February 17, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Washington
Q&A:
Falling
numbers
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
• Why is the industry
standard 300? Soft white
wheat buyers in Japan, South
Korea, Indonesia, Thailand,
China, Taiwan, Singapore,
Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Guate-
mala, Chile, Peru and Yemen
require a minimum of 300 for
the products they make, said
Ty Jessup, marketing manager
for Central Washington Grain
Growers in Waterville, Wash.,
and a member of the Wash-
ington Grain Commission.
The Philippines — the big-
gest buyer of white wheat —
requires a minimum of 320.
Destinations that require 300
or more typically buy based
on wheat quality, Jessup said.
Buyers accepting falling num-
bers below 300 include Egypt
and feed wheat destinations,
which typically buy based on
price.
• Will buyers accept low-
er falling numbers? “That
will decrease the reputation
we have in the Pacific North-
west and take away the dif-
ferentiation we have for high
quality,” Jessup said. “If we
end up losing that distinction,
all of a sudden instead of sell-
ing premium wheat, you just
become part of the price cul-
ture and you’re going to have
to be competitive with price to
market your grain.”
• What made 2016 so
different? Falling number
problems last year were more
widespread, with lower lows
and lower highs, Jessup said.
Typically, lows are in the 250-
280 range, and highs are 400-
450. In 2016, the highs were
330 to 350 and low readings
varied.
The problem has occurred
before, but it was less wide-
spread, and exporters were
better able to blend wheat
with low falling numbers with
wheat that had higher falling
numbers, Jessup said. That’s
harder to do when more wheat
has low falling numbers.
Don Potts, regional man-
ager of the state grain inspec-
tion service, said so far his
office has run 22,000 tests.
During the harvest, they re-
ceived 600 requests for tests
per day, but had the capacity
to do 200 tests a day when
running at maximum capacity
— 16 hours a day, seven days
a week. Potts’ office is still re-
ceiving 10 to 20 test requests
a day.
• Will storing the grain
improve my falling num-
ber? The grain can improve,
but must be kept at a higher
temperature over a long time,
which in turn increases the
risk of insects getting in. Re-
searchers urge farmers to keep
their expectations realistic.
If a falling number is very
low, storage doesn’t have an
impact.
“We’ve been testing (a
144 falling number) sample
for three years, every other
month, and it doesn’t change,”
said Arron Carter, Washington
State University winter wheat
breeder.
• Do fungicides have an
effect on falling number?
Carter said no.
• Can the wheat be blend-
ed? Falling number doesn’t
blend linearly like proteins
or test weights. For exam-
ple, a 10 percent protein
wheat mixed with one that’s
11 percent protein results in
a 10.5 percent blend. Fall-
ing numbers is a logarith-
mic blend. Blending wheat
with a 350 falling number
and wheat with a 250 fall-
ing number results in a 290
falling number. A 400 fall-
ing number and a 200 fall-
ing number blend results in
a 260 falling number. A 450
falling number and a 150
falling number gets a 210
falling number blend.
“You go higher and low-
er, the overall blend actually
works lower,” Jessup said.
• Is this unique to the
PNW? It’s a global prob-
lem, said Washington Grain
Commission chairman Mike
Miller. Australia began deal-
ing with it nearly two decades
ago.
Diversification reduces falling number risk, expert says
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Online
Capital Press
SPOKANE — The best
step wheat farmers can take to
reduce the possibility of falling
number problems this year is to
plant a different variety in each
field.
Washington State Univer-
sity winter wheat breeder Ar-
ron Carter warned farmers to
avoid blending varieties in the
same field. A variety with a low
falling number test reading can
drag down one with a higher
falling number.
Carter also urged farmers
to weigh performance data for
different varieties in different
locations in past years.
For example, the WestBred
variety Arrowhead had a low
falling number at St. Andrews,
Wash., field trials, but a high
falling number in trials at Ritz-
ville, Wash.
Farmers receive lower pric-
es at grain elevators for falling
number test results lower than
300. The test measures starch
Check falling number data for
wheat varieties at http://ste-
berlab.org/project7599.php
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Washington Grain Commission chairman Mike Miller provides an
update on efforts to address falling number problems in wheat
during a panel discussion Feb. 9 at the Spokane Ag Expo and
Pacific Northwest Farm Forum.
damage that affects the quality
of baked goods and noodles.
The problem can occur when
rain falls on mature grain or
when temperatures fluctuate af-
ter the grain flowers.
Last year, about 44 percent
of the soft white wheat crop
and 42 percent of club wheat,
a subclass of soft white wheat,
was estimated to be below the
300 falling number industry
standard, said Don Potts, East-
ern Washington regional man-
ager for the state Department
of Agriculture grain inspection
program.
