August 31, 2018
CapitalPress.com
7
OSU research fights squash-killing fungi
Soil-borne diseases
are hampering
production
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
Pumpkin seeds and pump-
kin pie are synonymous with
autumn, but as the season
draws closer, researchers at
Oregon State University are
targeting a complex of diseas-
es that have hampered winter
squash in recent years.
Winter squash is a $7 mil-
lion industry in Oregon, with
4,000 acres grown in the Wil-
lamette Valley near Corvallis.
The crop is a close pumpkin
relative used for making fall
favorites like “pumpkin”
soup, seeds and pie filling.
But farmers began noticing
something was infecting their
plants, and in some severe
cases causing entire fields to
wilt and die. Oregon State re-
ceived a grant from the USDA
Western Sustainable Agricul-
ture and Research Education
program to study the problem
in 2014.
Hannah Rivedal, lead re-
searcher and graduate student
studying botany and plant
Oregon State University
Pink root rot is caused by a
soil-borne fungus known as
Setophoma terrestris, which
can hamper plant productivity
and yields.
Oregon State University
Winter squash is a $7 million industry in Oregon, grown for soup, seed and pie filling.
pathology at OSU, said they
have homed in on five distinct
soil-borne fungi at the root
of the trouble — literally —
including one species never
before found in cucurbits in
Oregon.
“We’ve had a couple of
years where there have been
more significant reductions in
yield, and more instances of
this disease problem occur-
ring,” Rivedal said. “This is
a really complicated problem
with multiple pathogens and
multiple different environ-
mental factors.”
Between 2014 and 2016,
Rivedal surveyed around 60
fields, randomly sampling
both healthy and diseased
plants. She took thousands of
disease cultures, with five spe-
cies of soil-borne fungus con-
sistently showing up — Fu-
sarium oxysporum, Fusarium
solani, Fusarium culmorum,
Plectosphaerella cucumerina
and Setophoma terrestris.
Setophoma terrestris was
unexpected, Rivedal said,
since it has never been seen
before in squash in Oregon.
It’s more widely known in
other crops such as onions and
garlic. The fungus can cause a
disease known as pink root
rot, which attacks the roots
and turns them an unhealthy
shade of pink.
Rivedal, along with OSU
faculty Alexandra Stone and
Ken Johnson, have published
their findings in the journal
Plant Disease. The next step,
Rivedal said, is to develop a
set of recommendations and
best practices to help farmers
break the disease cycle.
First off, Rivedal said
growers should rotate their
fields out of squash for at least
four years, if possible. As
for which rotation crops will
work best, she said that has
yet to be determined.
“If they plant onions right
before squash, the next year
they have really bad pink
root rot in their field,” Rive-
dal said. “We’ve been looking
into management strategies.”
Another tip is irrigating
less at the beginning of the
growing season, since damp
soil is more conducive to
fungi. Because the pathogens
are soil-borne, Rivedal said
applying chemicals will not
help. Any fungicide would
need to fumigated.
“All of these things are
acting really interestingly
here,” she said. “And we think
it has a lot to do with the en-
vironmental factors and the
rotation practices ahead of the
squash that we (grow).”
Organic lawsuit against
Feds change cover crop
policy for wildfire victims USDA can proceed
RMA decision will
allow farmers to
protect land from
wind, rain erosion
in wake of massive
devastation
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
The USDA Risk Manage-
ment Agency has agreed to
temporarily change its policy
to allow farmers in Wasco and
Sherman counties that were
affected by wildfire to plant
cover crops without affecting
their crop insurance.
“We will make changes
where we modify the defini-
tion of summer fallow in a
way that will not invalidate
their summer-fallow designa-
tion, even though they plant-
ed a cover crop in the fallow
year,” said Ben Thiel, director
of the Spokane Regional Of-
fice of the agency, in a phone
interview on Aug. 22.
The agency changed its
policy after hearing concerns
from farmers about leaving
ground exposed to the ele-
ments in the 2019 fallow year
and checking with agricultur-
al experts, Thiel said.
