March 17, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Fresh domestic spud
sales make gains
Endangered
Klamath Basin
suckers
Lost River sucker
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Binomial name: Deltistes luxatus
Appearance: Can reach one
meter in length. Long snout with
small hump on top. Dark on back
and sides with whitish or
yellowish underbelly.
Lifespan: More than 40 years
Preferred habitat: Deep lakes
and pools and fast currents.
Spawns in tributary streams and
springs with gravelly bottoms.
Shortnose sucker
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Oregon State University researcher Amanda Vance evaluated table grape varieties that small farmers
might want to grow.
Table grape options under study
Binomial name: Chasmistes
brevirostris
Appearance: Up to half a meter
in length. Large head and thin,
fleshy lips. Lower lip is notched.
Lifespan: More than 30 years
Preferred habitat: Turbid,
shallow lakes but spawns in
tributary streams and springs.
Source: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Capital Press graphic
Judge
dismisses
grazing
lawsuit
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
A federal judge has reject-
ed environmentalist arguments
that cattle grazing has un-
lawfully harmed endangered
sucker fi sh in Oregon’s Fre-
mont-Winema National Forest.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark
Clarke threw out a lawsuit by
three environmental groups —
Oregon Wild, Friends of Living
Oregon Waters and the Western
Watersheds Project — which
claimed that grazing was un-
lawfully authorized on eight
allotments in the Lost River
watershed.
The plaintiffs accused the
U.S. Forest Service of “ignor-
ing widespread evidence of ri-
parian problems” that adversely
affected the Lost River sucker
and shortnose sucker, which
are federally protected under
the Endangered Species Act.
However, the judge has
ruled that plaintiffs failed to
prove that grazing degraded
streams in violation of the Na-
tional Forest Management Act.
Conditions have improved
in many riparian areas despite
continued grazing while recov-
ery trends are “not signifi cantly
different” among sites that are
grazed and those that are not,
Clarke said.
“This would tend to indicate
grazing is not the reason for any
failure to attain (riparian man-
agement objectives) in streams
found on the challenged allot-
ments,” he said.
While the environmental
groups have pointed to evi-
dence of deterioration along
portions of some creeks, they
haven’t shown “watershed lev-
el” and “landscape-scale” fail-
ures to live up to fi sh-recovery
objectives, Clarke said.
The “creek-specifi c ob-
servations” by environmental
groups aren’t enough to “suc-
cessfully rebut” the Forest
Service’s interpretation of the
data, he said.
“Finally, many of the creek
assessments plaintiffs point
to as evidence of a failure to
attain (riparian management
objectives) actually show im-
proving or stable trends,” the
judge said.
The Forest Service’s de-
cision to authorize grazing
on the eight allotments was
based on “reasonably gath-
ered and evaluated data” relat-
ed to fi sh recovery strategies
mandated under the National
Forest Management Act, he
said.
The judge’s decision rein-
forces the idea that the Forest
Service must strive toward
the goals set by the inland fi sh
strategy for national forests,
rather than meet those stan-
dards instantaneously, said
Scott Horngren, an attorney
with the Western Resources
Legal Center who represented
ranchers who intervened in the
case.
OSU researcher weighs varieties that grow well in Willamette Valley
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
AURORA — Oregon
knows wine grapes. The vine-
yards growing Pinot noir and
multiple other varieties have
won justifi able acclaim, as the
success of the state’s wine in-
dustry attests.
But work done at Oregon
State University’s research
station in Aurora may help
open an opportunity for grow-
ing table grapes, the sweet
snackers that now come piling
into grocery stores from Cali-
fornia, Mexico and Chile.
Amanda Vance, a facul-
ty research assistant, spent
three years evaluating culti-
vars planted at OSU’s North
Willamette Research and Ex-
tension Center, or NWREC.
Her work, which has been
accepted for scholarly publi-
cation, identifi ed several vari-
eties that might be suitable for
commercial growing in the
Willamette Valley.
Not that Oregon is sudden-
ly going to be shipping truck-
loads of Thompson Seedless
out of state. Instead, Vance
said table grapes might in-
creasingly become part of
what small producers take
to farmers’ markets or sell at
roadside stands.
“I think there’s good po-
tential for small, diverse farms
to add them into the mix,”
she said. “We’ll probably not
grow them on a large scale.”
Vance’s research came
about partly by happenstance.
University berry and fruit
breeders sometimes informal-
ly share their work with coun-
terparts at other institutions,
who grow them as a courtesy
to see how they do in other re-
gions, or with an eye to future
research of their own.
