12 CapitalPress.com
June 10, 2016
Waldo
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In a 33-year career with
the USDA’s Agricultural Re-
search Service in Corvallis,
working in partnership with
horticulturists at Oregon State
University, Waldo bred and
introduced the state’s best
known, even beloved, berry
varieties.
In 1943 he released the
Willamette raspberry, which
was widely planted for 50
years. He crossed strawber-
ry selections OSC 2315 and
Puget Beauty to produce
Hoods, which were released
in 1965 and retain something
of a cult following among
consumers for their color and
outstanding flavor.
Marions were destined to
be his most enduring, com-
mercially successful work.
Drawing in part from the in-
vasive Himalaya blackberry
that takes over rural hillsides
and empty city lots, Waldo
developed the trailing black-
berry cultivars Chehalem and
Olallie and crossed them in
1945 to produce what was first
called OSC 928. He released
it as Marion in 1956, naming
it for the county where most
of the test plantings had oc-
curred.
Marions, which like other
trailing blackberries are grown
on a trellis system, rapidly re-
placed Evergreens, an upright
variety that couldn’t compete
with Marion’s flavor. Trailing
blackberries also have smaller
seeds, which don’t have to be
removed during processing,
and are more aromatic than
erect blackberries.
At its height of popularity,
Marions made up half of Or-
egon’s blackberry acreage. In
2014, Marions alone account-
ed for $19 million in farmgate
value.
Chad Finn, a USDA-ARS
research geneticist who now
holds Waldo’s berry breed-
er position in Corvallis, said
much of Waldo’s work was
“classical plant breeding,”
which is “always a combina-
tion of art and science.”
Waldo understood the in-
heritance of plant traits, and
had to be able to recognize
which berry selections would
make good parents, Finn said.
He said Waldo’s work in de-
veloping trailing blackberries
may be overlooked.
“One of the things that
I think is lost, really, is that
he created a whole crop that
never existed before,” Finn
said. “That’s remarkable. We
would be dead in the water
without him or somebody like
him.”
The quiet man
George Waldo probably
wouldn’t have described
himself that way. Finn, the
USDA breeder now on sta-
tion in Corvallis, has stud-
ied the work of his pre-
decessors and said Waldo
strikes him as a reserved
man who didn’t seek the
limelight.
Jim Love, the Forest
Grove berry grower, said
he occasionally saw Waldo
in the halls at Oregon State
University when Love, now
73, was a student there in the
1960s. Waldo appeared quiet
and business-like, Love said.
Outlook
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are among the state’s food
processors and beverage man-
ufacturers,
predominantly
breweries,” Lehner wrote in
the forecast.
Jeff Stone, executive di-
rector of Oregon Association
of Nurseries, said the report’s
projection of an upswing for
nurseries is accurate.
Stone said nurseries spent
Loans
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Growers who previously
obtained regular operating
loans are now seeking those
guaranteed by FSA, which
reduce banks’ exposure to
risk, he said.
Some of those who are
at risk of defaulting on
guaranteed loans are also
refinancing into direct FSA
loans, which carry zero risk
for banks, Hoefner said.
The concern is that as
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
USDA berry breeder Chad Finn, shown in this 2014 photo, praises the work of the late George Waldo, who introduced Marion blackberries and Hood strawberries.
Waldo was a longtime
member of the Corvallis
First Baptist Church, and
of Gideons International,
the group that leaves Bibles
in motel rooms. According
to one story, when Waldo
and associates would tour
growers’ fields and stop
for lunch, Waldo wouldn’t
eat at a place that served
beer.
Waldo was born Dec. 2,
1898, in North Dakota, and
moved with his family to
Oregon in 1913. He gradu-
ated from what was then Or-
egon Agricultural College
in 1922 and earned a mas-
ter’s degree in science from
Michigan State University
in 1926.
He was hired by USDA
and in 1932 was able to re-
turn to Corvallis to work in
“small fruit investigations”
at the experiment station, a
partnership of USDA-ARS
and Oregon State.
That formal partner-
ship — coupling innovative
USDA berry breeders with
university horticulturists —
is the only one of its kind in
the world, said Bernadine
Strik, OSU Extension berry
crops professor and the ber-
ry research program leader
at OSU’s North Willamette
Research and Extension
Center in Aurora.
The partnership is more
than 100 years old and is
funded by USDA and OSU,
which jointly release new
berries, Strik said.
“That facilitates adop-
tion of cultivars of commer-
cial significance in the Pa-
cific Northwest,” she said.
“A lot of the berry crops
grown here were bred for
this region by this pro-
gram,” Strik said. “Growers
are fortunate to have a pub-
lic breeding program that is
so productive.”
Elsewhere, much of the
berry breeding work is done
by private companies, she
said, and the genetic mate-
rial is not available to the
public or to growers who
are not contractually obli-
gated to the company.
The partnership has
continuity. Strik has been
at OSU since 1987; Finn
arrived at USDA-ARS in
1992. Finn decides which
selections to cross, and has
final say on releases. All the
It’s a testament to George
Waldo that his best work
still grows in Oregon’s berry
fields, even though change is
afoot.
Hood strawberries sell
fast at roadside stands and
are in demand from ice
cream processors. But the
variety most commonly
planted the past six to eight
years is Tillamook, devel-
oped by Chad Finn.
Marion blackberry acre-
age is in slow decline, dip-
ping from 4,500 acres in
2006 to 3,100 acres in 2015.
Processors, worried about li-
ability lawsuits, have fretted
for years about the Marion’s
fierce thorns getting into
jams or pies. Growers wish
Marions were more cold-har-
dy; Jim Love said he “didn’t
pick a berry” three times in
the past due to cane-killing
freezes.
