10 CapitalPress.com
January 29, 2016
Washington
New tree fruit specialist meets growers
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Hundreds of tree fruit growers
in Northcentral Washington
received their first intro-
duction to the region’s new
Washington State University
Extension tree fruit specialist
at annual meetings held Jan.
18 through 21.
Tianna DuPont emceed
Stone Fruit Day, Pear Day and
Apple Day at the Wenatchee
Convention Center and a sim-
ilar meeting in Chelan. She
later said she enjoyed meeting
many growers and hearing
about what they’re doing.
“I’m excited to continue
providing spaces for learning
and understanding and how
to best apply research,” she
said. “That was my emphasis
in Pennsylvania and is key to
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Tianna DuPont, WSU Extension
tree fruit specialist for Northcen-
tral Washington.
the position here.”
Her research in Pennsyl-
vania was in soil quality, or-
ganics and ways to use cover
crops and other biorenovation
strategies, which are import-
ant in tree fruit.
DuPont asked growers to
complete a questionnaire on
their needs to help her prior-
itize her work. She said she
enjoys holding field days,
farm trials and small, partici-
patory study circles. She said
she likes working with young
growers to keep the next gen-
eration coming along. DuPont
succeeded Tim Smith, Nov.
1, who held the position for
32 years and retired Aug. 1,
2014.
DuPont grew up near Is-
saquah, graduated from Whit-
man College in Walla Walla
in 2001 with a bachelor of
science degree in environ-
mental studies. She received
her master’s in integrated pest
management from University
of California-Davis in 2008.
She was a sustainable ag-
riculture and vegetable and
small fruit educator for Penn
State University in Nazareth,
Pa., from 2008 into the fall of
2015. She worked with organ-
ics, soil health, cover crops,
reduced tillage, grazing and
new farmers. Previously, she
was an agricultural extension
specialist for the Peace Corps,
teaching fruit and vegetable
production and pest manage-
ment in Bolivia.
Her WSU job is applied
research and extension. She
will do field research with im-
mediate application to the tree
fruit industry and will trans-
late and disseminate her own
research and research of oth-
ers to the industry and public.
The position is entirely sup-
ported by WSU. Her annual
salary is $65,000, according
to the state Office of Financial
Management.
Her office is at the WSU
Tree Fruit Research and Ex-
tension Center, 1100 N. West-
ern Ave. Smith’s office was
at the Chelan County Court-
house.
State agencies unload on truck weight bill
Wheat and wine
growers advocate
for measure
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — A bill to in-
crease the weight limit for
trucks carrying agricultural
products has run into road-
blocks from the Washington
Department of Transporta-
tion and the State Patrol.
Agency representatives
warned the Senate Transpor-
tation Committee on Mon-
day that heavier trucks are
less safe and tear up roads
faster.
“We would encourage
you to not take lightly the
increase in weight,” WSP
legislative analyst Melissa
Van Gorkom said.
Senate Bill 6265 would
raise the per-axle weight
limit to 22,000 from 20,000
pounds for farm products
traveling on state roads. The
new limit would not apply to
trucks on federal interstate
highways.
“We think this is a good
way to get our crops harvest-
ed and hauled in from fields
safely and efficiently, espe-
cially when we have a short
time during harvest to get
this accomplished,” Wash-
ington Association of Wheat
Growers lobbyist Diana Car-
len said.
The Washington Associa-
tion of Wine Grape Growers
also testified in support of
the bill.
In an admittedly rough
estimate, DOT projected that
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
A truck carrying hay travels west in Washington state. A bill proposed by a Yakima senator would raise
weight limits for truck carrying agricultural goods on state roads. The higher limit would not apply to
federal interstate highways.
raising the weight limit by
2,000 pounds per axle for
farm trucks would increase
the cost of maintaining roads
by $15 million to $25 mil-
lion a year.
Maintaining
bridges
would cost $32 million a
year, according to DOT’s
estimate. DOT assumed the
heavier loads would short-
en the lives of some 1,800
bridges to 65 years from 75
years, forcing the state to re-
place them sooner.
DOT’s director of con-
struction, Chris Christopher,
said raising the weight limit
by 10 percent would trans-
late into a 50 percent in-
crease in wear and tear.
“Our current bridges and
pavements were not de-
signed for this additional
loading,” he said.
The bill, as introduced,
would apply year-round to
all agricultural products, in-
cluding timber.
The bill’s prime sponsor,
Transportation
Commit-
tee Chairman Curtis King,
R-Yakima, said he planned
to continue working on the
bill and taking a closer look
at how much road construc-
tion costs would increase.
“Our intent is to help the
farmers,” he said.
A bill introduced last year
to increase load limits on
tires to 600 from 500 pounds
per inch of tread encoun-
tered similar concerns about
wear and tear on pavement.
The bill failed to pass.
Congress froze weight
limits on interstate high-
ways in 1991. A proviso in
a congressional spending
bill passed late last year au-
thorized Idaho to raise truck
weight limits to 129,000
from 105,000 pounds.
