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November 13, 2015 CapitalPress.com 11 Washington FFA chapters help in aftermath of Chelan wildfire By DAN WHEAT Capital Press KENNEWICK, Wash. — The Kennewick High School FFA chapter had a $2,000 grant from the National FFA Foundation for an alfalfa re- search project. “Then everything broke loose up there and I asked the foundation if we could switch it to an environmental emer- gency grant,” Kennewick FFA advisor Dan White said of the August Chelan wildfire. “So now we’re taking 52 kids for the day on Nov. 14 to help with cleanup and rebuild- ing in Chelan,” he said. The 52 FFA students from Kennewick, Kamiakin, Co- lumbia Burbank, Pasco and New Horizons high schools will join about 50 Lake Chelan High School FFA members. Among the jobs they’ll do is repairing FFA livestock pens at Chelan FFA adviser Rod Cool’s house, which was de- stroyed in the fire. There’s also landscape and brush work to be done there and at Jan Pier- son’s house and orchard. Her late husband, Walt, was Lake Chelan High School FFA ad- viser before Cool. Cascadia Conservation Dis- trict is also helping at her prop- erty. Another project for the day will be helping Tom Ryan, a longtime FFA supporter, re- build corrals and deer fence around his orchard in Antoine Creek north of Chelan. Cool is trying to line up more projects. The owner of a vineyard in Royal City is donat- ing trellis posts for deer fencing. RDO Equipment Co. of Pasco is donating use of a tractor. Half the $2,000 grant will be used to bus the students from the Tri-Cities to Chelan and back. The other half, White said, will buy fencing supplies. “This is the best kind of learning,” White said. “These kids see something in their own back yard and learn each and every one of us can make a dif- ference.” The FFA state officers will also participate, as they did recently in a FFA service day in Louiville, Ky., just before the Oct. 28-31 national FFA convention, said Abbie De- Meerteer, executive director of the Washington FFA in Pull- man. WDFW proposes shifting crop loss expense to farmers Farm Bureau stokes opposition By DON JENKINS Capital Press Dan Wheat/Capital Press Patricia Talcott, WSU veterinary diagnostic toxicologist, answers questions from Ronald Gross, Post Falls, Idaho, after her talk at the Washington State Weed Association’s annual conference in Wenatchee, Wash., Nov. 4. Animal laboratory gets more calls on toxic plant By DAN WHEAT Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — The Washington Animal Disease Diagnostic Laborato- ry received more phone calls about a plant toxic to horses in the past year than it has in the previous 12 years combined. People are probably recog- nizing Hoary alyssum more and it’s probably spreading, said Patricia Talcott, a Wash- ington State University associ- ate professor and veterinary di- agnostic toxicologist at the lab. She spoke to some 500 peo- ple attending the Washington State Weed Association’s 65th annual conference on Nov. 4. The number of calls, now dozens, may be increasing “because a lot of us in the plant world are talking about it more,” Talcott said. Hoary alyssum, listed as a noxious weed in some states, can be found in alfalfa and is toxic to cattle and horses but is more of a problem in horses, she said. At 10 percent of a horse’s feed, it can increase foot tem- perature, which causes swell- ing from the knee down in one or more legs and can turn into laminitis, a crippling disease for which there is no specific treatment, Talcott said. Detection and removal of feed containing Hoary alys- sum can lead to recovery but laminitis can also lead to eu- thanasia, she said. The specific toxin is not known, she said. The USDA ARS Poisonous Plant Labo- ratory in Logan, Utah, might study it if it were more wide- spread and a concern to people, she said. Talcott also talked about several other weeds and a cou- ple of pesticides harmful to horses and cattle. Yellow starthistle and Rus- sian knapweed, in large quanti- ties, impair the part of a horse’s brain that controls swallowing and can lead to euthanasia, she said. Both weeds are common in the West. “Usually we see it with people who move in from oth- er states. They buy a place and think all the purple and yellow flowers in the pastures are beau- tiful and put horses out on it and it kills them,” she said. By far, the most common toxicology problems involve acute nitrate poisoning from pigs weed and lambsquarters, she said. A steady diet of tomato vines can kill pigs and mustard plants and false dandelion are problematic, she said. Paraquat and 2,4-D are the two most common house- hold and farm pesticides that if spilled or used improperly can be poisonous to dogs and other animals, she said. Fresh and spent hops are also toxic to dogs, but poinsettias are not to be feared, Talcott said. “Of 22,000 calls about ex- posure of poinsettias to cats and dogs, 21,000 had no signs,” she said. “The others had mild vom- iting.” Farmers who lose crops to elk or deer would pay up to $600 to file a claim under a policy that the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commis- sion will consider Nov. 13. According to written ad- ministrative rules, the state will pay for an adjuster to as- sess damages. In actual prac- tice, wildlife managers have for several years required the farmer to split the adjuster’s fee with the state, with the farmer’s share capped at $600, WDFW’s game division man- ager, Mick Cope, said. The Fish and Wildlife Commission voted two