state senators
April 17.
Sen. Mark Schoesler,
R-Ritzville, entered a res-
olution honoring Roseleip,
who leads the Washington
Agriculture and Forestry
Education Foundation, for
his 30-year career. Roseleip
will retire June 30.
The foundation offers
a long-running leadership
development
program.
Participants attend 12
three-day workshops and
spend a week in Washing-
ton D.C. and two weeks
overseas as part of the
two-year program. More
than a thousand members
of Washington’s agricul-
ture industry have gone
through the program.
Roseleip stood on the
Senate floor with Schoesler
and Sen. Linda Evans Par-
lette, R-Wenatchee.
Schoesler graduated from
Class 10 of the program,
Parlette from Class 2.
“Now, therefore, be it
resolved that the Washing-
ton State Senate congratu-
late David Roseleip on an
entire career spent training
two generations of lead-
ers, who include past and
present state senators and
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Washington Agriculture and Forestry Education Foundation president Dave Roseleip sits in his office
in Spokane Dec. 3, 2014. The Washington State Senate honored Roseleip with a resolution April 17.
Online
http: //agforestry.org/
representatives, city and
county
commissioners,
small- and large-acreage
producers, farmers, ranch-
ers and proprietors,” the
resolution reads.
“I’m honored to have
the resolution pass,” Rose-
leip said. “It makes me very
grateful for the friends and
people who have supported
me throughout the journey
of leadership.”
Roseleip graduated from
the foundation’s first lead-
ership class, and took over
as foundation president with
the sixth class.
The deadline for the
38th class of leaders is
April 30. Roseleip said
the foundation is actively
recruited across the state.
There are 24 spots. Rose-
leip expects to receive 35
to 40 applications. Those
who are not accepted
would have to apply at an-
other time.
The succession plan-
ning committee is nearing
the end of their project,
Roseleip said.
He expects his replace-
ment to be announced
around the second week
of May, after the May 9
graduation of Class 36 in
Spokane.