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8 CapitalPress.com April 13, 2018 Washington apple prices stabilize By DAN WHEAT Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — After two months of sliding, wholesale prices of Wash- ington apples stabilized in March, but an analyst warns that they could drop again in April. It’s due to a large 2017 fresh crop that shrank anoth- er 311,000, 40-pound boxes through March as diversions to processing for juice and sauce slowed. The total crop was 135.3 million boxes with 79.7 million sold as of April 1. Shippers worry Chi- nese tariffs could slow sales to China and further pressure prices. “April can be a rough month. Retailers are under a lot of price pressure with Amazon coming into the food business,” said Des- mond O’Rourke, retired Washington State University agricultural economist and world apple analyst. “Retailers could pick on apples as a product they want lower prices for. No- body knows what Amazon will do so retailers are trying to be proactive and get prices down in case Amazon buys Target or Toys R Us,” O’Ro- urke said. Amazon acquired 450 stores when it bought Whole Foods and might want more, he said. It won’t help if apple ex- ports to China are disrupted, he said. A 15 percent tariff on top of the 10 percent existing duty won’t be final for anoth- Dan Wheat/Capital Press Saul Lopez, a Grandview, Wash., trucker, tightens a load of small Red Delicious apples at Custom Apple Packers, Wenatchee, on April 9. The load was being diverted from fresh sales to a processor in Watsonville, Calif., for juicing. er 60 days, he said. China has been running a trade war with the U.S. for 30 years by keeping most U.S. agricultural exports out and stealing intellectual proper- ties, O’Rourke said. President Donald Trump has correctly identified China as an unfair trader but U.S. exporters will be unhappy if they don’t look longterm and China could stall trade negotiations to see if Republicans lose Novem- ber elections, he said. As of April 6, USDA tracking of average asking prices among Yakima and Wenatchee shippers for extra fancy (standard grade) medi- um size 80 and 88 apples per packed box were: $12 to $15 for Red Delicious, the same as a month ago. Gala also stayed even at $18 to $24 for 80s and $16 to $22 for 88s. Fuji stayed even at $18 to $24 on 80s and $16 to $22 on 88s. Golden Delicious stayed even on 80s at $20 to $26 and dropped $1 per box on 88s from $20 to $24 down to $19 to $23. Honeycrisp stayed even on 80s at $45 to $52 and dropped slightly on 88s from $45 to $52 down to $44 to $50. Granny Smith fell $4 per box on the low and high ends of 80s and 88s, from $28 to $34 on 80s down to $24 to $30 and from $26 to $32 on 88s down to $22 to $28. The drop was due to a large crop, O’Rourke said. Average wholesale price of main varieties remained at $24 per box and at $21.50 without Honeycrisp, he said. Breakeven averages about $20 per box with $12 for packing and marketing and $8 to the grower, he said. USDA NRCS The sediment basin under construction about 2 miles north of Parma, Idaho. Parma basin will reduce sediment in irrigation water By BRAD CARLSON Capital Press Getting dirt out of the wa- ter from upstream will help ir- rigators and river cleanliness downstream, farmers and ca- nal company representatives said as work on a custom-de- signed sediment basin began April 6 north of Parma, Idaho. Irrigation water flowing down the Farmers Coopera- tive Ditch Co. canal will enter the basin at an inlet at the start of an oxbow-like curve in the canal. It will flow through the basin for about 2,000 feet and allow the sediment to settle, according to the USDA Nat- ural Resources Conservation Service. The sediment-free water will re-enter the canal through an outlet well below the ox- bow. Inside the basin, a half dozen raised pads, each 60 feet wide on top and of vary- ing lengths, will remove sed- iment. The basin’s benefits out- weigh the additional mainte- nance responsibility the fin- ished project will create, said Clint Eells, who manages Par- ma-based Farmers Coopera- tive Ditch Co. Member irriga- tors now get significant return flow and sediment from the Black Canyon Irrigation Dis- trict upstream. Return flow is water that leaves a field fol- lowing irrigation. Eells said the sediment-lad- en water from upstream even- tually affects Farmers Coop- erative members’ equipment such as drip irrigation filters and other system components and sprinklers. The basin will make the water much cleaner for the approximately 4,000 member-irrigated acres, and when it empties into the Boise and Snake rivers, he said. Bill Hartman, who farms east of Parma and is the Farm- ers Cooperative board vice president, said one-third or more of the water the com- pany delivers is return flow from water users upstream. The sediment in it eventually fouls irrigation equipment and settles in farmers’ ditches. The basin, about halfway down the cooperative’s 33- mile canal system, will make it easier for farmers below it to manage their systems. “These 4,000 acres will now be able to use drip-irrigation technologies,” Hartman said. Costs include $356,000 for construction of the basin, maintenance pads, and in- flow and outflow structures; about $300,000 in voluntary contributions for best man- agement practices involving NRCS guidance; and another $300,000 in in-kind contribu- tions for long-term mainte- nance, he said. Funding sources include $500,000 in matching funds from NRCS, and contribu- tions from Farmers Coopera- tive and Black Canyon irriga- tion districts; Southwest Idaho Resource and Development Council, the City of Parma; the Canyon County Board of Commissioners; the Lower Boise Watershed Council; the Canyon County Soil Conser- vation District; and NRCS in-kind contributions for best management practices. Completion of the 8.8-acre basin is targeted for this fall on leased farmland. Hartman said similar projects may be built later, based on indepen- dent sediment analysis and the basin’s success. NRCS and Farmers Coop- erative Ditch Co. developed a water quality monitoring plan as part of a five-year total timeline for the basin project, NRCS said. Water level in cattle troughs implicated in E. coli study By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Bacteria thrive in warm liquids, so it made sense for veterinary scientists to as- sume cattle water troughs would appeal to E. coli mi- crobes during summer. Researchers from sever- al universities theorized that automatically refilling cattle troughs with less water — but more often — would keep temperatures lower and im- pede transmission of E. coli 0157:H7, which causes dis- ease in humans. They found the exact op- posite occurred: Among feed- lot pens with lower water lev- els in troughs, the prevalence of cattle expelling or “shed- ding” that bacteria in manure was 30 percent higher than in control pens with regular wa- ter levels. The results of the study were unexpected, but adjust- ing water trough levels may still be a viable way to affect 15-1/100 E. coli’s spread. While further research is necessary, higher water lev- els may be protective because the bacteria’s presence is di- luted, said Renata Ivanek, an associate professor at Cornell University’s College of Veter- inary Medicine and an author of the study. It’s possible that lower wa- ter levels allow cattle to dis- turb sediment at the trough’s bottom, she said. Determining the optimum level of water in troughs will necessitate follow-up tests, though. People become ill from the Shiga toxins in E. coli 0157:H7 but the bacteria doesn’t cause problems in cattle, so farmers don’t have a direct incentive to vaccinate against the microbe. For the meat industry, however, outbreaks are asso- ciated with expensive recalls and damage to reputations. Roughly 20 people die and 63,000 people become sick from E. coli 0157:H7 each year, causing more than $400 million in lost life, lost pro- ductivity and medical expens- es, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Adding chlorine to water may be problematic because the amount needed to be ef- fective could harm cattle. Simple and inexpensive methods to reduce the bacte- ria may catch on more readily, said Ivanek. “Manipulating water levels should be easy to do. Much easier than, for ex- ample, vaccination.” Data for the study, which was published in the scien- tific journal PLOS One, was collected over two summers from 35 pens at a feedlot in Texas. The report was co-au- thored by 21 researchers from Cornell University, Texas A&M University, West Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University. 15-1/106