About 12 percent of hard red
winter wheat and 8 percent of
hard red spring wheat were also
affected.
It’s still too soon to determine
the economic impact for grow-
ers, said Mike Miller, chairman
of the Washington Grain Com-
mission and vice chairman of
U.S. Wheat Associates. The
problem hasn’t reached over-
seas buyers, he said.
Buyers aren’t likely to pur-
chase wheat with a falling
number below 300, said Ty
Jessup, industry representative
on the grain commission and
marketing manager of Central
Washington Grain Growers in
Waterville. They would look
to a competing country that
can supply the specifications
they’re seeking.
Short-term solutions in-
clude eliminating ambiguous
language in the USDA Federal
Grain Inspection Service’s in-
structions, Potts said.
“The directive will say to
put in the water first, followed
by the flour, and then the very
next sentence says, ‘Or you can
put the flour in first, followed
by the water,’” he said.
The FGIS uses the state as
its gold standard for running
falling number tests, Potts said.
The long-term goal is to de-
velop a whole-grain analyzer to
test wheat at grain elevators, to
better separate out wheat with
low falling numbers.
Estimates of when that test
will be available range from 18
months to several years away,
Miller and Potts said.
“Sooner would be better, for
sure,” Potts said.
Miller said the commission,
with the Idaho and Oregon
wheat organizations, recently
met with USDA and the Ag-
ricultural Research Service in
Washington, D.C., to seek fed-
eral funding for research.
Northwest researchers will
meet in Spokane on Feb. 16 to
coordinate efforts. The panel
discussion took place Feb. 9 at
the Spokane Ag Expo and Pa-
cific Northwest Farm Forum.
Inslee: Suppression and carbon fuel catastrophic wildfires
Millions of dollars
needed to catch up
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
OLYMPIA — Washington
Gov. Jay Inslee said Thursday
that fire suppression and cli-
mate change have made for-
ests unhealthy, as lawmakers
consider directing the Depart-
ment of Natural Resources to
draw up a long-range plan to
thin forests through logging
and controlled burns.
The state’s 2016 wildfire
season was modest compared
to 2015, but 459 square miles
still burned. In the previous
year, a record 1,777 square
miles burned, according to the
Northwest Interagency Coor-
dination Center, a federal and
state partnership.
Fielding questions at a
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Washington Gov. Jay Ins-
lee gestures during a news
conference Feb. 9 in Olympia.
Inslee said fire suppression
and climate change have made
forests too dense, leading to
raging wildfires.
press conference, Inslee cit-
ed wildfires as evidence that,
“My state is getting hurt by
climate change right now.”
He acknowledged that sup-
pressing fires also has contrib-
uted to raging wildfires.
“The overly dense forests
are largely attributable to our
suppression efforts,” Inslee
said. “So, yes, we have to do
some management in the for-
est, but we also have to attack
it at the source, which is car-
bon pollution.”
The governor’s proposed
two-year budget includes
$30 million to DNR and $15
million to the Department of
Fish and Wildlife for thinning
forests.
The money, under the plan,
would come from a new tax
on carbon emissions.
Lawmakers have not em-
braced Inslee’s previous pro-
posals to tax carbon to encour-
age reductions in greenhouse
gases and pay for government
programs, including educa-
tion. It’s also unclear whether
legislators will support spend-
ing more to thin forests.
According to DNR, the
state has spent about $400
million fighting fires since
2009 and about $21 million
thinning forests.
The U.S. Forest Service
and Nature Conservancy es-
timated in 2014 that about
3 million acres need to be
thinned, including 2.7 million
in Eastern Washington.
While WDFW has con-
ducted controlled burns on
lands it manages, DNR gave
up the practice in the 1990s
because of complaints about
air pollution and smoke spoil-
ing spring days.
This year, DNR is asking
lawmakers for $14 million
to thin 30,000 acres over the
next two years.
“We’re continuing to see
an overall deterioration in
the health of our forests, and
it’s evident by the number of
wildfires,” DNR forest health
policy adviser Loren Torgen-
son said.
House and Senate bills
call for DNR to conduct its
own assessment and identi-
fy which parcels should be
thinned first.
DNR should place a high
priority on thinning projects
that protect farms and ranch-
es, according to one proposal.
DNR supports the bills,
though the department’s leg-
islative director Dave Warren
estimated thinning 100,000
acres or more a year to catch
up will cost take two-year ap-
propriations of $30 million to
$50 million.
“We want to get some re-
alistic numbers, some realistic
approaches,” he said.
Supporters of controlled
burns say that Washington
lags behind other states in
thinning forests. They argue
managed fires will reduce the
number of large wildfires and
reduce air pollution and car-
bon emissions.
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