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June 15, 2018 CapitalPress.com Harvest Capital is Northwest Ag Show’s title sponsor SALEM, Ore. — EO Me- dia Events LLC has reached an agreement with Harvest Capital Company to be title sponsor of the 2019 North- west Ag Show taking place Jan. 16-18, 2019, at the Ore- gon State Fair & Exposition Center. The Northwest Ag Show presented by Harvest Capi- tal Company will showcase the best from the agriculture industry and its associated businesses and organizations to provide useful information to attendees regarding equip- ment, best practices, job train- ing, state-sanctioned certifica- tions, updates on the local ag economy, and legal, tax and other financial issues facing all farmers. “We are pleased to be a part of the 2019 NW Ag Show and to celebrate all aspects of ag- riculture,” said Brian L. Field, president of Harvest Capital Company. “Our company goal is to help strengthen the ag industry in the Northwest and we are excited to partner with EO Media Events and with the show’s other sponsors and exhibitors to highlight this important element of the local economy.” In addition to partnerships with Harvest Capital Com- pany, the show has also con- firmed participa- tion by Kubota Tractor Corpo- ration and Coastal Farm and Ranch as major show spon- sors. Additional sponsorships are being finalized and will be announced over the next few weeks. “Response to next year’s ag show has been enthusiastic across the West Coast,” said Michael Keith, the show’s di- rector. “We are thankful to have Har- vest Capital Company as ti- tle sponsor and look forward to working with them to pro- vide unique programing at the show to benefit the local ag community.” The show will coincide with the Salem Area Chamber of Commerce’s SAIF Agri-Busi- ness Banquet on Friday, Jan. 18 to form the foundation of an Ag Week celebration for the Salem area. The week will also include educational and career workshops from the Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom Foundation, a fund-raising partnership with Oregon FFA and the Oregon Aglink annual Board of Directors meeting. More information about the show can be found at NorthwestAgShow.com. Ad- ditional information about Harvest Capital Company is at Harvcap.com. Harvest Capital Company is one of the Northwest’s pre- 3 mier agricultural real estate lenders, crafting long-term financing solutions that allow farmers and ranchers to be suc- cessful today and prepared for tomorrow’s opportunities. EO Media Events, LLC is a subsidiary of EO Me- dia Group, a private, fami- ly-owned company with deep roots in the Pacific Northwest. EO Media Events took over management of the show in 2017. The show is powered by Capital Press, the West’s leading source for agriculture news and advertising infor- mation. Apple, pear growers fight fire blight outbreak By DAN WHEAT Capital Press WENATCHEE, Wash. — Fire blight, a bacteria that kills apple and pear trees, is more widespread throughout Cen- tral Washington this year than during any spring in recent memory, growers say. “I fly a lot. I look down and see the funeral pyres burning. It’s substantial and extreme on the eastern side of Royal Slope. Winchester to Ephrata seems pretty substantial and Quincy not so bad,” said Mike Robinson, general manager of Double Diamond Fruit Co. in Quincy. “Mattawa doesn’t appear as bad but I’ve never seen this much this widespread. I’ve never seen this many good farmers get this much. Usually they’re on top of their sprays and focused,” Robinson said. It appears worse in some areas than others but all areas have more than usual, he said. From his airplane, Robin- son said he’s looked down and seen holes in orchards where trees have been removed. On any given day in the past three weeks, he said he’s seen seven to nine columns of smoke from orchards burn- ing limbs after cutting them from trees to keep the bacteria spores from spreading. They can spread by wind, water, birds and insects. Nicholas Stephens, owner of agricul- tural consulting firm Colum- bia IPM in East Wenatchee, said he’s talked with growers from Hood River, Tri-Cities, Yakima, Quincy, Wenatchee, Bridgeport, Brewster and Okanogan. “I would say in 28 years doing this, I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s really widespread. A lot of orchards Capital Press File A solar project featuring honeybees in Oregon’s Clackamas County is being appealed by farmland conservationists. Beehive solar project draws opposition Photos by Dan Wheat/Capital Press Fire blight bacteria oozes from the branch of an apple tree in an Omak, Wash., orchard on June 6. Insects, birds, wind