years ago to bring the written code in line with the department’s practice. Cope said the change was never made because of a technical error. Cope estimated 15 to 30 farmers were charged for ad- juster services over the past two years. WDFW will reim- burse those people, he said. The policy, though adopt- ed in 2013, will come before the commission again as part of an overhaul of rules related to compensating farmers and ranchers for wildlife damage. The Washington Farm Bu- reau sent an email to members Nov. 5 rallying opposition to the adjuster-fee policy. “The department might argue that this $600 will not actually be paid by the farmer since it will be deducted from the final damage claim check issued by the state. But in very real terms it is an automatic $600 deduction off of each reimbursement check a farm- er receives,” according to the farm bureau. Cope said splitting the fee discourages frivolous claims, which could cut into the pot of money WDFW has to pay legitimate claims. The com- pensation program has not been running out of money, he said. Farm Bureau director of government relations Tom Davis said filing a claim is a “hassle” for farmers, who must provide tax records and document yields in previous years. “To me, it’s an unneces- sary slap to a farmer,” he said. “It doesn’t hurt the program Afghanistan ag minister touring West By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press Afghanistan’s minister of agriculture is touring the West to learn more about the U.S. extension system and irriga- tion practices. Minister Assadullah Zamir’s tour included a Ritz- ville, Wash., wheat farm; a Pasco, Wash., potato process- ing facility; Washington State University’s Irrigation Re- search Station in Prosser; the Wheat Marketing Center in Portland and the University of California-Davis. Traveling with him is his secretary, stra- tegic communications adviser and a senior adviser. Last week they met with officials from USDA, the U.S. Agency for International De- velopment and others in Wash- ington, D.C. They return to Afghanistan Nov. 13. The tour was part of a proj- ect involving WSU, UC-Da- vis, Purdue University and the University of Maryland to build an extension service in Afghanistan. “There are a lot of similari- ties between our state and prov- inces in Afghanistan where we work — the cropping systems, rainfall and general climate,” said Kim Castelin, project spe- cialist for WSU’s International Research and Agricultural De- velopment office. Castelin hoped to demon- strate how to raise wheat in low rainfall zones and the pro- ductivity achieved in irrigated agriculture. Other Afghanistan govern- ment employees have toured the U.S., Castelin said, but Zamir is the highest-ranking official. “Having him here in the states to see the land-grant sys- tem we have on the ground is really important in understand- ing the extension system we are recommending and work- ing on improving over there,” she said. Program demonstrations have resulted in some yield increases. “Impact is kind of an inher- ently tricky thing to measure,” Castelin said. “Afghanistan is a tough place to work, it’s a re- ally hard place to collect data from. It really depends on who is measuring and how they’re measuring.” The tours help develop partners willing to work with the project, Castelin said. The project is funded for the next two years. Castelin hopes to see Afghanistan’s ministry and state-level of- ficials start to take over ad- ministration of the extension services in that time. Don Jenkins/Capital Press The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife proposes to split the cost of assessing crop damage from deer and elk with farmers filing the claim. The state now pays for the assessment. (for the state) to pay the full cost of the assessment.” Farmers who have signed damage-prevention agree- ments or followed a WDFW checklist for preventing crop losses are eligible to apply for up to $10,000 in compensa- tion. The damage must be at least $1,000. The commission meeting will begin at 8 a.m. Nov. 13 in the state’s Natural Resourc- es Building, room 172, 1111 Washington St. S.E. in Olym- pia. The commission is sched- uled to take public comments at 8:15 a.m. The commission is scheduled to take up the wildlife interaction rules at 10:30 a.m. Farmers Ending Hunger... Begins With You! Help End Hunger in Oregon... one acre at a time! Farmers Ending Hunger begins with Oregon farmers and ranchers who raise hundreds of acres of produce, grain and cattle. With a little extra effort, each farmer donates an acre or two to feed the hungry and suddenly our network has thousands of tons of fresh food! Farmers Ending Hunger Needs ... Fresh Vegetables, Potatoes, Wheat, and Cattle. • Farmers Ending Hunger donated over SIX MILLION POUNDS of food crops to Oregon Food Bank since 2006! • More than 240,000 people per month eat meals from emergency food boxes. • 33 percent of those who receive emergency food boxes are children. Visit www.farmersendinghunger.com to meet our generous farmers and partners, and find out what crops and services they are donating. Where your donation goes: Donated produce, grain and cattle is processed into canned (and fresh) vegetables, pancake mix and ground beef and donated to the Oregon Food Bank and their network of 20 regional food banks throughout Oregon and Clark County, WA. Please Donate Today: Contact John Burt , Executive Director, Farmers Ending Hunger burtjgb@aol.com 503-931-9232 farmersendinghunger.com Like us on Facebook 46-2/#13