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12 CapitalPress.com February 3, 2017 ‘We’ve still got a lot of inventory to move’ CROP from Page 1 Traditionally, major year- to-year swings in the hazel- nut crop weren’t unusual, but these days, additional factors also complicate projections, he said. Growers are planting new varieties that are resistant to Eastern fi lber blight but don’t have a long track record in terms of yields, Rodakowski said. “With these new variet- ies, we don’t have that histo- ry. They haven’t been in the ground long enough,” he said. With the larger 2016 crop, packers are also left with more hazelnuts to sell in the new year. Packers sold about 27,000 tons of the 2016 crop by the end of that year, which is about 2,700 more tons than at the end of 2015. However, because total production in 2016 was larg- er, 16,000 tons were left over Oregon hazelnut production (Production in tons) 50,000 43,300 tons: Up 39.7% from 2015 47,000 43,000 4 31,000 3 2 1 0 2006 ’08 ’10 ’12 Sources: USDA NASS; Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board at the beginning of 2017 — more than twice as much as a year earlier. “We’ve still got a lot of inventory to move,” said Jeff Fox, CEO of Hazelnut Growers of Oregon, a divi- sion of the Wilco cooperative. ’14 2016 Alan Kenaga/Capital Press “We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Growers were paid $1.38 per pound for the 2015 crop, up from the initial prices of $1.22 quoted by packers early in the harvest season. The initial price for the 2016 crop is set at $1.18, but Fox said it’s unlikely to rise as dramatically in light of the leftover inventory. Early hazelnut sales are sold in-shell to the Chinese market, but more of the re- maining inventory is headed for the kernel market, where sales aren’t as brisk, he said. Even so, the USDA’s es- timate for 2016 was expect- ed to be conservative and the industry negotiated the $1.18 price with the expec- tation that the crop could be 10 percent larger, said Terry Ross, executive direc- tor of the Hazelnut Grow- ers Bargaining Association. “It wasn’t a tremendous shock. I expect a respectable increase” in the fi nal price, Ross said. “I think a lot of packers moved product early into the marketplace.” Predicting Oregon’s ha- zelnut production is tougher for USDA these days because farmers have increased plant- ings of new cultivars, said Larry George, president of the George Packing Co. “They were pretty dang close with the old varieties but the new varieties were unpre- dictable,” George said, noting that yields from the Jefferson cultivar surged in 2016. Estimating the acreage of young hazelnut trees reaching maturity is an inexact science, he said. Growers surveyed by George Packing had wildly different estimates for the size of the 2016 crop, George said. “The variation people are see- ing in their orchards is huge.” Oregon farmers planted more than 9,000 acres of ha- zelnuts in 2016, up from about 6,000 acres in 2015 and 4,300 acres in 2014, according to Pacifi c Agricultural Survey, which tracks the industry. The company relies on aerial photographs taken in spring or summer, but some orchards were actually plant- ed the previous autumn, said Mike McDaniel, its principal. For that reason, some trees are better established than estimated in the survey, he said. “There’s a decent chunk of trees reaching the bearing age.” Dwayne Bush, a farmer near Eugene, Ore., has found that the popular Jefferson variety is generating a larg- er amount of hazelnuts at a young age compared to Bar- celona, Oregon’s traditional cultivar. At three to four years of age, Jefferson trees are pro- ducing as many nuts as Barce- lona trees did in their seventh or eighth year, he said. Estimating the annual har- vest is also trickier due to the ongoing removal of older or- chards affl icted with blight, Bush said. “It’s not an easy job, predicting.” Pathologist plans to start sampling at Parma, Kimberly and Aberdeen SPORES from Page 1 or PCR. The instrument am- plifi es DNA segments, which carry the disease’s genetic code, so it can be identifi ed. Once the disease is iden- tifi ed, farmers can attack it using sprays or other methods before it even appears in their crops. Woodhall plans to start sampling at the Parma, Kim- berly and Aberdeen research and extension centers and said more real-time PCR test- ing instruments will have to be purchased as the network grows. In their initial research, Woodhall and his colleagues will evaluate the timing, density and conditions under which pathogens are con- fi rmed through spore sam- pling and correlate the data with disease prevalence in nearby fi elds. Woodhall explained that the spore sampling network is just one piece of a broader vision to upgrade the univer- sity’s Parma-based plant dis- ease diagnostics laboratory. He’s also working to develop new tests using the latest di- agnostic tools to more quick- ly, effi ciently and accurately identify crop diseases found in fi elds. He intends to set up insect traps with the spore samplers to provide a “one- stop shop” for identifying crop threats. Many insects also spread crop diseases. “The time is right to use this technology,” Woodhall said. “We can really provide some solutions to the issues farmers are facing.” A proactive approach University of Idaho Exten- sion cereals pathologist Ju- liet Marshall now