April 28, 2017
CapitalPress.com
15
Farmers race to do spring work between rainstorms
Growers say they’re
2-3 weeks behind,
bumping into crop
insurance deadlines
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
ST. JOHN, Wash. — 2017
is the wettest spring Gary Bai-
ley can remember.
“I’ve never had this much
rainfall this time of year as
long as I’ve been farming,”
he said. “We’ve got well over
our annual (average) already.”
Bailey farms roughly 3,000
acres with his brother in the St.
John, Wash., area. He is also
a member of the Washington
Grain Commission, represent-
ing Whitman County.
Bailey estimates his spring
work is two to three weeks be-
hind normal.
“There’s always stuff to
work on, I guess,” he said.
“You try to have everything in
top shape so that when you can
go, you don’t have any prob-
lems. It’s frustrating when you
want to work and you can’t.
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
St. John, Wash., wheat farmer Gary Bailey fills his tank with water to mix with herbicide for spring work
on April 21. He estimates rain and wind have delayed his field work by two to three weeks.
But it’s Mother Nature. She
holds the cards.”
On April 21, Bailey applied
a mixture of water and her-
bicide to kill leftover plants
on fields he plans to plant to
spring wheat, barley or chick-
peas.
The weather’s made it
difficult to find days to apply
chemicals, Bailey said. He
needs a day with sunshine and
no wind to spray, he said. Rain
makes the ground too muddy
for the heavy equipment.
USDA estimates 550,000
acres of spring wheat will be
planted in Washington. Glen
Squires, CEO of the state
Grain Commission, doesn’t
expect delays to affect that
number.
The increased moisture
is good for the soil profile,
Squires said.
“It’s better than being in a
drought,” he said.
Across the border in Idaho
USDA estimates spring wheat
acreage will be up 5 percent,
but weather-caused delays
could impact that number, said
Blaine Jacobson, executive di-
rector of the state Wheat Com-
mission.
By this time of year, Ida-
ho wheat farmers are usually
55 percent done with spring
planting, but have only about
half that done, Jacobson said.
“It’s difficult to get some
consistency in your field work
when every third or fourth day,
you’ve got another shower,”
he said.
“You reach a certain point
where if the seed’s not in the
ground, it’s not going to be
ripe in order to be harvested,”
he said. “By mid-May, we lose
that window of opportunity.”
The delays are pushing up
against final planting dates
for crop insurance. Benjamin
Thiel, director of the USDA
Risk Management Agency of-
fice in Spokane, said prevented
planting is failure to plant an
insured crop by the final date
designated, due to an insured
cause of loss that’s general
to the surrounding area and
prevents other farmers from
planting acreage with similar
characteristics.
Final planting dates vary
between crops and counties,
Thiel said. He recommends
farmers contact their crop in-
surance agent.
Standing in St. John, Bai-
ley said it’s a unique spot.
Highway 23 cuts through the
Eastern Washington town.
On the south side of the road,
farmers need to plant their
spring wheat by April 30 to
qualify for crop insurance.
On the north side, farmers
need to plant by May 15.
Barley and chickpeas need
to be planted by May 20.
Bailey planned to adjust
his planting decisions in some
fields to meet the deadlines.
Despite the delays, he is
optimistic about the season.
“If we can get this in,
there’s really good moisture,”
he said. “Everybody’s anx-
ious to get at it.”
Jacobson is unsure about
the chance of farmers catch-
ing up on their work. The cur-
rent weather pattern has per-
sisted since October, he said.
“The long-term projection
is that weather will stabilize,”
he said. “That’s been the fore-
cast for a couple of weeks,
and we’re still getting rain-
storms. We’re hopeful that
we’ll get into the real spring,
but right now there are still
some remnants of winter that
are hanging on.”
NW pear growers to host international group FFA students hone skills
in science competition
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
The Pear Bureau Northwest
will host an international pear
conference in Wenatchee in
June.
The 2017 Interpera Con-
gress, its 10th annual meeting
and first in the U.S., will be
held at the Wenatchee Con-
fluence Technology Center on
June 15 and 16.
About 100 pear industry
growers, marketers, research-
ers and experts from eight to
10 nations are expected to at-
tend.
“It’s an honor and an ex-
cellent opportunity to host
the collaboration of world
thought leaders in one of the
premier pear growing areas in
the world,” said Kevin Mof-
fitt, Pear Bureau president.
