4
CapitalPress.com
November 6, 2015
Strong cranberry crop coincides with Wisconsin’s down year
Cranberry
production down,
consumption up
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Strong Northwest harvests
and a sub-par crop in Wiscon-
sin may boost Washington and
Oregon cranberry growers.
The harvest in Wisconsin,
by far the top cranberry state,
will be below expectations,
holding down total global pro-
duction, according to Ocean
Spray, which takes in more
than half the world’s commer-
cially grown cranberries.
U.S. cranberry growers are
struggling with a huge surplus
driven primarily by large Bad-
ger State crops and increas-
ing production in Canada and
Chile.
A serious supply-and-de-
mand imbalance remains, even
though cranberry consumption
has increased 8 percent in the
past year, according to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture’s
Economic Research Service.
Average prices farmers
receive have been roughly
halved since peaking in 2008.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Guillermina Hernandez pushes cranberries toward a conveyor Sept. 23 during a harvest on the Long
Beach Peninsula in Washington. Washington and Oregon are producing strong harvests, though
global production is expected to be down. The combination may help Northwest growers struggling
with low prices.
“With the anticipated small-
er industry crop, we do not
expect inventories to increase
this year, particularly in light
of the strong demand we have
seen over the past few years,”
Ocean Spray spokeswoman
Sarah Gianti said Tuesday in
an email.
The Massachusetts-based
cooperative, which many
Washington and Oregon
growers belong to, project-
ed in October that the global
crop would reach 12 million
barrels, which would top the
record 11.94 million barrels
harvested in 2013.
With the harvest nearly
over, Ocean Spray forecasts
Truffl es, ‘Idaho’s other tuber,’ start appearing
By SEAN ELLIS
Capital Press
EAGLE, Idaho — A tinge
of excitement is running
through the handful of farmers
in this area who are trying to
grow what they call “Idaho’s
other tuber.”
Paul Beckman, the fi rst
person to plant truffl e-inocu-
lated trees in Idaho, found 3
pounds of the expensive fungi
this spring.
“I found one about the size
of a tennis ball. I don’t know
what that means, but I know
I was happy,” said Beckman,
who has planted about 35 acres
of truffl e-inoculated trees in
the foothills north of Eagle.
Eight other people have
planted about 40 more acres in
the Treasure Valley of South-
western Idaho.
Those other truffl e grow-
ers planted their trees after
Beckman and are hoping his
success is an indication they
will also start fi nding truffl es.
Beckman has been fi nding a
handful of truffl es in his or-
chards for two years.
The truffl es Beckman
found this year are known as
Italian spring white truffl es.
He and other Idaho truffl e
farmers will take their dogs
out into their orchards again
beginning in December to
look for French winter black
truffl es.
He hopes the dogs will
sniff out some black truffl es
this winter.
“We’ll start taking the
dogs up there a little bit lat-
er this year and see if there’s
anything there,” said Brad
Sprenger, whose 10 acres of
trees were planted three years
after those of Beckman, his
neighbor.
Truffl es are a fungus that
never emerges through the
soil and grow near the root
systems of several tree spe-
cies. The fungus, which feeds
off the tree’s nutrients, fetch
between $400 and $1,000 a
pound.
It typically takes eight to
12 years for truffl e-inoculated
the crop will fall short of the
2013 mark and be less than
the 11.81 million barrels
reaped last year. One barrel
equals 100 pounds.
Wisconsin was projected to
produce about 5 million bar-
rels, but winter damage and a
May frost lowered yields, said
Tom Lochner, executive di-
rector of the Wisconsin State
Cranberry Growers Associa-
tion. “I’ve been hearing that
it’s at least a fi rm 10 percent
down,” he said.
Meanwhile,
Northwest
cranberry growers enjoyed
an unusually warm growing
season. “This is the best crop
we’ve ever had,” said Long
Beach, Wash., cranberry
grower Malcolm McPhail.
“It’s pretty much true for
our area here,” he said. “It’s
just kind of a remarkable
year.”
Washington State Univer-
sity horticulturist Kim Patten,
who works with cranberry
growers in both states, said
per-acre yields are high, rival-
ing levels typical for Wiscon-
sin but rarer in the Northwest.
“If we can do that, we can
compete,” he said. “We’re all
excited Wisconsin has an off-
crop this year.”
Gianti said smaller crops
are expected in New Jersey
and Quebec, Canada. Massa-
chusetts and British Colum-
bia, Canada, are expected to
have strong crops, she said.