OSU’s North Willamette
center has 41 cultivars on a
one-third-acre demonstration
plot, including several selec-
tions from Cornell Universi-
ty. In 2006, NWREC accept-
ed new table grape cultivars
from John R. Clark, a noted
University of Arkansas plant
breeder and horticulture pro-
fessor.
Clark wanted to test his
new selections in the Willa-
mette Valley, and afterward
came to visit and taste the
grapes, but they hadn’t been
evaluated until Vance began
work on them in 2014.
Vance has worked four
years at NWREC, where she
manages research fi elds and
does day-to-day data collec-
tion and analysis. She has a
background in viticulture,
however, and the grapes in-
trigued her. She selected 13
cultivars to study, eventually
eliminating three of them be-
cause they weren’t working
out.
Vance said the most prom-
ising of the cultivars are Nep-
tune, a green grape from Ar-
kansas with high yields year
after year; Canadice, a small-
er red grape from Cornell
with good fl avor and uniform
clusters. The best of the newer
varieties from Clark is called
A2932. It’s a green grape with
nice sized fruit, Vance said,
and it will be named and prop-
agated over the next year or
so. Vance is doing a mini-trial
this year with A2932, compar-
ing cane pruning to spur prun-
ing methods.
Two other promising Ar-
kansas cultivars, Joy and
Faith, are purple grapes with
variable size in clusters, but
good yields.
Vance said the research
does not include an economic
analysis, but people thinking
about growing table grapes
will fi nd information such as
yield and cluster weight when
the study is published. OSU
Extension provides gener-
al information on growing
grapes, and the study results
will be noted in OSU’s small
farm newsletter, Vance said.
She said table grapes do
well in colder climates than
the Willamette Valley, includ-
ing New York and Michigan,
and valley farmers may fi nd a
spot for them.
“People are always look-
ing to the mix of what they
can do,” she said.
DENVER — New con-
sumer data suggest the U.S.
potato industry may finally
be making progress in its
effort to reverse a longterm
trend of gradually declining
domestic fresh potato sales.
Domestic retail spend-
ing on fresh potatoes post-
ed monthly gains from the
prior year throughout the
six-month period ending in
December, which is the most
recent month with complete
data available through the
Nielsen Perishables Group.
Ross Johnson, retail glob-
al marketing manager for
Potatoes USA, said Decem-
ber was also the first month
in which he’s witnessed po-
tato sales by volume increase
from the previous year.
According to the Nielsen
data, retailers sold more than
278 million pounds of fresh
potatoes during December
2016, up 1.7 percent from De-
cember 2015. Retail prices,
at 63 cents per pound, were
a penny higher. The value of
fresh sales, at about $176.6
million, was up 3.6 percent.
“It’s exciting to fi nally see
the report where we can deliv-
er some positive news to the
industry,” Johnson said.
Johnson said increasing
sales of bags weighing more
than 10 pounds and strong
value-added product sales
have driven increases in the
fresh category. More than
12.5 million pounds of spuds
were sold during the month in
greater than 10-pound bags,
up 6.4 percent. Johnson attri-
butes the gains to strong sales
in warehouse stores that spe-
cialize in large volume.
“What
I’m
hearing
throughout the industry is
that Costco and Sam’s Club
are not only increasing their
member base, but they’re also
doing extremely well in larger
package sizes,” Johnson said.
In the value-added fresh
category, December sales
of petite potatoes, at near-
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Potatoes are loaded after being
harvested in Eastern Idaho in
August of 2016. Potatoes USA
offi cials are hopeful that recent
Neilsen Perishables Group data
will be the start of a trend of
improved fresh domestic potato
sales.
ly 800,000 pounds, were up
more than 53 percent.
Seth Pemsler, vice presi-
dent of retail and international
programs with Idaho Potato
Commission, said the report-
ed gains are consistent with
records of strong fresh potato
shipments that have been well
ahead of the prior year in his
state.
Potatoes USA Chief Mar-
keting Offi cer John Toaspern
acknowledged a single month
of data doesn’t constitute a
trend, but he believes consum-
er perceptions about spuds are
improving, and people are
trying new, creative ways to
prepare them.
“I think we’ve seen a bit
of a turn in the tide in terms
of perceptions (about potatoes)
in the nutrition community,”
Toaspern said.
Despite a strong dollar,
Toaspern anticipates fresh and
frozen potato exports will both
be up when the marketing year
ends on June 30.
Nonetheless, potato growers
haven’t noticed improvements
in their returns. Jeff Harper, a
Mountain Home, Idaho, grow-
er, said he’ll feed fresh spuds
produced above his processing
contract to cattle.
American Falls grow-
er Jim Tiede believes the
high-quality 2016 potato
crop has increased the per-
centage of fresh spuds that
can be packaged for sale to
consumers, thereby driving
down prices.
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