10 CapitalPress.com
November 10, 2017
Oregon
Third gray wolf killed
KLAMATH FALLS, Ore.
(AP) — Another gray wolf
has been found dead in Ore-
gon, marking the third such
death of a federally protected
wolf in the past year, state and
federal wildlife officials said.
The wolf was found dead
Oct. 29 in Klamath County
on state forest land. The U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service is
offering a $5,000 reward for
information on the killing, au-
thorities said Monday.
The wolf was known to bi-
ologists as OR-25 and was be-
lieved to have killed a calf at
a private ranch near Prospect
earlier this year, according to
state wildlife officials.
OR-33, a collared male,
was found shot dead April
23 about 20 miles northwest
of Klamath Falls in Fre-
mont-Winema National For-
est. OR-28, a collared female,
was found dead Oct. 6, 2016,
in Fremont-Winema National
Forest near Summer Lake.
All three investigations re-
main open, and authorities do
not think the latest wolf died of
natural causes, said Oregon De-
partment of Fish and Wildlife
spokesman Brent Lawrence.
New hop cultivar emerges from
public-private partnership
Arrangement
between Indie
Hops and OSU
was initially
controversial
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
OR-25, a yearling male in the Imnaha Pack, after being radio-col-
lared on May 20, 2014. The wolf was found dead Oct. 29 in
Klamath County, Ore.
Killing gray wolves in the
western two-thirds of Oregon
is a violation of the federal
Endangered Species Act and
of Oregon state game laws.
The offense is punishable by
up to a $100,000 fine, a year
in jail or both. The maxi-
mum state penalty is a fine of
$6,250 and a year in jail.
Wolves in Oregon hunt
deer, elk, bighorn sheep and
goats. But they also can target
livestock and are loathed by
many livestock owners.
State wildlife officials say
141 livestock or domestic
animals have been killed by
wolves in Oregon since they
began returning to the state in
the late 1990s.
In 2016, wildlife officials
estimated a minimum of 112
wolves lived in Oregon in
11 packs that included eight
breeding pairs.
Last week, an elk hunter
shot and killed a gray wolf in
eastern Oregon after he said
the wolf charged at him while
he was hunting alone and he
mistook it for a coyote.
Food storage facility fined
EO Media Group
The Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality has
fined a Hermiston company
$29,534 for operating a fruit
and vegetable storage facility
without the necessary water
pollution control permit.
Carter & Wyatt Holdings
LLC was issued the fine in
September, and has requested a
meeting with DEQ to possibly
appeal the violation.
The business, at 78227
Highway 207, takes fruit and
vegetable byproducts and sells
them to markets such as ani-
mal feed for dairies and feed-
lots across the country. Luke
Dynes, who owns the plant,
said it keeps around 1.6 million
tons of food out of landfills ev-
ery year.
DEQ, however, claims the
facility needs to have a water
pollution control permit since
the material is high in nitrogen
and may pose a risk to ground-
water quality — especially
within the Lower Umatilla Ba-
sin Groundwater Management
Area.
In addition to the fine, DEQ
ordered the plant to stop receiv-
ing vegetables and dispose of all
materials from the site within 30
days. Carson Bowler, a Portland
attorney representing Carter &
Wyatt Holdings, said they are in
discussions with DEQ on a res-
olution, but did not offer details.
The incident that led to
the citation occurred May 26,
when a tanker truck discharged
vegetable slurry about 3 feet
deep into an unlined pit in the
ground at the facility, according
to DEQ. The same day, DEQ
reported there were liquids
pooled and flowing across the
ground at the facility.
Bowler described what hap-
pened May 26 as a “one-time
event” and an “anomaly.”
Dynes, who is a member of
Carter & Wyatt Holdings, said
the plant opened in 2013, pro-
viding value-added products
while also helping to protect the
environment. As a Hermiston
native and local business own-
er, he said the company strives
to be responsible and involved
in the community.
“This is our home,” he
said. “This is where we sup-
port everybody.”