Ocean Spray took in
430,00 barrels from Chile in
June, almost a record. The
cooperative began taking ber-
Tree fruit plants
rebuilding after fi res
$150 million in facilities, equipment lost in disasters
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Sean Ellis/Capital Press
Paul Beckman, with the help of dogs trained to sniff out truffl es,
looks for truffl es in his orchard north of Eagle, Idaho, in this August
2013 photo. He didn’t fi nd any of the expensive fungus on this hunt
but he did fi nd 3 pounds of truffl es this year.
trees to start producing the tu-
ber-like fungus.
The bulk of Beckman’s
trees are in their seventh year
and while Bitner Winery
owner Ron Bitner’s trees are
a year behind, he’s cautiously
hopeful he will start fi nding
his own soon.
Bitner, a major player in
Idaho’s wine industry, which
is centered in the Treasure
Valley area, said the truffl e
experiment is part of a larger
goal to turn the area into a cu-
linary destination.
“We’re hoping by next
year we’ll start fi nding some,”
he said. “It would be fun to
some day be able to take peo-
ple out truffl e hunting.”
Because it takes eight to
12 years for trees to start pro-
ducing truffl es, people who
want to grow them need a tre-
mendous amount of patience,
Beckman said.
But truffl e growers in this
area expect their orchards
to eventually produce be-
tween 10-30 pounds an acre,
and with truffl es selling
for hundreds of dollars per
pound, the payoff could be
signifi cant.
“It just takes patience but
I think we’ll all be extremely
happy some day,” Beckman
said.
In the meantime, some
Truffles
explained
Truffles are ... Hypogeous
(underground) versions of
mushrooms. They are the “fruit” of
a fungus Ascomycota of the genus
Tuber.
Appearance: They resemble small
potatoes, ranging in size from that
of a marble to a golf ball or larger.
Biology: The fungi of all truffles
form symbiotic relationships with
trees, exchanging nutrients and
water for sugars from the host
plant.
Types: While there are hundreds
of different kinds, only a few are
sought after as a delicacy.
How to find them: Almost
anywhere there are trees; truffles
occur at the interface between
organic litter and the soil. Truffles
emit a strong scent as they mature.
Pigs and dogs have been used for
centuries to detect them.
Photo courtesy of wikipedia.org
Source: North American Truffling Society
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
truffl e growers have started
experimenting with planting
other crops between the rows
of truffl e trees, Beckman said.
“It will be interesting to see
how that evolves,” he said. “It
could give people who plant
truffl es another (revenue) op-
tion.”
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Three tree fruit companies are
in varying stages of rebuild-
ing about $150 million worth
of storage and packing facili-
ties and equipment destroyed
by wildfi res last summer in
Wenatchee and Chelan.
Blue Bird Inc.
Blue Bird, a Peshastin
fruit cooperative, has started
foundation work to replace
110,000 square feet of ware-
house on Walla Walla Ave-
nue in Wenatchee that housed
three cherry packing lines and
an organic apple packing line
— all destroyed June 28 by a
wind-driven wildfi re. About
120,000 square feet of con-
trolled atmosphere and refrig-
erated fruit storage was saved
but needed repairs from smoke
and water damage.
Total loss was $45 million
and was fully covered by in-
surance with no expense to
the 190 grower-members, said
Ron Gonsalves, Blue Bird
general manager.
The loss included a new
$11 million, 28-lane, high-tech
MAF Industries cherry line
that had been in operation just
30 days, $4.5 million worth of
cherries and about 18,000 box-
es of organic apples.
Some 300 cherry pack-
ers saw their seasonal jobs
end early when packing was
switched to Monson Fruit Co.
in Selah.
Organic apple packing
shifted to Blue Bird’s home
plant in Peshastin. Three pack-
ing lines there will run day and
night all winter instead of just
days with four weeks of nights
in the fall, Gonsalves said.
Blue Bird has moved ag-
gressively on reconstruction of
its Wenatchee plant. Demoli-
tion fi nished at the end of Sep-
tember. Foundations and un-
derground services are going
in and “our hope is to be stand-
ing walls by the fi rst week of
December,” Gonsalves said.
The roof will be on and the
building enclosed by mid-Jan-
uary and a new, 42-lane cherry
line with three MAF optical
sizer-sorters will be ready by
mid-May for the start of the
cherry season, he said.
An eight-lane organic apple
line with an upgraded MAF
optical sizer-sorter and auto-
mated bagging is scheduled
for completion by mid-August
in time for the 2016 apple har-
vest.
Stemilt Growers LLC
Near the Blue Bird plant,
Stemilt Growers lost two
Rainier cherry lines and sus-
tained damage to its pear
packing line in its North Mill-
er Street plant.
