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April 10, 2015 CapitalPress.com 15 Newhouse leads letter for guestworker reform By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Any bills to stem the flow of illegal immigration must be accompanied by reforms that give farmers access to a legal, reliable and stable workforce, 61 members of Congress say in a letter to the House leadership. Freshman Rep. Dan New- house, R-Wash., whose district has a lot of labor-dependent agriculture, initiated the March 30 letter to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Judicia- ry Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. The letter is signed by 55 Republicans and six Democrats in agricultural districts across the nation. That’s a “fairly impressive start” and shows a movement to bring balance to House im- migration reform, said Mike Gempler, executive director of Washington Growers League in Yakima, Wash., in Newhouse’s district. Enforcement-only bills are unlikely to make it through the Senate, he said. The letter notes the commit- tee has begun consideration of immigration enforcement legis- lation such as E-verify, a com- puter-based means of checking the employment eligibility of new hires. While supportive of E-verify, the members wrote that enforcement of it without strong reforms to assure ade- quate farm labor will cause se- rious problems. “Our farmers and ranchers must have access to a legal and reliable workforce in order to provide the world with a safe and abundant supply of food,” the letter states. “It is imperative that any effort to implement E-veri- fy be coupled with a solution to agriculture’s unique labor needs. Failure to couple these reforms together would create an unworkable situation for American agriculture,” the let- ter states. They feared that E-verify enacted alone would eliminate what government, industry and labor unions have estimated as about 70 percent of the nation’s agricultural workforce that is in the country illegally. The current H-2A foreign guestworker visa program for agricultural workers is unwork- able and supplies only 10 per- cent of agricultural workers and doesn’t provide for dairy at all, the letter states. Solutions range from amending the H-2A program to replacing it with a new pro- gram. Signers of the letter include California Democrats Jim Cos- ta and John Garamendi and California Republicans David Valadao, Devin Nunes, Doug LaMalfa, Jeff Denham and Ken Calvert. Signers include Oregon Democrats Suzanne Bonamici and Kurt Schrader. There’s also Idaho Republi- can Mike Simpson and Wash- ington Republicans Newhouse, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dave Reichert and Jaime Her- rera Beutler. Other signers are from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Flor- ida, Kentucky, Tennesee, Lou- isiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Ohio, In- diana, Arkansas, Colorado and Nevada. There were no signers from Texas or Arizona. Gempler said he’s disappointed and sur- prised by that. A well-designed guestworker program will help control illegal immigration, he said. Stripe rust forecast Sprayer drone suited to awkward terrain ‘severe’ for Pacific Unmanned helicopter tested for pesticide Northwest wheat is applications By MATTHEW WEAVER Capital Press By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Experts say the likelihood of stripe rust outbreaks in the Northwest is severe, and they advise wheat farmers to moni- tor their fields. USDA Agricultural Re- search Service research geneti- cist Xianming Chen upped his stripe rust forecast from mod- erate to severe after finding the wheat fungus in research plots in Walla Walla, Wash. The relatively warm winter allowed stripe rust to survive, Chen said. Chen said this year will not be as bad as 2011, when a warmer winter and heavy fall infections promoted the disease throughout the Northwest. Unusually early cold weather in November 2014 killed the rust in much of north- ern Washington, but the disease did survive in the southern por- tion of the state, he said. The fall infection was not heavy, he said. This year may be similar to 2010, when rust started normally, but weather conditions in May and June were wet and cool, al- lowing rust to develop quickly. The best conditions for rust are about 50 degrees Fahrenheit at night and 65-70 degrees during the day, Chen said. “At this point, things are hold- ing, but if we continue to have this type of warm weather, the pathogen’s going to like it,” Or- egon State University Extension cereals specialist Mike Flowers said. “We’re just going to con- tinue to have to fight it. It might be another tough year where we have to make multiple applica- tions (of fungicide) in some areas to control rust.” Flowers has received reports of rust in Sherman County. Chen recommends farm- ers plant spring wheat varieties that are resistant to stripe rust, if The possibility of using un- manned aerial vehicles for pes- ticide spraying is more than just hype, according to an agricultur- al engineering expert. The excitement over drones has led farmers and entrepre- neurs to conjure up many po- tential uses for the devices, said Ken Giles, a biological and agri- cultural engineering professor at the University of California-Da- vis. “When you have a new hammer, everything looks like a nail,” he said at the recent Pre- cision Farming Expo in Salem. However, Yamaha’s R-Max helicopter shows promise in spraying pesticides in areas that are challenging for conventional ground and aerial applicators, Giles said. Wine grapes and other spe- cialty crops are sometimes grown in irregular configura- tions on slopes and in the vicin- ity of trees — awkward