has to take a wait-and-see approach to alerting growers about disease threats. Only when cereal diseases such as Fusarium headblight and stripe rust appear and start to damage crops can Marshall send “pest alerts” to farmers. But she knows those dis- eases may incubate for weeks before the fi rst symptoms appear. That’s why she’s re- quested funding from Ida- ho’s wheat and barley com- missions to collaborate on Woodhall’s spore sampling project. Her plan is to cor- relate wind-borne spore loads captured by spore samplers with the infection rates of dif- “It’s becoming more pop- ular in the sense that it’s be- coming easier to do, and more accurate,” Goswami said. Possible pathogens detected with spore traps, by commodity Commodity Commission/organization Pathogens tested Notes Potato Idaho Potato Commission Late blight, Early blight, Gray mold, White mold, Stem canker/white collar Proposal submitted Barley Idaho Barley Commission Yellow rust, Fusarium head blight, Net blotch Proposal drafted for this year Wheat Idaho Wheat Commission Yellow rust, Fusarium head blight, Powdery mildew Proposal drafted for this year Sugar beet Snake River Sugar beet Research and Seed Alliance Cercospora blight, Powdery mildew Through to full proposal stage Bean Idaho Bean Commission White mold, Alternaria blight N/A Onion Idaho Eastern Oregon Onion Committee Neck rot, Internal dry scale A spore sampler has been purchased; block grant is funding some spore trapping Oilseed Idaho Oilseed Commission White mold, Phoma stem canker/Black leg, Alternaria, White leaf spot Black leg not widely present in Idaho but could spread Hops Idaho Hop Commission, Idaho Hop Growers Assn. Powdery mildew, Downy mildew N/A Grapes Idaho Wine Commission Powdery mildew, Downy mildew, Trunk diseases N/A Source: James Woodhall, University of Idaho Parma Research & Extension Center ferent barley and wheat vari- eties. “We need to validate the data in environmental condi- tions to develop a predictive model for our growers,” Mar- shall said. “We have to have proof that what we’re seeing is the threshold to spray.” Marshall said malting companies have no tolerance for barley with the don toxin, which is produced by head- blight, and some varieties of winter wheat are so suscepti- ble to stripe rust that infection can be widespread from the moment it’s detected using normal means. “A lot of it is reactive di- agnosis. Somebody has got a problem and we diagnose what it is and help control it,” Woodhall added. “My re- search is trying to stop that and try to do preventative di- agnosis.” Jeff Miller, president and CEO of Rupert, Idaho-based Miller Research, also sees the potential for spore samplers to save growers money on fungicide applications for late blight, a destructive fungal pathogen. He explained that growers sometimes spray for the disease when cool and wet conditions surface that favor it, but the pathogen may not even be present. Miller also said spore sam- plers could miss late blight if they’re not in the right lo- cation. He’d be interested in testing a spore sampler to gauge its usefulness in early detection of late blight. Miller said older-model spore samplers that capture spores on tape for visual di- agnosis have been used to survey for early blight, but that disease proved to be so ubiquitous that spraying at a certain time of year became the best precaution. The onion industry contrib- uted one of the spore samplers that will be used in a research project funded with $125,000 from USDA’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative. It focuses on Fusarium proliferatum, a fungal pathogen that causes bulb rot. UI plant pathologist Brenda Schroeder, a collabo- rator in the project, explained the disease fi rst surfaced as a threat to stored Pacifi c North- west onions in 2014 and 2015. Bulbs from the 2016 season have not shown rot. “We couldn’t tell the indus- try anything about it because we didn’t know anything about it,” Schroeder said. Schroeder’s work will determine how temperature impacts the pathogen. The researchers will also investi- gate sources of the pathogen. Woodhall will use his spore samplers to test if corn is a host and contributes to the Capital Press graphic problem, and to better under- stand the relationship between airborne spore loads and in- fection. Viticulture’s success Grape growers in Oregon’s Willamette Valley typically spray their vines for powdery mildew at one- to two-week intervals, depending on dis- ease pressure in the fi eld. A few growers in the re- gion, however, signifi cantly reduced their fungicide appli- cations in 2016 without reper- cussions, thanks to a network of spore samplers deployed by Amy Peetz of Revolution Crop Consultants of Albany, Ore. “Where this science comes in spectacularly is it takes seven to 10 days for spores to germinate and signs of dis- ease to become visible,” Peetz explained. “This gives grow- ers a seven- to 10-day jump on protecting plants against disease.” Peetz researched spore samplers in hops as a graduate student under Walter Mahaf- fee, a USDA Agricultural Re- search Service plant patholo- gist who is also on the Oregon State University faculty. Ma- haffee started studying spore samplers in viticulture and hops in 2002, along with Gary Grove of Washington State University. Better diagnostics Courtesy of Water Mahaffee Walter Mahaffee, a plant pa- thologist