8
CapitalPress.com
August 19, 2016
PNW reps urge action on Columbia River Treaty
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
The Columbia River lows past cherry orchards south of
Wenatchee, Wash. Paciic Northwest lawmakers are eager to have
a treaty with Canada governing lood control and other issues
renegotiated.
Five U.S. senators and 16
U.S. House members from
the Pacific Northwest sent
Secretary of State John Ker-
ry a letter Aug. 11 urging the
State Department to begin
negotiations with Canada
to modernize the Columbia
River Treaty.
The State Department
has stated it intended to
start negotiations this year,
but despite multiple letters
from Congress urging it to
do so and receiving region-
al recommendations almost
three years ago, it has not,
said Rep. Dan Newhouse,
R-Wash., part of the bipar-
tisan group that signed the
letter.
“Treaty modernization
and negotiations with Can-
ada directly affect the econ-
omy, environment and flood
control needs of communi-
ties we represent,” the legis-
lators wrote in the letter.
The State Department
needs to conclude a review
process, approve negotiation
parameters, press Canada to
appoint a lead negotiator and
begin negotiations, the letter
states.
The treaty was ratified in
1964 and has not been re-
vised since. Updating it will
allow the U.S. and Canada to
find new solutions for river
management that could pro-
vide new opportunities for
cooperation on critical clean
energy solutions such as
smart grids with intermittent
power and grid-scale stor-
age, the members said.
Regional recommenda-
tions include balancing eco-
system functions including
salmon recovery, flood con-
trol and hydropower gener-
ation.
Senators who signed
the letter are: Patty Murray
and Maria Cantwell, both
D-Wash.; Ron Wyden and
Jeff Merkley, both D-Ore.;
and Jon Tester, D-Mont.
House Republicans sign-
ing the letter are: Newhouse,
Cathy
McMorris-Rodg-
ers, Jaime Herrera-Beutler
and Dave Reichert, all of
Washington; Greg Walden,
Oregon; Mike Simpson,
Idaho; and Ryan Zinke,
Montana.
House Democrats sign-
ing are: Adam Smith, Den-
ny Heck, Jim McDermott,
Suzan DelBene, Derek
Kilmer and Rick Larsen,
all of Washington; Suzanne
Bonamici, Earl Blumenau-
er, Peter De Fazio and Kurt
Schrader, all of Oregon.
Company forges ahead with GM apples
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Courtesy of Okanagan Specialty Fruits
The Arctic Fuji, an apple genet-
ically modiied to reduce brown-
ing when sliced, has gained
preliminary USDA approval.
Other varieties already have.
Courtesy of Okanagan Specialty Fruits
Neal Carter, founder and president of Okanagan Specialty Fruits
and developer of genetically modiied apples, holds a non-brown-
ing Gala apple. He will seek approval of a GM Gala next year.
focusing on packaging and
sales of sliced apples. This
fall’s market testing will help
determine preferred packag-
ing and pricing, Carter said.
The testing will be done
with retailers in California,
the Paciic Northwest and
maybe in Texas and Colorado.
While details of a new U.S.
GM labeling law are not clear,
Carter said OSF will label
Arctic products as genetical-
ly modiied in the nutritional
information area of packaging
when regulations require it.
“Our biggest project right
now is to ramp up production
as fast as we can,” Carter said.
The company has test
blocks in undisclosed loca-
tions in Washington and New
York. It planted 20,000 trees
in Washington in 2015 and
this spring increased that or-
chard to 85,000 trees, Carter
said.
More than 300,000 trees
have been budded for plant-
ing next spring and 500,000
are being budded for planting
in 2018, he said.
The goal, he said, is to have
800 to 1,000 acres planted in
the Northwest, about the same
in the eastern U.S. and 600 to
800 acres in Canada by 2021.
The USDA Animal and
Plant Health Inspection Ser-
vice announced Aug. 10 that
it has reached a preliminary
decision to extend its deter-
mination of non-regulated
status to OSF’s non-brown-
ing Arctic Fuji. APHIS also
opened a 30-day public com-
ment period on the petition.
APHIS and its Canadian
counterpart have previously
declared Arctic-brand GM ap-
ples safe for consumption and
unaltered in nutritional value.
OSF expects action on the Fuji
by the end of September or
early October.
OSF will seek approval of
an Arctic Gala next year.
While supportive of the
science, the Washington apple
industry opposed deregulation
of the GM apples because it
believes negative public per-
ception could damage apple
sales. Mark Powers, executive
vice president of the North-
west Horticultural Council
in Yakima, said that position
hasn’t changed.
Prior to USDA approval
of Arctic Golden Delicious
and Granny Smith, the U.S.
Apple Association expressed
concern to USDA about the
non-browning attribute being
insuficient to risk possible
market disruption.
But Jim Bair, U.S. Apple
Association president and
CEO, says USDA has no au-
thority to withhold approval of
a biotechnology food if there
are no risks to consumers or
the environment, as is the case
with Arctic apples.
Tim Hearden/Capital Press
Chris Burlison of Burlison Fruit Stand in Dairyville, Calif., holds a
half-lat of Bartlett pears from the farm’s orchard. California pear
growers are in the midst of their harvest.