The Wenatchee Val-
ley, which stretches from
Wenatchee to Leavenworth,
has long been regarded as
arguably the best region and
micro-climate for pears in the
world. It primarily produces
d’ Anjou pears.
The Wenatchee District is
No. 1 in Northwest pear vol-
ume, followed by Hood River,
Yakima and Medford.
The Northwest grows 85
percent of the nation’s pears,
and California grows 15 per-
cent.
The conference features
presentations from world ex-
perts on emerging pear vari-
By TIM HEARDEN
Capital Press
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Lourdes Guzman packs third grade d’Anjou pears at Duckwall Fruit, Hood River, Ore., last October.
Northwest growers and packers are hosting an international pear congress in Wenatchee, Wash., this
June.
eties, high-density planting,
root stock, harvest and pack-
ing house mechanization,
integrated pest management
successes, export trade flows
and successful practices for
building consumer demand.
The conference will in-
clude tours of Wenatchee
Valley
orchards
and
Crunch Pak, in Cashmere,
a leading fresh-apple slice
producer.
Beside the Pear Bureau,
the conference is organized
by the Assembly of Europe-
an Regions Producing Fruit,
Vegetables and Ornamental
Plants and the California Pear
Advisory Board. The con-
gress rotates among pear-pro-
ducing countries. The most
recent meetings were in South
Africa, Italy and Portugal.
FRESNO, Calif. — For
Kaitlyn McFarland, the agri-
science fair at the annual Cal-
ifornia FFA conference didn’t
really feel like a competition.
“You’re more developing
skills related to the scientific
process and properly writing
a research paper,” said Mc-
Farland, an Exeter, Calif.,
student whose project was
to test organic antiseptics on
livestock bacteria.
Her classmates, Mia Mc-
Cormick and Kaylee Rau-
baugh, studied pH measure-
ment in egg wash for small
farms. McCormick said her
effort will be useful on her
family’s farm.
“We want to make sure
we’re washing the eggs safe-
ly,” she said.
But while the students were
just trying to hone their skills,
they proved adept at compet-
ing, too. They and their team-
mates from Exeter FFA took
the top cooperative award as
well as several individual hon-
ors.
More than 100 students
enter projects in the science
contests each year, compet-
ing at several skill levels in
categories for animal science,
environmental sciences, food
products and processing sys-
tems, plant systems, power,
structural and technical sys-
tems, and social systems.
The students presented
their work to panels of judg-
es and answered questions.
Entries were judged on April
23, and other attendees were
allowed to browse through the
rows of project displays on
April 24 before several doz-
en plaques and ribbons were
handed out later that after-
noon.
FFA member Preslie
Hewitt, a sophomore from
East Nicolaus, Calif., looked
through the displays and jotted
down notes to report to her ad-
viser what she’d learned.
“It’s hard work I’ll bet,”
Hewitt said of the projects. “It’s
very cool to see what the other
chapters and schools have to
offer.”
Topics covered in the dis-
plays read like scholarly jour-
nal articles. Among the entries,
students tested the effect of so-
lar panel cellular waste on plant
growth, compared erosion con-
trol methods, measured resid-
ual saline from drip irrigation
systems and studied the British
thermal units generated from
eucalyptus burning.
Past projects by students
have included how well differ-
ent feed additives worked on
hogs and genetic research on
different varieties of animals,
said Josiah Mayfield, the assis-
tant state FFA adviser.
Oregon State University displays new logo Rain delays spud planting across E. Idaho
By ERIC MORTENSON
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Capital Press
Oregon State Universi-
ty, the alma mater or sports
team favorite of many Pacific
Northwest producers, has a
new logo and branding to go
with it.
The new logo is an inten-
tional artistic representation
of what the university stands
for and the practical research
and education it does in ag-
riculture, forestry, natural
resources, engineering and
other work that benefits Ore-
gonians.
“The personality of this
university is like the state an-
imal, the beaver,” said Steve
Clark, OSU’s vice president
for University Relations and
Marketing. “We work hard,
we get things done. We don’t
just talk, we do.”
The old logo, dating to
2003, was orange and sim-
ply said “OSU.” The new
one shows a beaver, the OSU
mascot, on top of an academ-
ic crest shaped like a round-
ed-off map of Oregon. On the
crest are a tree and an open
book, which represent knowl-
edge, according to an OSU
news release.
The crest also includes
three stars to represent the
OSU campuses in Corvallis,
Bend and Newport, and the
date 1868, when the universi-
ty was founded.