condi- tions for existing spray systems but ideal for unmanned aerial vehicles, he said. Tests conducted in 2013 and 2014 show that the UAV can treat 3 to 7 acres per hour, compared to an acre per hour or less with ground-based sprayers, Giles said. In terms of chemical depo- sition on the crop surface, the Capital Press FARM INSURANCE Apple commission discusses GM position Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — The Washington apple indus- try opposed USDA approval of genetically-modified apples, not on the science but on po- tential damage to apple sales. But now that propagation and sales of GM apples has been approved in the U.S. and Canada, the Washington Ap- ple Commission is discussing its future position. Commission President Todd Fryhover has said the commission will need to ed- ucate the public that Wash- ington apples are not GM apples, but at a March 24 commission meeting he said: “We support sound science is our position.” Washington growers may need to plant GM apples for scab resistance or some oth- er reason 10 years down the road, he said. “There will come a day when we have to address it and there are a lot of foreign countries that won’t accept GE products, period,” he said. The apple industry has benefited tremendously from science and it’s “crystal clear” the science behind GM apples is sound, Fryhover wrote in a recent opinion piece in Good Fruit Grower magazine. In today’s world of instant communications through hand-held devices, public opinion can be shaped on emo- tion and scant factual informa- tion, Fryhover noted. More assets need to be allocated toward increasing fresh apple consumption than defending merits of GM ap- ples, he wrote. He questioned the need for GM apples, say- ing the industry is providing higher quality apples without genetic modification. While GM apples won’t be on the market for several years, they raise many mar- keting questions and how the industry differentiates and educates is key in cost to the grower, Fryhover wrote. In the meeting, Fryhover said a dozen environmental organizations are asking fast food restaurants for commit- ments to not buy genetical- ly-modified apples and pota- toes. “Do we support labeling?” he asked commissioners. “Technical groups have to advocate for sound science, but as marketers we have to take retailer leads and retailers will tell us to find sound con- sumers,” said West Mathison, president of Stemilt Growers Inc., Wenatchee, and a com- missioner. “The industry needs to be for sound science, but we don’t have a lot of leverage to do other than what retailers say,” he said. Do You Have the Right Coverage? 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For example, by the time an automated asparagus harvester was developed, the U.S. aspara- gus industry was already greatly diminished, Zhang said. “We cannot wait, we need to react now,” he said. www.RainandHail.com Rain and Hail Northwest Division 200 North Mullan Rd Suite 111 Spokane, WA 99206 1-800-967-8088 15-1/#14 Corvallis, OR 15-1/#5 Customized Insurance Plans to fit your farming operation Clarkston, WA Genesee, ID (509) 758-5529 (208) 285-1661 Nezperce, ID ˚ (208)˚937-9816 http://stonebrakermcquary.com 15-1/#14 By DAN WHEAT ing studies in the U.S. to assure pesticide and aviation regulators that the device can be used safe- ly here. Using ground-based robots in specialty crop production also presents opportunities but such technology continues to face practical challenges, said Qin Zhang, director of Washington State University’s Center for Precision Agricultural Systems. Advanced robots are used in manufacturing but agriculture poses unique problems for such machines, he said. Identifying and harvesting fruit, for exam- ple, is difficult in a biological system. “Every tree is different, ev- ery apple is growing in a dif- ferent location and orientation,” 15-1/#14 possible. He acknowledged that farmers also consider other fac- tors, such as yield and quality. Winter wheat farmers should include a fungicide with a herbi- cide if they have a variety that’s susceptible to stripe rust or if they see rust in their fields, Chen said. Tubbs 06, Xerpha and Clear- field 102 are moderately suscep- tible varieties, Chen said. Flowers hopes farmers con- tinue to plant more resistant va- rieties, noting the OSU variety Bobtail has strong resistance. He recommends growers scout their fields and speak with neighbors to find out what’s happening. “If rust starts to show up and you’ve got susceptible varieties, that’s when you need to be par- ticularly attentive and get pre- pared to make fungicide appli- cations,” he said. “When it pops up, you need to pull the trigger and make an application.” unmanned helicopter performed the same as aerial and ground applications, he said. Chemicals were applied more uniform- ly with the UAV compared to ground spraying because of the air movement caused by its ro- tors, Giles said. A drawback of the technolo- gy is that the helicopter can only hold up to 4.2 gallons of liquid, he said. The capacity constraints will necessitate working with concentrated levels of chemi- cals. “We are sensitive to payload limitations and this will certain- ly be a factor in any spraying that we do,” Giles said. The UAV is already used by farmers in Japan on rice fields but the university is conduct- 15-1/#14 Courtesy of Chris Mundt, OSU A “severe” warning for stripe rust has been issued in the Northwest. Experts urge grow- ers to scout their fields for the fungal disease. Matuesz Perkowski/Capital Press Mark Koball of DropCopter, left, speaks with Steve Markofski of the Yamaha Motor Corp. next to the Yamaha RMax drone display at the Precision Farming Expo in Salem.