A public-private partner-
ship between the Indie Hops
company and Oregon State
University has yielded its
first new hop cultivar after
roughly seven years of re-
search.
The variety, dubbed
“Strata,” combines the
sought-after citrus aroma
with the “dank” smell often
associated with cannabis,
said Jim Solberg, CEO of In-
die Hops.
“We’re pretty confident
the hop will catch on and
be a strong new variety,” he
said.
Breeder Shaun Townsend
collected the seed that would
become Strata in the winter
of 2010, when Indie Hops
began contracting with OSU
to develop new cultivars for
craft brewers.
A field of female Perle
hops had been open-polli-
nated by multiple male vari-
eties from a nearby research
yard, producing seed that
germinated into roughly
10,000 plants with a wide
range of characteristics.
At the time, the relation-
ship between OSU and In-
die Hops was controversial
in Oregon’s hop farming
community because a pub-
lic facility would be used to
develop controlled private
varieties that aren’t widely
available to growers.
Farmers had built trellis-
es and other infrastructure
at OSU that would no longer
be used for public research,
said Michelle Palacios, ad-
ministrator of the Oregon
Hop Commission.
“There was a lot of heart-
burn over that,” she said.
Since then, though, Or-
egon hop farmers have
mended their relationship
with OSU, which continues
to cooperate with the indus-
try on plant pathology and
fermentation science, Pala-
cios said.
“I think the industry has
accepted it as it is,” she
said of OSU’s public-pri-
vate partnership with Indie
Hops.
Disputes over public-pri-
vate partnerships aren’t
unique to the hop industry,
said Ann George, executive
director of the Hop Growers
of America.
The “strings attached”
to private money granted to
public universities is a com-
mon point of debate, she
Indie Hops
The new Strata hop variety was developed through a partner-
ship between Indie Hops and Oregon State University.
“Most growers
will agree they’re
growing double the
number of varieties
than they used to.”
Ann George
Hop Growers of America
executive firector
said. “There’s always going
to be that difficulty, when
you have public research
institutions that are not en-
tirely funded publicly.”
Strata was one of rough-
ly 10,000 seedlings that
were exposed to mildews
and other diseases in an
OSU greenhouse, with the
aim of weeding out plants
susceptible to pathogens.
Those that survived were
planted out to an experi-
mental yard at OSU where
they weren’t treated with
fungicides and generally
were not fussed over, as
they would be at a commer-
cial farm.
The goal was to iden-
tify naturally disease-re-
sistant plants that would
thrive without much en-
couragement, said Solberg.
“They’re pretty hard on the
plants at the experimental
yard.”
As the plants were be-
ing evaluated for their ag-
ronomic traits, their cones
were analyzed for chemistry
and brewing potential on a
small scale.
Hops that showed prom-
ise in the field and at the
brewery were then moved
to an advanced nursery trial
in which their vegetative-
ly propagated descendants
were grown in about 30 dif-
ferent locations.
Strata was seen as hav-
ing potential to stand out in
the market, leading to fur-
ther study in a commercial
pilot where it was planted to
five acres at several farms.
Strata’s vigorous growth,
strong root system and de-
cent early yields convinced
Indie Hops to plant it com-
mercially on three farms
totaling 95 acres this year,
with the first commercial
crop to be harvested in
2018.
The cultivar had to be
unique enough to warrant a
commercial release at a time
when growers have more
varieties to chose from than
a decade ago, said Solberg.
Strata also came of age
during a tough hop market,
he said. “It’s definitely a
market that’s oversupplied
with hops.”
The new variety is now
one of 84 on the official
Hop Growers of America
list of cultivars, said Ann
George, the group’s execu-
tive director. The list isn’t
comprehensive, since some
likely future varieties have
yet to be added to it while
some older varieties have
fallen out of favor, she said.
More hop cultivars are
now available to growers,
but farms are also cultivat-
ing a greater diversity of
them, George said. A typical
grower now produces 12 or
more varieties, up from the
traditional six to eight.
“Most growers will agree
they’re growing double the
number of varieties than they
used to,” she said.
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