The company will not
disclose the dollar or square
footage losses and is still as-
sessing the pear line with an
insurance company, said Rog-
er Pepperl, Stemilt marketing
director. He would not say
whether the facility is totaled,
how much is covered by in-
surance and whether it will be
rebuilt.
About a month ago,
Stemilt began building a re-
placement high-tech Raini-
er cherry packing line at its
main Olds Station plant in
Wenatchee, Pepperl said. He
would not disclose the cost
but said it will be operational
for the 2016 cherry season.
Stemilt modernized a
mothballed pear packing line
at its former Dovex facility on
Euclid Avenue in Olds Station
and is packing pears there and
storing them there and nearby
at the main Olds Station plant.
“We will make some fur-
ther investment in pears, but
right now we’re packing at
Euclid,” Pepperl said.
Stemilt has been able to
handle all of its storage and
packing needs from the fi re
at other company plants. It
helps, he said, that this fall’s
industrywide apple crop is
about 25 million boxes — or
19 percent — smaller than
last fall’s.
Employees were moved to
other plants but not laid off
because of the fi re, he said.
LEGAL
45-4/#4x
PURSUANT TO ORS
CHAPTER 87
Notice is hereby given that the
following vehicle will be sold, for
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Reputed owner(s)
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ries from the South American
country in 2012.
While foreign production
has increased in the past sev-
eral years, so has U.S. produc-
tion. The cranberry inventory
before this fall’s harvest be-
gan was 9.1 million barrels,
according to the federal Cran-
berry Marketing Committee.
In a September market out-
look, the USDA’s Economic
Research Service said anoth-
er large crop likely will put
more downward pressure on
prices. The cranberry industry
reduced surpluses in 2001 and
2002 with federally approved
volume controls. The USDA
this year rejected a request
from the industry to order
production cutbacks, saying it
was concerned U.S. growers
were conspiring with Canadi-
an growers to limit supply.
Lochner said he doubts
volume controls can be used
again. “If Canada doesn’t
agree to limit harvests, it’s
going to be very diffi cult for
U.S. growers to say, ‘We’re
going to cut back produc-
tion,’” he said.
The USDA has supported
the industry by buying large
amounts of cranberries for
schools and food banks.
Chelan Fruit Co-op
Forty miles north of
Wenatchee, Chelan Fruit Co-
operative plans to replace by
Sept. 1, 2016, $80 million
worth of equipment and facil-
ities that were destroyed in an
Aug. 14 wildfi re.
“It was a terrible disaster
that we’re turning to an oppor-
tunity,” said Reggie Collins,
Chelan Fruit general manager.
“We know it will be positive
for our growers and their re-
turns.”
Chelan Fruit lost its Plant
No. 1 after lightning struck
Chelan Butte and fi re blew
into town.
The plant included nine
buildings totaling 240,000
square feet, a pre-size apple
line and two apple packing
lines. It had space for 111,000
bins of controlled atmo-
sphere storage, 23,000 bins
of regular storage, 10,000
bins of pre-sized storage and
200,000 boxes of packed
fruit. The fi re also destroyed
225,000 empty bins and oth-
er equipment.
About 450,000 boxes of
packed fruit from the 2014
harvest was lost at a value of
around $8 million. A couple
thousand bins of early 2015
Gala apples were lost.
Next door, Plant No. 2
sustained smoke and cosmet-
ic damage and was quickly
cleaned, fi xed and returned to
operation.
Insurance will replace ev-
erything without any cost to
the 300 grower-members,
Collins said.
Chelan Fruit secured con-
trolled atmosphere storage and
empty bins from Gold Digger
in Oroville, Gebbers Farms
in Brewster, Manson Fruit
Cooperative in Manson and
Columbia Fruit Packers and
Custom Apple Packers, both
in Wenatchee.
That help, the smaller crop
and double-shifting at its other
packing facilities is enabling
Chelan Fruit to handle the crop
“as normal with no additional
stress on us as to when to pack
and sell,” Collins said.
Plant No. 1 demolition is
in fi nal stages. The plant will
be rebuilt with new controlled
atmosphere and refrigeration
technology replacing that of
the 1970s, he said.
Company offi cials have
visited tree fruit plants in
Washington,
California,
France and Poland and is look-
ing at MAF or Compac for the
new pre-sizer, he said.
“We’re looking into as
much robotic equipment as
possible. The old pre-sizer
took 50 people to run and the
new one should be 10,” he
said.
No one will lose their jobs,
he said, because the co-op has
been short packing workers.