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