8
CapitalPress.com
September 8, 2017
Washington
Researcher: Falling number problems ‘mild’ this year
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Low falling number test
results have posed only a
“mild” problem for Northwest
wheat farmers this year, a re-
searcher says.
Falling number is a test that
measures starch damage in
wheat that reduces the quality
of baked goods and noodles.
Farmers were caught off
guard in 2016 when roughly
44 percent of soft white wheat
samples and 42 percent of club
wheat samples tested below
300, the industry standard.
The industry estimates the
damage last year cost farmers
more than $30 million in lower
prices.
This year, Camille Steber, a
USDA Agricultural Research
Service molecular geneticist
in Pullman, Wash., reported
Capital Press File
Camille Steber, a USDA Agricultural Research Service molecular
geneticist, speaks at a field day last year. She reports that low
falling number test results are far less frequent this year compared
to last year.
in Pullman and 217 in St. An-
drews.
No falling numbers below
300 were reported in Ritzville,
Pasco or Dayton.
the lowest falling number test
scores in several soft white
wheat field trial locations: 265
in Anatone, 275 in Connell,
284 in Lind, 274 in Dusty, 289
Steber believes the cause of
low test scores was likely late
maturity alpha amylase, an en-
zyme required for wheat seed
germination.
It is caused by large tem-
perature swings the last week
of June, a critical point in
wheat development.
Rain before harvest can
cause sprout damage and also
lead to low falling number test
results.
Some of the usual-suspect
wheat varieties were below
300, but the numbers are much
higher than those in 2016, Ste-
ber said.
She called the data “en-
couraging.”
“It is possible that enough
farmers switched over to re-
sistant varieties that the high
falling number grain will be
enough to dilute out the grain
that is a bit below falling num-
ber,” she said. “I have my fin-
gers crossed that Northwest
farmers will have a good, prof-
itable year in 2017.”
Steber
hopes
there’s
enough high falling number
wheat that growers won’t be
docked for their wheat with
low falling numbers.
“It’s just a mild problem,
it looks like this year, unless
it rains a great deal,” she said.
Steber recommends harvesting
early.
Phil Garcia, manager of the
state grain inspection program,
said the tests his agency has
run this year have been very
“generic,” with the number of
samples going down “dramat-
ically.”
“We’re in the hundreds
rather than the tens of thou-
sands of samples run,” he said.
That’s normal, he said. “It’s
business as usual.”
Garcia said requests for
falling number tests typically
dwindle by the end of har-
vest.
“But you never know,” he
said.
For next year, if a high-
risk variety performs well
for a farmer, Steber rec-
ommends also planting a
low-risk variety, but keep-
ing them separate during
harvest.
She posts data about
wheat variety performance
on her website, http://steber-
lab.org/project7599data.php.
For the development of
future wheat varieties, Steber
hopes to identify the genes
that lead to low falling num-
ber test results.
“If I’m successful, no one
will know, because there
won’t be a problem,” she
said.
Japanese buyers consider Washington wheat during tour
Company interested
in end-use quality
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
Buyers from a Japa-
nese flour company got a
whirlwind look at wheat in
Washington and the Pacific
Northwest as they look for
new varieties to develop new
products.
Representatives of the Ma-
12 month waiver
chance to visit with them very
often, so this meeting was
very productive.”
Masuda often looks to
fine-tune its wheat purchases,
Herron said. The company is
a big user of club wheat, a
subclass of soft white wheat
primarily produced in Wash-
ington state. It is often blend-
ed with regular soft white
wheat as Western white wheat
when exported overseas.
Masuda buys varieties that
have specific end-use quali-
suda Flour Milling Co. Ltd.
met with representatives of
the Washington Grain Com-
mission to discuss variety
availability and quality, and
learn more about the wheat
production system.
“Masuda is a small per-
centage of their market share,
but as a mid-sized Japanese
company, they’re one of the
most progressive and most
important,” said Dana Her-
ron, a board member on the
commission. “We don’t get a
3 years at 1.9%
5 years at 2.9%
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plow, 6 and 5 bottom in tandem, demo unit
like new ...............$52,000 Merrill 130143
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ties from grain sheds, Herron
said.
“They’re very much inter-
ested in the functional end-
use quality of our wheat,” he
said.
Herron believes Masuda
will look to buy more wheat
from the U.S.
“This year is a little easi-
er to sell than most because
our quality is exceptional, our
dockage and foreign materi-
al is very low and protein is
right at the sweet spot, so we
don’t have any quality prob-
lems,” he said.
Japan is the second-larg-
est buyer of soft white wheat.
They
purchased
nearly
784,000 metric tons during
the 2016-2017 marketing
year, said Glen Squires, CEO
of the commission. Japan
purchased 2.86 million met-
ric tons of U.S. wheat for the
same period.
Herron expected the visi-
tors to also tour Washington
State University in Pullman
and an export facility in Port-
land, Ore.
Masuda seeks a way to
differentiate itself in a highly
competitive market, Herron
said.
