CUSTOMERS REMAIN COMMITTED TO IDAHO WHEAT DESPITE 2014 LOSSES Page 3
Capital
Press
The West s
Weekly
FRIDAY, MARCH 6, 2015
VOLUME 88, NUMBER 10
WWW.CAPITALPRESS.COM
Early
spring
raises
frost
worries
AN ECONOMIC
SPLASH
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Oregon’s vineyards,
wineries emerge as
an outsized ag force
Wikimedia Commons
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
THE DALLES, Ore. —
T
his is a good place to
start talking about the
rippling impact of Ore-
gon’s “alcohol cluster,”
as a state economist calls it. Right
here, on the welding shop fl oor of
AAA Metal Fabrication with fore-
man Antonio Morales, where a
half-dozen stainless steel fermenta-
tion tanks stand in various stages of
production.
The Pacifi c Northwest’s boom-
ing wineries, joined now by brew-
eries, distilleries and hard cider
makers, are clamoring for tanks,
and AAA Metal Fab is one of the
few places that make them.
“We are not able to meet the de-
mand,” company President Chris
Parks says. “It’s a nice problem to
have, let’s put it that way. We see
enough coming into production
that there’s going to be years worth
of tanks needing to be built.”
A January report by Full Glass
Research estimated the Oregon
wine industry alone bought $8.4
million worth of stainless steel
tanks in 2013 as it scrambled to
process increasingly large harvests.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Jon Casteel, who takes his mobile bottling service to Willamette Valley wineries, monitors the equipment
while working at Trisaetum Winery outside Newberg, Ore.
Oregon wineries case sales by market
(Millions of 9-liter cases, excluding international exports)
Oregon
Washington
Direct to consumer
1.87
1.56 1.67
1.56 1.59 0.8 0.83 1.62
0.12
0.44
0.22
2005
Turn to VINEYARDS, Page 12
Other states
2.32
2.62
million
1.3
1.22
0.78
0.12
0.4
0.96
1.98
1.04
0.8
0.77
0.12
0.4
0.12
0.38
$2.00
0.11
0.36
0.13
0.38
0.14
0.39
0.41
’11
0.3
0.34
0.36
0.36
0.4
’06
’07
’08
’09
’10
0.16
0.46
0.48
’12
0.18
0.51
0.63
2013
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Source: Full Glass Research
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
An employee places foil tops on corked
bottles inside a mobile bottling truck
operating at Trisaetum Winery near
Newberg, Ore.
PROSSER, Wash. —
Above normal temperatures in
December and January shot up
even more in February, push-
ing early bud development of
fruit trees and waking up other
plants and crops.
It was 67.5 degrees at the
Washington State University
Tri-Cities campus in Richland
on Feb. 7, which was a Feb-
ruary record at that site, said
Nic Loyd, WSU AgWeather-
Net meteorologist at the WSU
Irrigated Agriculture Research
and Extension Center in
Prosser.
The average February high
at the center in Prosser was
53.5 degrees, which was 6.7
degrees above normal.
“That’s pretty impressive.
It was 13 degrees warmer than
last February, so that’s a big
change,” he said.
It was the warmest Feb-
ruary in Prosser since at least
1990, he said.
The February warmth pro-
vided the early window fruit
tree nurseries needed to fi nish
digging trees for shipment this
spring that was cut off early by
frozen ground Nov. 10.
“We were done the third
week of February. It took us
fi ve days. Everyone I talked
to (other nurseries) got them
out,” said Pete Van Well, pres-
ident of Van Well Nursery,
East Wenatchee.
But the warmth also in-
creases the specter of frosts or
freezes nipping or doing ma-
jor damage to buds before tree
fruit is set, reducing crops.
Frost protection, fi eld heat-
ers and wind machines were
used in the Columbia Basin
and Yakima Valley the last
week of February and first
week of March as nighttime
lows dipped below freez-
ing.
Buds are two to three weeks
ahead of normal throughout
Central Washington, said B.J.
Thurlby, president of North-
west Cherry Growers and the
Washington State Fruit Com-
mission in Yakima.
Turn to FROST, Page 12
Wolf report may be starting point for removal from endangered status
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
Oregon’s latest wolf count
is on the agenda March 6
when the state Fish & Wildlife
Commission meets in Salem.
The commission is due for a
briefi ng on a report that may
serve as the foundation for
removing gray wolves from
Oregon’s endangered species
list later this year.
The 2014 report from de-
partment wildlife biologists
says Oregon has a minimum
of 77 wolves in nine packs.
More importantly, eight of
those packs contained breed-
ing pairs, meaning they had at
least two pups that survived to
the end of the year.
OR-7, the wolf that wan-
dered across the state to
the Rogue River drainage
in southwest Oregon, is
seen in this fi le photo.
State wildlife managers
say at least 77 wolves are
in Oregon.
Under the Oregon wolf
plan, the hard-fought compro-
mise that governs wolf con-
servation and management in
the state, the Oregon Depart-
ment of Fish and Wildlife can
propose delisting if the state
has four or more breeding
pairs for three consecutive
Courtesy of Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife
Turn to REPORT, Page 12
THIS WEEK IN THE CAPITAL PRESS
WASHINGTON
CALIFORNIA
Company builds new apple facility
Farms to lose federal water again
Washington Fruit & Produce Co. began
building a new apple packing plant on the
north edge of Yakima, Wash.
Page 4
Many farms in California’s Central Valley
mayl have to do without federal water again
this year.
Page 7
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