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June 9, 2017
CapitalPress.com
7
Washington
Weed develops resistance, impacts pulse, wheat crops
Seed control is key,
expert says
Online
http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/
CEPublications/PNW695/
PNW695.pdf
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Pacific Northwest wheat
and pulse growers are turning
to new strategies to control
mayweed chamomile, a weed
that is developing resistance to
Group 2 herbicides.
“It worked too well, and
when things work well, peo-
ple tend to overuse them,” said
Drew Lyon, weed science pro-
fessor at Washington State Uni-
versity. “If you use a particular
mechanism of action over and
over again, you eventually shift
the population to those individ-
uals that are resistant.”
Oregon State University
Populations of mayweed chamomile have developed resistance to
Group 2 herbicides, researchers say.
Group 2 herbicides such as
Imidazolinones block the func-
tion of an enzyme essential to
protein synthesis in the weed.
WSU, Oregon State Univer-
sity and the University of Idaho
recently released an extension
publication about managing
the weed, also known as dog
fennel.
The weed is more of a prob-
lem in pulse crops, particularly
in lentils, so Lyon expects more
problems as farmers turn to
pulses in response to low wheat
prices.
Winter wheat can lose 5-10
percent of its yield to the weed,
but if mayweed chamomile
goes to seed, the seed can sur-
vive in the soil.
Spring wheat tends to
come up at the same time,
so mayweed chamomile can
mean a loss of up to 25 per-
cent of the crop.
“The real key to controlling
this is trying not to let it pro-
duce seed,” Lyon said. “Once
that seed bank’s filled up, you
have a problem for quite some
time.”
Early moisture this year
delayed most pulse planting,
helping to reduce the weed in
those crops. But “a fair bit” still
can be found in winter wheat,
Lyon said.
The weed tends to be more
of a problem in higher rainfall
zones. Tillage can be effective.
Lyon recommends putting the
seed down deep and then not
plowing again for eight to 10
years.
No-till farmers can switch
to herbicides using different
modes of action, stop raising
pulses or switch to more com-
petitive pulses. Peas are more
competitive against the weed
than chickpeas, which fare bet-
ter than lentils.
“If you’re going to grow a
pulse crop, you grow a pulse
crop that’s as competitive as
possible, and that would be
peas,” Lyon said. “Of course,
chickpeas and lentils have
probably the better price, so
there’s some incentive to go
ahead and plant those.”
Some different chemistries
have proven successful, but
Lyons cautions that reports of
resistance to other herbicides
are already starting to come in.
“Growers need to be care-
ful about their use and try to
rotate crops and herbicide
chemistries,” he said.
Quincy-to-Seattle ag rail Inslee tours farmland under flood threat
shipments discussed
Too early to back
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
QUINCY, Wash. — The
Port of Quincy Intermodal
Terminal may become a test-
ing ground for rail shipments
of Eastern Washington agricul-
tural commodities to the ports
of Seattle and Tacoma.
The Northwest Seaport Al-
liance, the marine cargo oper-
ating partnership of the ports
of Seattle and Tacoma, is inter-
ested in reducing truck traffic
and congestion into the ports
by having agricultural goods
arrive by rail. Currently, none
do. It would require intermod-
al terminals in Eastern Wash-
ington to load containers from
trucks onto rail cars.
“We’re ready to go. We
could start shipping tomorrow
once we had a train schedule,”
said Curt Morris, a Port of
Quincy commissioner.
The Quincy terminal has
8,000 feet of siding track with
5,000 feet suitable for loading
and unloading, and that can be
doubled, Morris said. There is
space for thousands of 20-foot
and 40-foot containers, a facil-
ity to clean them and equip-
ment to move them, he said.
The Port of Benton in Rich-
land is considering an inter-
modal terminal for rail trans-
port westbound through the
Columbia Gorge and north on
the Interstate 5 corridor to the
ports of Tacoma and Seattle,
said Pat Boss, Port of Quincy
spokesman. The Port of Walla
Walla is thinking about a ter-
minal for eastbound goods, he
said.
Those ideas and use of the
Port of Quincy were discussed
at the May meeting of the
Washington Public Ports As-
sociation in Cle Elum, he said.
“The whole idea is we can’t
keep jamming more and more
trucks over Snoqualmie Pass
especially when it’s shut down
in snowstorms, so people are
looking at inland ports,” Boss
said. “The idea is dry goods so
far but frozen could be next.”
Northwest Seaport Alliance
and the Port of Quincy are
talking with shippers of wheat,
dry corn, dry beans, hay, le-
gumes and other grains but a
lot of frozen french fries are
trucked from Quincy and other
places to the ports of Tacoma
and Seattle, Morris said.
Discussions are underway
with BNSF Railway, he said.
Generally, railroads are not
eager to stop for short-haul
business within 300 to 500
miles of ports, Morris said.
While Quincy is just 150 miles
east of Seattle and Tacoma,
the congestion of those areas
and uncertainty of winter trav-
el through Snoqualmie Pass
make it viable, he said.