with USDA Agricultural Research Service and Oregon State University, and Lindsey Thiessen, a former graduate student who now is an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, conduct spore sampling for powdery mildew at Westmount Vineyard near Monmouth, Ore., in 2015. “Over the last eight to nine years that we’ve tested it out in the fi eld, the (grape) grow- ers have saved somewhere between two and four appli- cations per year,” Mahaffee said, adding that the Oregon Wine Board estimates spore sampling saves growers $1 million to $2 million annually. He’s also helped Coast- al Viticulture Consultants in Northern California set up spore trapping for powdery mildew. Mahaffee believes the technology is just now com- ing of age on a broader scale, but it won’t be effective in ev- ery situation. “It’s hard to say where it will and won’t be useful,” Mahaffee said. “There’s a lot that has to go into considering the utility of an approach like this.” Rubella Goswami, a plant pathologist with the National Plant Diagnostic Network, explained spore sampling has been practiced for a long time, especially in epidemiological studies such as tracking how some rust spores migrated from South America to North America. But it’s becoming more popular due to advance- ments in technology, and is increasingly being used to forecast diseases. She knows of recent U.S. spore sampling projects in- volving downy mildew in spinach and wheat and soy- bean rust. After the economy took a nosedive in 2008, the Uni- versity of Idaho considered closing its Parma Research and Extension Center. But the industry helped keep it open, and there’s been a dramatic change in outlook for the fa- cility. Mark McGuire, director of the Idaho Agricultural Ex- periment Station, said the uni- versity is drafting preliminary designs and cost estimates to consolidate a few old build- ings in Parma into a single, modern research facility. The structure would house nem- atology, the fruit program, entomology and plant pathol- ogy, including Woodhall’s re- vamped diagnostics lab. “James is demonstrating to a variety of the plant in- dustries there would be value in setting up this spore sam- pling,” McGuire said. In addition to spore sam- pling, Woodhall will focus on improving disease testing methods. For example, he’s developing new ways to de- tect diseases using loop-medi- ated isothermal amplifi cation — or LAMP. LAMP is far cheaper, fast- er and more convenient than the PCR technology. Woodhall and UI Exten- sion potato pathologist Phillip Wharton will prioritize devel- oping LAMP tests to detect potato diseases, including ring rot, phythium leak and zebra chip. They’ve already developed a better late blight test and have a test for verti- cillium wilt and early blight in the pipeline. Furthering the science of LAMP is also a top priority at other Northwest in- stitutions. At Oregon State Univer- sity, several new LAMP tests have also been developed re- cently, said Melodie Putnam, director of the university’s Plant Clinic in Corvallis. She said LAMP has been espe- cially useful in testing for an important pathogen of herba- ceous ornamentals, as well as for detecting fi re blight in fruit trees. The result of their re- search, Woodhall believes, will be a cost-effective, easy- to-use early warning system for growers of many types of crops. Taylor says she’s learning about history of genetically modified bentgrass TAYLOR from Page 1 Alan Kenaga/Capital Press New Oregon Department of Agriculture Director Alexis Taylor, left, speaks to the Capital Press Board of Directors and managers Jan. 27 in Salem, Ore., as department communications director Bruce Pokarney looks on. The Oregon Department of Agricul- ture has strived to strengthen the state’s trade connections, particularly in Asia, and these ties will be vital for the state’s farm industry, she said. In the next 20 years, about two-thirds of the world’s middle class will be in Asia, Taylor said. Climate change is another concern for Oregon agriculture because of lon- ger fi re seasons and changes in the life cycles of pests and diseases, she said. “It’s not just Oregon or the United States. It takes the whole world to fi gure that out,” Taylor said. As for Oregon-specifi c issues, Taylor said she’s been directed by Gov. Kate Brown to fi nd ways to involve farmers in the “Regional Solutions” economic development effort that focuses on local projects. Taylor also said she’s learning about the history of genetically modifi ed “Roundup Ready” creeping bentgrass, a variety that’s resistant to glyphosate herbicides and escaped fi eld trials more than a decade ago. The ODA’s previous director, Katy Coba, argued that the biotech culti- var should continue to be regulated by USDA, but the federal agency nonethe- less recently deregulated it. Taylor said she’s still “trying to wrap my arms around” the situation and how ODA will respond to the decision. As for the controversy over ge- netic engineering in general, Taylor said she subscribes to her predeces- sor’s philosophy of encouraging co- existence among different types of agriculture. Fewer people now have a direct connection to farming as the industry’s grown more effi cient, so it’s important to educate consumers about modern ag- riculture, she said. “That’s part of the job for me, being an advocate for farmers and rural com- munities,” Taylor said.
