February 27, 2015
CapitalPress.com
13
Fruit companies join forces
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Barley is harvested in Soda Springs, Idaho, on Aug. 20. The Idaho
Barley Commission has received $382,088 in research funding
requests for 2016.
Idaho Barley Commission
mulls research requests
Capital Press
BOISE — Idaho Barley
Commission members are
excited about the quality of
research funding requests
they’ve received for fiscal
year 2016.
Finding enough money to
fund them all could be a chal-
lenge.
“We have an excellent
group of proposals. It’s the
best I’ve seen during my time
on the commission,” said IBC
member Pat Purdy, who is
serving his third year on the
commission.
The commission, which
funded $322,507 worth of
research proposals in fis-
cal 2015, received a total of
$382,088 in research funding
requests for 2016.
But because of significant
losses due to record August
rains, the commission will
have less money this year.
As of Feb. 13, with more
than four months left in fiscal
2015, the commission was
down more than $90,000 in
Idaho barley checkoff receipts
compared with the same time
last year.
“We have to balance the
reality of reduced income
with a lot of great research
proposals,” Purdy said.
Commissioners will decide
which projects to fund during
a March conference call.
The IBC’s current budget
is $681,00 and the commis-
sion is going to be careful
about dipping into its com-
paratively small reserve of
$358,000, said IBC Adminis-
trator Kelly Olson.
Eight of the 12 research
funding requests are for ongo-
ing projects. Three of the four
new projects are proposed by
Chris Rogers, University of
Idaho’s new barley agrono-
mist, and each of them are in
the area of fertility research.
Fertility and agronomic re-
search is what the commission
had in mind when it agreed to
fund a $1 million research en-
dowment at UI that helps fund
Rogers’ position, Olson said.
“We think we need to have
a much better understanding
of cost-effective, sustainable
fertility practices,” she said.
Two of Rogers’ proposals
deal with developing new soil
test methods for determining
recommendations for nitro-
gen and phosphorous appli-
cations.
Phosphorous and nitrogen
are barley’s two main fertility
costs and the soil test method-
ology used by Idaho growers
is more than a decade old, Ol-
son said.
Purdy said that technical
data has not been applied to
the malting barley varieties
and cropping rotations being
used today.
“It’s very important we get
those recommendations up-
dated,” he said.
Rogers has asked for
$22,370 for the nitrogen study
and $15,140 for the phospho-
rous study.
He has also asked for
$10,420 to study how dryland
barley grain yields are affect-
ed by nitrogen source rate and
timing.
The other new proposal is
by UI cropping systems agron-
omist Xi Liang, who wants to
study the effects of barley yel-
low dwarf virus on water and
nitrogen use in barley.
Olson said UI has its deep-
est bench of cereal scientists
in decades and the commis-
sion received proposals from
all of them.
“The challenge for us is to
have the resources to fund the
(research),” she said.
IBC member Timothy Pel-
la said the commission will do
its best to fund as much of the
research as possible. “There
are some great projects and I
think growers will see some
real value from them.”
Beef, pork groups critical
of dietary recommendations
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Organizations representing
beef and pork producers are pro-
testing proposed dietary recom-
mendations that advise Ameri-
cans to reduce their intake of red
and processed meats.
That recommendation was
included in a nearly 600-page
report released Feb. 19 by the
2015 Dietary Guidelines Advi-
sory Committee.
The report will be used by
USDA and the Department of
Health and Human Services to
update the federal government’s
Dietary Guidelines for Ameri-
cans, which influence consumer
eating patterns and medical rec-
ommendations and form the ba-
sis of federal nutrition programs,
including school lunches.
“The report is very incon-
sistent and misleading,” said
Shaylene McNeill, a registered
dietitian and executive director
of human nutrition for the Na-
tional Cattlemen’s Beef Associ-
ation.
There are plenty of studies
showing the beneficial role of
beef in a healthy diet, and there’s
no reason for Americans to re-
duce their intake, she said.
Beef fits into a healthy di-
etary pattern and protects Amer-
icans from nutrient shortfalls.
Every 3-ounce serving of beef
delivers 10 essential nutrients
and only 150 calories, she said.
“When it comes to nutrient
enrichments, beef is unparal-
leled,” she said.
McNeill said recommenda-
tions to cut back on red meat
since the 1970s have had un-
intended consequences. Amer-
icans replaced those calories
with refined grains and sugar,
and obesity rates rose signifi-
cantly, she said.
She said research shows that
high-quality protein helps sat-
isfy appetites longer so people
stick to a healthy diet, and peo-
ple enjoy eating beef.
The 2015 guidelines recom-
mend 12.5 ounces of red meat
per week, and Americans are
consuming an average of 11
ounces. That would suggest a
needed increase in consump-
tion, she said.
“It makes absolutely no
sense to recommend lowering
intake,” she said.
National Pork Producers
Council said the advisory com-
mittee has taken the wrong ap-
proach and was more interest-
ed in addressing what’s trendy
among “foodies” rather than
providing science-based advice.
will have a 500,000-bin ca-
pacity if running two shifts.
“We will run at half that, so
we will have room to grow,”
Gardner said.
Larson and Valley both
needed new packing lines
for productivity and quali-
ty improvements to remain
competitive, Garner said. A
minimum of 200,000 bins of
apples were needed for pack-
ing to justify costs, he said.
Neither company had that
volume alone but together
will pack 250,000 bins or 4.5
million, 40-pound boxes of
apples, he said.
Legacy also will pack
16,000 bins of pears and some
apples at what has been the
Larson warehouse in Selah.
Joint packing allows for
joint management and “al-
lowed us to attract some very
skilled employees from the
outside,” Gardner said.