Finally, the crest includes
AMERICAN FALLS, Ida-
ho — Three weeks into April,
Eastern Idaho crop adviser
Keith Fehringer said growers
normally have all of their spring
wheat in, and potato planting
should be well underway.
But storms, saturated soil
and cold weather have kept
farmers out of their fields this
spring, said Fehringer, who
works in the fertilizer division
of Bingham Cooperative at
CHS.
Fehringer said local grow-
ers will need a turn toward
hotter, drier weather soon
to make up lost ground and
avoid yield reductions. Grow-
ers in Magic Valley, Treasure
Valley and Northern Idaho
also say they’ve fallen behind
their spring planting sched-
ules.
“This wet weather is really
hampering our ability to get in
there and drill wheat, and I’ve
got fields now we should be
fertilizing but it’s been so wet
we haven’t been on them,”
Fehringer said on April 21.
He estimates Eastern Ida-
ho potato growers are at least
a week behind normal, and
even further behind compared
to their early starts the past
two seasons. He believes the
odds of repeating last season’s
bumper spud and grain crops
are growing longer.
“Most of these (potato)
a reference to the state seal,
with a sun setting over the
ocean, plus mountain peaks
under the stars. Together,
the symbols speak to OSU’s
status as a land, sea, sun and
space grant university.
In a prepared statement,
Clark said the logo provides
a “refreshed visual identi-
ty” that “portrays the prom-
ise and product of Oregon
State: high-quality teaching,
research and community en-
gagement.”
He said Oregon State and
“Beaver Nation” members are
“gritty, determined, confident,
collaborative, visionary, con-
scientious and welcoming.”
The logo change is ac-
companied by a motto, “Out
there,” which expresses
OSU’s network of statewide
Extension and research sta-
tions and its Willamette Val-
ley, Cascades and coastal
campuses.
“We’re out there in the
middle of everywhere,” Clark
said.
Clark estimated 75 to 80
percent of responses so far
have been favorable, with
reaction coming in social me-
dia, email and phone calls.
Kevin Miller, an OSU
graduate who edits the Ore-
gon Stater alumni magazine,
said students on campus
appeared to be enthusiastic
about the change when the
logo was unveiled at an event
on campus this past week.
Miller, who lives in and
was a newspaper editor in
Eugene, acknowledged the
change might not have much
impact in the home of arch-ri-
val University of Oregon.
“It’s not going to make
some of my friends who are
Duck fans burn their green
and yellow Duck gear because
we have a new logo,” Miller
said. “If you know OSU, you
say, ‘Hey, that looks like us,’ “
The athletic team logo —
a beaver with bared teeth and
bristling hair — remains the
same.
The logo and branding
work cost $480,000. Of that,
$395,000 went to Ologie, a
Columbus, Ohio, branding
agency, and $85,000 was
paid to Pentagram, a design
firm based in London. Money
came from sales of licensed
OSU merchandise. No uni-
versity or public money was
spent, according to OSU.
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Red potatoes are planted April 24 in American Falls, Idaho, as rain
begins to fall. Rain has delayed the start of planting spuds in much
of Eastern Idaho.
guys are geared up to be going
by April 14 or 15 any more,
and we’ve got some guys who
haven’t even dropped a piece
of seed in the ground yet,”
Fehringer said.
Aberdeen-Springfield Ca-
nal Co. General Manager Steve
Howser was delivering water
to just three fields totaling 300
acres as of April 21.
“By now, I’m usually irri-
gating most of the sugar beets
on our system,” Howser said.
“Some beets are planted, but for
the most part they’re delayed.”
American Falls grower
Kamren Koompin finally start-
ed planting spuds on April 22
but rain put a halt to it on April
24. He noted planting spuds in
moist soil can create dirt clods,
which complicate harvest and
bruise tubers.
Aberdeen grower Ritchey
Toevs believes late planting
will “take the top off” of beet
and grain yields.
“It would be nice to be
done by April 15 on all of our
spring-seeded cereals,” said
Toevs, who is still planting bar-
ley.
He’s more optimistic about
his potato crop, though he ex-
pects a later harvest.
Cathy Wilson, the Idaho
Wheat Commission’s director
of research collaboration, said
some growers in Western Ida-
ho may opt to replace some
spring wheat with shorter-sea-
son crops. Some growers who
have already planted grain
in wet fields may have to re-
plant areas in which puddles
formed due to soil compac-
tion and killed seed, Wilson
said.
Growers have told Wil-
son almost no spring wheat
had been planted north of the
Salmon River, where fields re-
main too wet.