BNSF runs from Quin-
cy through Wenatchee and
through the Cascade Tunnel
at Stevens Pass, which is more
dependable than Snoqualmie
Pass, Morris said.
Time trucks sit in traffic
jams in the Seattle-Tacoma
area is part of the equation and
talks are ongoing with Ellens-
burg hay exporters about the
cost effectiveness of trucking
hay eastward 50 miles from
Ellensburg to Quincy for ship-
ment by rail west to Seattle,
Morris said.
Railroad rates and a list of
shippers are needed to get a
test going, he said.
Such services previously
operated out of Quincy.
In the early 2000s, export
containers of refrigerated ag-
ricultural products went from
Quincy to Tacoma and Seattle.
But the service took longer
than trucking, causing apple
shippers to quit using it, Boss
said.
From April 2010 to August
2014, Cold Train grew to about
700 refrigerated containers per
month of apples, produce and
frozen goods from Quincy and
Portland heading east. Service
ended when BNSF reduced
service. Cold Train’s owner,
Rail Logistics, Overland Park,
Kan., sued BNSF for $41 mil-
lion for breach of contract and
reached an out-of-court settle-
ment in 2016.
dam, governor says
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
CHEHALIS,
Wash.
— Climate change makes
flood-control projects more
urgent, Gov. Jay Inslee said
Thursday, though he said it
was premature to endorse
building a dam to protect
southwest Washington farms
swamped a decade ago.
Inslee stopped briefly at
a Lewis County dairy where
258 cows drowned in a 2007
flood. The governor cut short
a tour of the Chehalis River
Basin to confer with other
governors about President
Donald Trump’s decision to
withdraw the U.S. from the
Paris climate change agree-
ment.
Before leaving, Inslee pre-
dicted climate change will
make extreme weather events
more common. “The work we
knew was vital 20 years ago
will be more vital 50 years
from now,” he said.
Don Jenkins/Capital Press
Lewis County dairy farmer John Brunoff, right, and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee talk June 1 at Brun-
off’s dairy, which lost more than 200 cows in a December 2007 flood in the Chehalis River Basin.
Nearly a decade later, studies continue on ways to prevent another catastrophic flood.
The 2007 flood damaged
dozens of farms, flooded
thousands of homes and com-
mercial buildings, and closed
Interstate 5 for four days.
Since then, some farms have
received aid to build “critter
pads,” high ground to herd
livestock if the land floods
again. The state, however,
has yet to settle on a plan to
prevent another catastrophic
flood.
Lawmakers are likely to
appropriate money to contin-
ue studying whether to build
a dam on the Chehalis Riv-
er. Tribes and environmental
groups have raised concerns
about a dam’s effect on fish.
Washington State Dairy
Federation policy director
Jay Gordon, who’s on a board
advising the state, said he ex-
pects the debate over a dam
to intensify over the next two
years.
USDA triticale crop insurance program coming
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Lind, Wash., farmer James
Wahl recently decided to grow
triticale instead of wheat, so
he’s interested in a federal
crop insurance program for
the crop, which is a cross be-
tween durum wheat and rye.
“It would take some of the
stress of the risk out of it for
us,” Wahl said.
The USDA Risk Manage-
ment Agency will offer a pi-
lot crop insurance program
in several counties in Idaho,
Oregon and Washington. The
program will be publicly re-
leased in the next month.
The sales closing date will be
Sept. 30.
The program will cover
yield for both fall-planted and
spring-planted triticale grown
for grain, not for forage or a
Matthew Weaver/Capital Press
Lind, Wash., triticale farmer James
Wahl says an affordable federal
crop insurance program could
help farmers in low to moderate
rainfall areas to raise the crop.
cover crop, said Ben Thiel,
director of the agency’s Spo-
kane regional office.
Interested growers will
need to contact their crop in-
surance agent, Thiel said.
“Certain select growers
have been trying (triticale)
out and I think have found
favorable results,” he said.
“It seems to be well-adapted
for this area, and has good
rotational purposes. (A crop
insurance program) has been
asked about and desired for
some time.”
Some private insurance
programs are also available,
said Howard Nelson, manag-
er of member and special ser-
vices with Central Washing-
ton Grain Growers in Wilbur,
Wash. The company doubled
its acreage this year.
CWG prices triticale at
$105 per ton. The cost of pro-
duction is close to the cost of
production for wheat, Nelson
said.
“It’s hard to gauge what
growers are thinking in to-
day’s price environment,” he
said. “They’re looking for the
crop that will return a profit. It
just depends on what they feel
is the best crop for a particular
field.”
Nelson advises farmers to
make sure they have storage
and marketing set up for trit-
icale.
“It’s an easy crop to grow,”
he said. “Really the last piece
of getting triticale re-estab-
lished as a crop was the crop
insurance piece. From this
point on, it’s just another
cropping option for growers
in the area.”
Wahl said affordable crop
insurance would give him
peace of mind raising triticale.
It could open the door for
farmers working with banks
that don’t allow them to raise
a crop without insurance, he
said.
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