and water can spread infectious spores. Limbs are piled on the ground as workers prune fire blight infections from apple trees in a Foreman Fruit Co. orchard near Omak on June 6. The limbs are often hauled away and burned. are in grave danger, young or- chards, old orchards,” Stephens said. It’s a “snowball effect,” a build-up of inoculum from the previous two years of perfect conditions, like this year, for fire blight, he said. Once only a concern in pear trees, fire blight has also been known since 1993 to damage apple trees. The years 1997 and 2012 were bad years, Tim Smith, Washington State Uni- versity Extension tree fruit spe- cialist emeritus, has said. Fire blight over winters in trees and reactivates in oozing cankers around blossom time. It is exacerbated by extreme heat followed quickly by rain during bloom. It attracts flies and other insects that spread it to blossoms. Within a week or two, infection is ahead of por- tions of trees that show wither- ing. Antibiotics, copper fungi- cides, lime sulfur, other min- erals and biological controls are applied before, during and after bloom but at best are 80 percent effective, Robinson said. “Probably the biggest differ- ence in recent years is that it’s pretty evident sprays 24 hours before the infection period are better than after,” he said. A WSU Tree Fruit website post says this is the third year of “multiple severe fire blight in- fection periods during bloom.” Cutting 12 to 18 inches back from withered foliage is recommended, but whole limb removal is recommended for more susceptible varieties and young, vigorous trees. Whole trees should be removed if they have multiple strikes. “If I have a 5-foot limb with a strike at the tip, I take the whole limb,” Robinson said. “If you’re super aggressive on day one usually you can get in front of the problem.” Stephens said production for individual growers will be af- fected but that overall crop loss may be offset by new plantings coming into production. Cutting limbs, cankers and trees and replanting is labori- ous, he said. It’s unusual to have three years in a row of progressive- ly worse conditions, he said. James Foreman, manag- er of Foreman Fruit Co. in Wenatchee, said company orchards from Sunnyside to Omak have been impacted. On June 6, crews were trim- ming infected limbs from trees in a Foreman orchard off Pogue Road near Omak. Meanwhile, hail damaged about 200 acres of Oneonta Starr Ranch Growers Gold- en Delicious and Honeycrisp apples near Quincy on May 17, Jim Thomas, company co-owner, said. Robinson said it was not widespread. Water shortages expected in much of Oregon Farmers, ranchers banking on reservoir storage By GEORGE PLAVEN Capital Press Low winter snow- pack combined with a dri- er-than-usual spring and rapid snowmelt will likely translate into critically low water sup- plies across parts of Oregon heading into summer, accord- ing to the USDA Natural Re- sources Conservation Service. The NRCS released its June basin report for Oregon, and the outlook is bleak, espe- cially in southern and eastern Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown has already declared a drought emergency in Klamath, Grant, Harney and Lake counties, while the U.S. Drought Mon- itor shows nearly the entire state in some level of drought, from “abnormally dry” to “se- vere drought.” Unusually warm weather in May led to rapid melting of already limited snowpack, said Scott Oviatt, snow survey supervisor and hydrologist for the NRCS. Of 81 real-time snow mon- itoring stations, only five still have snow as of June 1. Snowpack is critical for water management, since it acts as a natural reservoir grad- ually replenishing streams into spring and summer. However, most of Oregon’s snowpack peaked around 70 percent of normal and melted away quickly over the last month. Snow has almost complete- ly disappeared statewide, ex- cept for basins in the far north- east corner of Oregon, which are still clinging to 27 percent of normal levels. Many sites melted out one to two weeks ahead of schedule, and sever- al higher elevation sites had snow melting up to 2 1/2 times faster than usual. Streams in the drought-stricken Klamath, Harney, Goose Lake and John Day basins are projected to Grass Expertise. LET’S TALK! Over 40 Years Experience Alan Greenway, Seedsman 24-2/108 Caldwell, Idaho • Alan Greenway, Seedsman Cell: 298-259-9159 • MSG: 298-454-8342 casters anticipate the Rogue and Umpqua rivers will be slightly lower, at 47 to 81 per- cent of average. Reservoirs remain a bright spot in this year’s water out- look. Most of the state’s ma- jor reservoirs are holding 70 to 110 percent volume, with the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Willow basin reservoirs faring best at 95 to 111 per- cent full. The NRCS is advising irri- gators to plan accordingly for water shortages, “especially in southern and southeastern Oregon where the snowpack was the lowest this season.” Capital Press A farmland conservation group is appealing a 73-acre solar project in Oregon’s Clackamas County which won land use approval be- cause beehives will be raised on the property. 