While the consolidation
was planned before a huge
2014 apple crop was harvested
and prices fell, Gardner said it
will be very difficult for small-
to medium-size packers to re-
main competitive in the long
term. Cost of labor, land, or-
chard development and pack-
ing all requires “pretty signifi-
cant financial resources to stay
in the game,” he said.
Larson and Valley will
package cherries separately,
he said.
Larson is a third-genera-
tion company, owned by Bar-
bara Walkenhauer and Keith
Larson, that started as a pack-
ing shed in Selah in the mid-
1930s. Valley is a third-gen-
eration company that started
with orchards and moved into
packing in the 1990s. It is
owned by Peter Verbrugge,
John Verbrugge, Mary Jacky
and Carol Buckingham.
Novel breeding approach yields new Russet Burbank lines
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Though Russet Burbank re-
mains king of potato varieties
135 years after it was first
developed, it’s functionally
sterile and has seldom been
used in breeding.
Canadian researcher Dan-
ielle J. Donnelly is changing
that with an unusual approach
to breeding spuds from only
one parent, called somaclonal
selection.
Donnelly, an associate
professor of plant science
with McGill University in
Quebec, started the project
in 2005 and hopes to have
her first four improved Rus-
set Burbank lines released
by this time next year. Her
advanced lines are in the fi-
nal year of variety trials,
and she’s expanding seed in
preparation for their release
in the U.S. and Canada.
Potato seed is commonly
propagated from tissue cul-
tures — made by exposing
stem cuttings to a growth me-
dium — that produce iden-
tical clones. Donnelly starts
her plantlets from a small
piece of a Russet Burbank
tuber, exposed to a medium
that triggers sprout growth
from the plant’s natural in-
clination to heal wounded
tissue. Plantlets originating
from rapidly growing wound-
ed tissue, however, can vary
significantly from the parent.
In addition to greater
yield, lower sugar levels and
improved storage, Donnel-
ly’s advanced lines were bred
to pack more nutrients and
antioxidants.
“There has never been
enough emphasis on select-
ing potatoes for nutritional
quality,” Donnelly said.
She said two of her lines
yielded surprisingly strong
compared with standard Rus-
set Burbank, and if the results
are the same in this season’s
trials “we’ll have a lot to ad-
vertise.”
Donnelly and her gradu-
ate students first investigat-
ed the type of mutation that
occurred in Burbank to form
Russet Burbank in 2008,
demonstrating the most pop-
ular potato resulted from a
single parent rather than a
cross. Three years later, they
won the Potato Association
of America’s outstanding
paper when they offered the
“first description of a new
technique for breeding (pota-
toes) in many years.”
Courtesy of McGill University
Danielle Donnelly, an associate professor of plant science with
McGill University in Quebec, Canada, examines a plantlet resulting
from one of four advanced lines she’s developed from Russet
Burbank, which is a sterile variety.
In 2014, they collaborated
with a nutritionist and pub-
lished findings in the Ameri-
can Journal of Potato Research
about using the method to en-
hance nutrition.
North Carolina State Uni-
versity potato and sweet po-
tato breeder Craig Yencho
believes conventional breed-
ing remains the most effec-
tive way to incorporate desir-
able traits of parents, without
genetic modification. With
the wide range of germplasm
and the broad availability of
genetic markers to assist with
selections, he doubts subtle
differences achieved through
somaclonal variation would
make for an efficient breed-
ing method.
“I think you produce bet-
ter genotypes in the long
run using traditional breed-
ing,” Yencho said.
But he acknowledges the
industry may be interested in
improving on already proven
varieties.
Donnelly believes the best
application for the technol-
ogy is to improve on sterile
varieties, or to give advanced
lines in development an add-
ed “boost.”
Yencho’s colleague at
North Carolina State, crop
science professor Ron Qu,
has used somaclonal vari-
ation to develop a new turf
grass cultivar from St. Au-
gustine grass. Qu said he and
his colleagues are in the pro-
cess of attempting to com-
mercialize the new cultivar,
which is soft with small and
compact leaves.
“People have used tissue
culture to identify some vari-
ations,” Qu explained. “They
don’t know whether it’s a
gene mutation or not, so they
call it a different term, which
is somaclonal variation.”
Northwest Bison Association
Spring Meeting
Saturday, March 14 th • Enumclaw, WA
Park Center Hotel
9-2/#14
By SEAN ELLIS
WAPATO, Wash. — Val-
ley Fruit III of Wapato and
Larson Fruit Co. of Selah
have formed a new company,
Legacy Fruit Packers, to build
a $17 million apple-packing
plant in Wapato.
The collaboration has been
in the works a year with Leg-
acy commencing business on
Jan. 1, said Dean Gardner,
CEO of all three companies.
“This is two viable ware-
houses agreeing to merge their
operations to have enough
capital to build a new packing
plant and remain competi-
tive,” Gardner said.
Valley and Larson will
maintain separate orchard
operations but will pack ap-
ples together in Wapato and
pears in Selah. Together with
Olympic Fruit, Moxee, they
already own and sell their
fruit through Sage Fruit Co.,
Yakima.
The new plant is a reno-
vation of three Valley Fruit
warehouses in Wapato, turn-
ing them into one and replac-
ing pre-size, tray-pack and
bag lines with one commit-to-
pack apple line. It will have
72 packing drops that will be
able to do trays, bags, pouch-
es and all types of packaging
available today, Gardner said.
Renovation
of
the
85,000-square-foot facility is
just wrapping up and United
Sales, Yakima, will begin in-
stalling the new line March 1,
he said. It will feature a high-
tech sizer and defect sorter
made by Greefa in The Neth-
erlands, he said. It will be the
largest Greefa installation in
the U.S., he said.
It will be operational for
the 2015 crop on Sept. 1 and
ROP-8-6-4/#16