Calif. pear harvest
enters inal stages
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
DAIRYVILLE, Calif. —
In the orchards behind Burlison
Fruit Stand, pickers are trotting
out with fresh Bartlett and Asian
pears, giving the proprietors
hope for the future.
“Our trees are about two or
three years old, so they’re just
starting to produce,” Chris Bur-
lison said.
The harvest of pears is in its
inal stages throughout Califor-
nia.
It started in the northern
Sacramento-San Joaquin River
Delta region earlier this summer
and has moved north, as farms
in the other prime growing re-
gion — Lake and Mendocino
counties — have been ramping
up their harvest of the Bartlett
variety, the California Farm Bu-
reau Federation reports.
Epperson’s Family Farm in
Montgomery Creek, Calif., was
just getting started with what
co-owner Theresa Epperson
called “a pretty good crop” of
Bartletts and other varieties as of
Aug. 13.
“Everything’s about two
weeks earlier this year,” she
said.
Growers are picking a lighter
crop overall, as the California
Pear Advisory Board predicted
this year’s fresh-market produc-
tion to be 2.5 million 36-pound
boxes, down 8 percent from the
2015 crop.
Total state production is ex-
pected to be 156,041 tons this
year, down from 170,048 tons in
2015, the Farm Bureau reported.
Acreage and prices of pears
have dropped in recent years
because of several factors, al-
though growers believe the mar-
ket has leveled off as demand
from canners and packers has
increased, the CFBF noted.
This year’s crop is lighter,
partly because growers had to
heavily prune their trees last
year in response to a bacterial
disease called ire blight, ac-
cording to the organization.
Burlison said ire blight
is especially tough on Asian
pears.
“Quality-wise, the crop
is good with a good range of
sizes” this summer, said Chris
Zanobini, executive director of
the California Pear Advisory
Board. “The harvest is going
pretty smoothly. We’re probably
going to inish up with Bartletts
within two weeks, which is a lit-
tle early.
“The Bartlett crop is actual-
ly quite short,” he said. “We’re
going to come up much shorter
than our estimate.”
While drought has affected
all of agriculture, most pears
have had better access to water
than some other crops because
most of them are in the northern
part of the state, Zanobini said.
The Central Valley’s triple-dig-
it afternoons don’t affect pears
much, he said.
The harvest is usually most-
ly inished by Labor Day, al-
though Zanobin said it could
wrap up sooner this year.
One decision some grow-
ers face is whether to leave
fruit on trees a few extra
days to get more size, but
a labor crunch will prompt
some growers to pick their
fruit when they have the la-
bor available, he said.
AgroFresh expands its apple, pear service centers
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
34-2/#6
SUMMERLAND, B.C.
— Okanagan Specialty
Fruits will test market its irst
pre-commercial production of
genetically modiied Golden
Delicious apples this fall and
hopes to soon win USDA ap-
proval of GM Fuji apples.
The Summerland, B.C.,
company, which was bought
out by Intrexon Corp. of Ger-
mantown, Md., in early 2015,
received USDA and Canadi-
an approval of GM Golden
Delicious and Granny Smith
apples at about the same time.
The GM Arctic brand
Granny Smith is a bit be-
hind in production but 1,000
to 1,200, 40-pound boxes of
Arctic Golden Delicious will
be sliced and sold in grocery
stores in the western U.S. this
fall, said Neal Carter, compa-
ny founder and president.
“We’ve had a lot of inter-
est from food service, grocery
retailers, quick-serve restau-
rants, basically the whole
gamut,” said Carter, who de-
veloped the apples by “silenc-
ing” a gene to prevent brown-
ing when sliced.
The company will grow,
process and market the apples,
AgroFresh Solutions Inc.,
a provider of produce fresh-
ness solutions, has opened
two new service centers and
hired 50 more seasonal work-
ers worldwide to serve more
apple and pear growers with
products to keep fruit fresh.
The new centers, in Spar-
ta, Mich., and Bologna, Italy,
expand the company’s in-
ield customer support pres-
ence.
The company, headquar-
tered in Collegeville, Pa.,
already operates service
centers in Yakima, Wash.,
Curico, Chile, and Lleida,
Spain. It also has a technical
center, the hub of its orchard
research and development ef-
forts with support service, in
Wenatchee, Wash.
“Our service centers are
logistical focal points for co-
ordinating product supplies
and application services,”
said Edgardo Castaneda,
AgroFresh vice president of
operations.
The new centers will help
the company assist customers
more effectively in the up-
coming season, he said.
AgroFresh sells pre-har-
vest Harvista and post-har-
vest SmartFresh, both using
1-Methylcyclopropene (1-
MCP), a synthetic molecule
developed for fruit applica-
tions 20 years ago by USDA
ARS research scientist Jim
Mattheis in Wenatchee.
1-MCP slows the ripening
of apples and pears to keep
them fresher longer in stor-
age. That’s done by Smart-
Fresh.
Harvista is a pre-harvest
application that slows fruit
maturation to help growers
manage harvest timing.
Earlier this year, Agro-
Fresh announced it was add-
ing 48 more tractor-pulled
ground sprayers to its leet in
the U.S. to help growers ap-
ply Harvista to up to 20,000
more acres. Growers also ap-
ply it by helicopter.