1,000 Friends of Oregon, a nonprofit, is challenging the county’s conditional use permit for the project near Es- tacada before the state’s Land Use Board of Appeals. Meanwhile, the Oregon Board of Agriculture is also asking state land use regula- tors to consider issuing emer- gency rules in reaction to the project. Clackamas County ap- proved the permit from Steve Schmitt and Pacific North- west Solar LLC last month, finding the solar facility will not preclude the property’s use as a commercial agricul- tural enterprise. The project developer proposes keeping about 100 honeybee colonies at the site while cultivating “bee-friend- ly forage” around the solar panels and “shade resistant native plants” beneath them. Under Oregon’s land use law, solar power facilities can be no larger than 12 acres without an exception to the statewide goal of preserving farmland. However, a hearing officer with Clackamas County has ruled the project will take up less than 12 acres since the area under the panels will be used for forage. “There does not seem to be any dispute that an api- ary is a farm use,” said Fred Wilson, the county’s hearing officer. The project developer es- timated the apiary will gen- erate $75,000 per year but opponents claimed the actual revenue would be about 80 percent lower. Despite these differences, the hearing officer was con- vinced the apiary qualified as a commercial agricultural enterprise. “Even if income is less than the projected amount, the proposed apiary seems more likely than not to pro- duce significant amounts of income that would still con- stitute contributing in a sub- stantial way to the area’s ex- isting agricultural economy,” he said. Although the hearing of- ficer found that using the site for renewable energy and a farm use “would seem to be a win-win scenario,” his ra- tionale is troubling to the Ore- gon Farm Bureau. A similar justification could be used to build a shop- ping mall on high value farm- land if goats were allowed on the property, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the organization. “As much as that would be a fun shopping mall, it’s not a farm use,” Cooper testified before the Oregon Board of Agriculture during its June 7 meeting in Hood River, Ore. The board, which advis- es the Oregon Department of Agriculture, unanimously decided to send a letter to the Land Conservation and De- velopment Commission to consider emergency rules for the situation. A broader resolution call- ing for stronger land use pro- tections for farmland when siting solar projects and oth- er energy facilities was also unanimously approved by the Board of Agriculture. For example, the resolu- tion “supports a better defi- nition of highly productive farmland” to consider factors other than just soil types, such as irrigation availability or unique climate. Concern about solar de- velopment on farmland has already convinced Yamhill County to prohibit such facil- ities on top soil classes while Marion County has excluded them from “exclusive farm use” zones, said Jim Johnson, ODA’s land use specialist. Weekly fieldwork report Ore. Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA) • Days suitable for fieldwork (As of June 12) 6.5 • Topsoil moisture, surplus 2% • Topsoil moisture, percent short 54% • Subsoil moisture, surplus 0 • Subsoil moisture, percent short 53% • Precipitation probability 33-50% below/ (6-10 day outlook as of June 12) Normal WE MANUFACTURE AND INSTALL COMMERCIAL POND LINERS. GREENWAY SEEDS run just 26-82 percent of nor- mal levels through September. Forecasts improve closer to the Columbia River and west of the Cascades, which received closer to normal snowpack. The Umatilla, Walla Wal- la and Grande Ronde rivers should experience near-aver- age stream flows in northeast Oregon. The Willamette Basin, home to more than 1 million acres of farmland, should see stream flows ranging from 48 to 87 percent of normal, along with the Hood, Sandy and Up- per Deschutes basins. In southwest Oregon, fore- By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Wash. Idaho Calif. 6.2 3% 29% 2% 20% 6.2 21% 29% 16% 22% 7 0 70% 0 65% 33-50% below 33-40% below/ 33-40% above Normal