Many are planting new
thornless trailing blackber-
ries: Black Diamond and Co-
lumbia Star, both released by
Finn. Love has some of both,
and thinks Columbia Star
will be a good one, even if
the flavor doesn’t quite match
the Marion’s.
“Marions are becoming
less (prominent), surpassed
by cultivars bred by Chad,”
said Strik, the OSU berry
crops professor. “That’s what
you hope happens; you move
forward.
“Oregon continues to be
known as the premier black-
berry growing region in the
world,” she said. “It’s a fact.”
After Waldo retired, he
moved to Marysville, Wash.,
which was nicknamed the
“Strawberry City.”
In 1970, the American
Pomological Society award-
ed Waldo its Wilder Medal,
given to those who have ren-
dered outstanding service to
horticulture.
“Special consideration is
given,” the society’s website
says, “to work relating to the
origination and introduction
of meritorious varieties of
fruit.”
Waldo died Dec. 22, 1985,
a Sunday. He was 87. The
family asked that memori-
als be made to his Corvallis
church and to Gideons Inter-
national, for its evangelical
work.
much of the past six years try-
ing to hang on as the state and
nation rode out the recession.
As conditions continue to im-
prove, the call for landscap-
ing, gardening and agricultur-
al trees and plants picked up
with it.
“We have an opportunity
to grow significantly over the
next 10 years,” Stone said. “I
don’t think it will be the rock-
et ship we saw 20 years ago,
but there are shortages out
there.
“We’re looking at markets
three to five years out, and I
think we’re well positioned to
grow.”
Depending on the year,
greenhouse and nursery prod-
ucts is Oregon’s first or sec-
ond most valuable agricultur-
al sector, sometimes trading
places with calves and cattle.
In 2014, greenhouse and nurs-
ery products were worth $829
million.
Lehner, the state econ-
omist, said overall Oregon
continues to see “full throttle”
growth rates, with job gains
and wage gains outpacing
other states. The state is ap-
proaching full employment
for the first time since 2000,
and “underemployment,” the
number of people involun-
tarily working part-time, is
back to where it was before
the recession. The state’s un-
employment rate, 4.5 percent
in April and May, is actually
below what would historical-
ly be considered normal for
Oregon during an economic
expansion, Lehner said.
Over the past two years,
Oregon has added an average
of 5,000 jobs per month, a 3.5
percent annual growth rate,
according to the report.
Lehner projects continued
strong Oregon growth through
the end of 2017. The state’s
longterm outlook is damp-
ened somewhat by the new
minimum wage law, which he
said will result in 40,000 few-
er jobs by 2025 than would
have been the case otherwise.
“Our office is not pre-
dicting outright job losses,”
Lehner emphasized in the
analysis. “However we are
expecting somewhat slower
growth. Low-wage workers
receiving raises in the near
term boost incomes. Over
time, however, employers will
adjust by increasing worker
productivity, possibly via cap-
ital for labor substitutions.
“The Great Recession
caused severe damage that has
taken years to repair,” Lehner
said in the report. “However,
Oregon is now quickly ap-
proaching full employment,
or a healthy labor market.”
farmers with existing op-
erating loans become more
reliant on FSA programs,
less money will be available
for new growers who need
credit, he said.
“We don’t want the be-
ginning farmers to be short-
changed,” Hoefner said.
Van Hoose, of the Farm
Credit Council, cautioned
that the rising demand for
FSA loans doesn’t indicate
there’s a serious deterio-
ration of overall U.S. farm
finances, but it does reflect
the troubles faced by some
individual growers.
“It’s very individualized,”
he said. “If it’s your operation,
it’s a pretty big problem.”
On the whole, though,
debt-to-asset ratios haven’t
risen significantly, interest
rates are still at historic lows,
and prices for key inputs such
as fuel and fertilizer have fall-
en, Van Hoose said.
During the recent boom in
commodity and land prices,
farmers generally didn’t be-
come overly “leveraged” with
debt when buying property,
instead using cash, he said.
“For the most part, farmers
have come into this downturn
in pretty good shape.”
The problem for the FSA
program is that officials may
commit to making loans even
if they don’t have available
funds, said Hoefner.
Once more funds are ap-
propriated, the agency will
be able to make those previ-
ously committed loans. How-
ever, less funding would be
available for later loan appli-
cations, potentially causing
another shortfall even earlier
next spring, he said.
For that reason, the Farm
Credit Council, National Sus-
tainable Agriculture Coalition
and other groups want to in-
crease the fiscal 2017 funding
to cover the current shortage
and avoid an even bigger
problem next year.
They estimate $650 mil-
lion is needed to meet current
demand for FSA direct and
guaranteed loans in the cur-
rent fiscal year, which ends in
October.
Agricultural
appropria-
tions legislation, which has
passed key Senate and House
committees but not the overall
Congress, funds the direct and
guaranteed loan programs for
next year at $2.892 billion.
However, the funding
would only need to be raised
about $16.5 million to make
the necessary loans this year,
since the money only has
to cover the costs of admin-
istering loans and not the
full loan amount, Hoefner
said.
“You can get a lot of loan
value out of a relatively small
appropriation due to the low
interest rates,” he said.
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Bernadine Strik, OSU berry crops professor and extension
researcher, says the collaboration between OSU and USDA-ARS
pays off for growers.
Marion blackberries, now gaining color in blocks up and down the Wil-
lamette Valley, were introduced by renowned USDA breeder George
Waldo nearly 60 years ago. They remain Oregon’s leading blackberry,
with a 2014 farmgate value of $19 million.
advanced berry trials are
managed by Strik at North
Willamette.
“My number one goal
is to help growers pro-
duce sustainable yields of
high-quality crops,” Strik
said. “In a global market,
that’s what you need to be
able to do.”
Legacy remains