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Netting covers apple trees at Zirkle Fruit Co.’s CRO Orchard south
of Rock Island, Wash., on June 8, 2015. Netting has many bene-
fits, new research shows.
Research reveals benefits
of netting apple trees
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
Netting over apple trees has
been used for hail, wind and
bird protection but new re-
search by Washington State
University shows many other
benefits.
Netting reduces heat, sun-
burn, light intensity and soil
temperatures but increases
photosynthesis, says Lee Kalc-
sits, tree fruit physiologist
at the WSU Tree Fruit Re-
search and Extension Center.
He spoke at the Northcentral
Washington Apple Day at the
Wenatchee Convention Center
on Jan. 21.
The educational day was
sponsored by WSU Extension
and the Northcentral Washing-
ton Fieldmen’s Association.
“Our long summer days
and high light intensity creates
stress on trees,” Kalcsits said.
Research on a McDougall
& Sons orchard near Quin-
cy and trees at the center in
Wenatchee measured the ef-
fect of red, blue and pearl
colored netting above trees,
in tree canopies and soil. Sen-
sors measuring temperatures,
wind speed, soil moisture,
leaf photosynthesis and other
aspects created a lot of online
data that’s still being pro-
cessed, Kalcsits said.
Different colors of netting
modify the spectrum of light
reaching trees and may result
in different physiological re-
sponses that are still to be de-
termined, he said.
There was little difference
in mean temperature and rela-
tive humidity above trees with
netting versus those without,
but there was a 40 percent re-
duction in wind speed “which
is pretty significant,” Kalcsits
said.
Humidity was higher in-
side tree canopies, indicating
trees were more active, he
said. Sunburn was less under
netting, he said.
Thermal imaging camer-
as on an 85-degree day mea-
sured fruit surface tempera-
ture at 105 degrees outside the
netting and 90 degrees under
the netting, he said. Those
differences become greater
as temperatures get higher, he
said.
The soil temperature of
trees under netting was 2 to 4
degrees lower and soil mois-
ture was 2 percent higher,
which again is “pretty signif-
icant” and good for roots, he
said.
Photosynthesis rates in
leaves outside netting are
low in the morning, then in-
crease in late morning before
dropping off in the afternoon,
Kalcsits said. Under netting
it doesn’t drop off until later
afternoon, so trees are less
stressed, he said.
“Washington normally has
more light than leaves can use
and if light intensity is too
high for too long it can cause
damage,” he said.
Netting reduces light in-
tensity 20 percent without
harming photosynthesis, and
in some cases may help it, he
said.
The research project was
funded by the Washington
Tree Fruit Research Commis-
sion in Wenatchee, but will
continue through 2018 with
federal funding, he said.
More study on the effect of
different colored netting and
measurement of water savings
is yet to be done, he said. It’s a
big savings if netting replaces
or reduces overhead sprinkler
cooling, he said.
Netting can last seven to
10 years, with blue holding up
better than red, he said. Costs
depend on the density of poles
and whether netting is retrofit-
ted to an existing orchard or
installed with a new planting,
he said. More poles make a
stronger structure but add cost.
Systems can run $9,000 to
$12,000 per acre or $3,000 to
$5,000 if simpler, he said.
Cultivating conference in Spokane covers value, future of co-ops
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
SPOKANE — The Cul-
tivating Cooperative Roots
Conference will be Feb. 5-7
at the Spokane Convention
Center.
The event is a forum for
cooperative members from
all sectors to share their best
practices, said Diane Ga-
5-7/#5
saway, executive director of
Northwest Cooperative De-
velopment Center in Olym-
pia, the organization putting
on the conference.
“There are lessons that all
cooperatives can learn from
one another,” she said. She
pointed to similar practices
for governance, communica-
tion, marketing and access to
financing in the agriculture,
health care, financing and
building sectors.
5-1/#4x
Online
http://roots.nwcdc.coop/
The conference is aimed at
members of existing co-ops
and people looking to start a
co-op or who have recently
started one.
“Co-ops are a response
to market failure,” Gasaway
said. “They’re not easy busi-
nesses to maintain. It really
needs to be a critical com-
ponent of your livelihood —
access to services that aren’t
otherwise available, access
to markets, creation of jobs.
If that’s not there, they might
survive for a while, but they
won’t be very active.”
David Thompson, presi-
dent of the Twin Pines Coop-
erative Foundation in Davis,
Calif., will deliver the key-
note speech about the future
of co-ops. Gasaway said
Thompson is an iconic figure
of sorts in the cooperative
community, a historian and
a member of the Cooperative
Hall of Fame.
“He can tell that story in
a way that others don’t nec-
essarily have the expertise
and background in, where we
were and where we’re going,”
she said.
The conference is also
targeting the youth and Lati-
no communities. The devel-
opment center is interacting
with more Latino owners of
agricultural lands who are
raising produce and selling
it to farmers’ markets and in
larger markets, Gasaway said.
“Together we’re stronger,”
Gasaway said. “It should be
inclusive rather than exclu-
sive.”
All program materials will
be translated into Spanish,
and simultaneous interpreta-
tion will be offered during the
conference.
Gasway expects 250 peo-
ple to attend.