“This meeting was as im-
portant for them as it was for
us,” he said. “The relation-
ships that exist between the
commission and our custom-
ers are just as important as the
farmer’s relationship with his
banker. It’s a relationship, it’s
not all about the money.”
Fruit companies dump old apples
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
WENATCHEE,
Wash.
— Tree fruit companies are
dumping some old crop ap-
ples on the ground, but proba-
bly not near the amounts they
dumped two years ago.
Doug England, manager
of Manson Fruit Cooperative,
said no one likes to talk about
it but companies dump fruit
every year because processors
are more strict about not tak-
ing any decay in apples culled
out on packing lines. He said
the cooperative dumped about
200 tons this season.
A little bit is dumped all
season but it can be more at
the end of the season, he said.
England said he knows of
no fruit good enough for pack-
ing that has been dumped, but
that it could happen.
A record 143.6 million,
40-pound-box crop in 2014
was reduced from 155 mil-
lion boxes, partially by the
dumping of millions of boxes
of mostly Red Delicious. The
dumping occurred through the
spring and summer of 2015.
A huge crop coupled with
a work slowdown at West
Coast seaports and Russia
banning Western produce
caused prices to drop to a
point where some sizes and
grades of apples were deemed
unprofitable to pack and were
dumped, Bruce Grim, manag-
er of the Washington Apple
Growers Marketing Associa-
tion, said that year.
Bob Mathison, chairman
of the board of Stemilt Grow-
ers LLC, Wenatchee, posted a
photo on FaceBook Aug. 29
Courtesy of Bob Mathison
Lavonne van Someren Greve, sister of Bob Mathison, board chair-
man of Stemilt Growers, looks at apples on ground at a Stemilt
orchard near Quincy, Wash., in early August.
of a large amount of apples
on the ground at a Stemilt or-
chard near Quincy.
“We were surprised that
someone dumped a (storage)
room full of last year’s apples
on the field we’re going to
plant next year. Trees won’t
live there,” Mathison wrote in
the post.
Later, he told Capital Press
that company officials told
him the apples were not old
crop from storage but late
thinning of new crop Honey-
crisp.
Crews normally drop ap-
ples they are thinning right
on the ground where they
are thinning. Being late, they
had too many to leave in the
orchard so they hauled them
out, he said.
“It was an internal mis-
take that they were dumped
on ground to be planted next
spring, so they will be cleaned
up,” Mathison said.
Young trees won’t grow in
ground high in acid and eth-
ylene from too much rotted
fruit, he said.
While agreeing it looks
like far too much fruit for
thinners to carry to the end of
rows to dump, Mathison said
that’s the company story.
“The real story is the
lack of labor to get cherries
picked. We had to switch
workers over from thinning to
get cherries picked and thin-
ning didn’t get done,” he said.
Stemilt built housing for
1,200 beds in the last three
to four years for domestic
and foreign guestworkers to
be able to hire foreign guest-
workers and will build that
many more in the next three
years, Mathison said.
The company has enough
workers to harvest its apples,
he said.
Settlement reached in dairy pay lawsuit
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
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36-2/100
YAKIMA, Wash. — A
$600,000 settlement has been
reached in a lawsuit against a
Sunnyside dairy for its alleged
failure to pay employees for
meal and rest breaks and for
all time worked.
A Yakima County Superior
Court judge granted prelim-
inary approval to the settle-
ment for 281 dairy workers
on Aug. 25, according to Co-
lumbia Legal Services, which
filed the lawsuit last year
against DeRuyter Bros. Dairy.
“We are pleased with the
proposed settlement, which
provides fair compensation to
workers for the alleged fail-
ures to provide meal and rest
periods and to pay workers
for all work performed,” said
Lori Isley, a Columbia Legal
Services attorney in Yakima.
The settlement did not
cover alleged unpaid over-
time or the lawsuit’s chal-
lenge of a state law that
exempts farmworkers from
overtime pay, CLS said in a
news release.
The overtime challenge
may ultimately be decided by
the state Supreme Court, said
Marc Cote, a Seattle attorney
and co-counsel on the case.
Jake and Genny DeRuyter
sold the 6,200-head dairy at
the end of May because they
were nearing retirement and
had health concerns, Genny
DeRuyter told Capital Press at
that time. She said the lawsuit
was a challenge but not the
reason for selling.
“The sale motivated the
parties to reach agreement.
We are grateful DeRuyter
stepped up to the plate to re-
solve these claims for the
workers,” Cote said.
Under the settlement, each
milker will receive a pro-
portional share of damages
based on the number of shifts
worked between Dec. 8, 2013,
and Dec. 31, 2016. The settle-
ment also covers the workers’
attorney fees and the costs of
notifying workers of the set-
tlement to ensure the payment
of wages owed.
Workers will receive writ-
ten notices stating the estimat-
ed amounts they are owed and
giving them until Oct. 9 to opt
out of the lawsuit or to object,
CLS said.
Workers will likely be paid
before the end of the year if
the court grants final approval
at the end of October. People
who worked as milkers at the
dairy in the three years and
don’t receive a notice by the
end of September may contact
CLS in Yakima at 800-631-
1323, ext. 805.