“Pretty much the consen-
sus was, yes, this would be
a good farming practice and
that you would help reduce
yield loss for 2020 by plant-
ing a cover crop, as long as it
is terminated in the spring and
doesn’t continue to grow later
in the spring and through the
summer where it would de-
plete moisture,” Thiel said.
Normally, growers are re-
stricted from planting cover
crops in a fallow year under
the USDA summer-fallow
crop insurance program. The
provision is in place to ensure
farmers are optimizing yield
potential in crop years, Thiel
said.
“Generally, you get bet-
ter moisture retention if you
leave a field fallow every oth-
er year, and that will produce
a better crop in low rainfall
areas, such as Sherman and
Wasco counties,” Thiel said.
Brian Tuck, field crops
extension agent for Wasco
and Sherman counties, said
RMA’s decision could be crit-
ical in helping protect soil left
bare by wildfire from wind
and rain erosion.
Typically, wheat stubble
protects ground in fallow
years, he said.
“The stubble is a big deal,”
Tuck said. “Having that sur-
face stubble on there provides
biomass to the soil for nutrient
cycling and is a huge factor in
Associated Press File
The USDA Risk Management Agency will allow farmers in Wasco
and Sherman counties to plant cover crops on land burned by
wildfires without impacting their crop insurance.
keeping the soil cooler and
protecting it from both wind
and rain erosion.”
“Now we just have to hope
we get some fall rains here” to
help establish the cover crops,
he said.
He advised growers to
check with the Natural Re-
sources Conservation Ser-
vice and their local Soil and
Water Conservation District
for cost-sharing opportunities
potentially available to help
offset the cost of purchasing
and planting cover crop seeds.
Three wildfires, the Sub-
station, South Valley and Long
Hollow fires, burned approxi-
mately 135,000 acres in the
two counties in a two-week
span beginning in mid-July,
just when wheat harvest was
kicking off.
The fires cost growers mil-
lions of dollars in lost crop,
particularly given that grow-
ers were looking at above-av-
erage yields. “This was look-
ing to be a pretty good year,”
Tuck said. “We had some re-
ally good rains in some plac-
es, so the yields were looking
very good.”
Growers with crop insur-
ance are eligible to recoup
losses based on average
yields.
Also, while prices “hav-
en’t been the greatest,” Tuck
said, they are up from the pre-
vious three years, with wheat
at $5.92 a bushel in Portland
on Aug. 23.
Many growers also lost
equipment, fencing, structures,
pasture and rangeland to the
fire, Tuck said, and the fire cost
the life of Wasco County farm-
er John Ruby, 64, who died
digging a firebreak to protect a
neighbor’s property.
A U.S. district judge
has ruled a lawsuit against
USDA over its withdrawal
of the Organic Livestock and
Poultry Practices rule can
proceed. The rule included
new standards for raising,
transporting and slaughter-
ing organic animals.
The lawsuit, brought by
seven nonprofit organiza-
tions led by the Center for
Food Safety, seeks to rein-
state the rule on the grounds
USDA’s action violates the
Organic Food Production
Act and failed to comply
with the Administrative Pro-
cedure Act.
USDA moved to dismiss
the lawsuit, arguing plaintiffs
do not have legal standing.
U.S. District Judge Rich-
ard Seeborg last week ruled
the plaintiffs do have legal
standing, but sided with
USDA on two other issues.
He dismissed, without
leave to amend, the plain-
tiffs’ claim that USDA did
not have the authority to
withdraw the rule based on
alleged costs to producers.
He also dismissed their
claim that withdrawing the
rule without involving the
National Organic Standards
Board exceeded USDA’s
statutory authority. He did,
however, give plaintiffs
leave to amend that claim.
USDA’s motion to dis-
miss did not address two
other claims by the plaintiffs,
regarding the agency’s two
main rationales for the with-
drawal.
Those claims will pro-
ceed, Amy Van Saun, a staff
attorney with the center, told
Capital Press.
Those rationales are that
USDA doesn’t have author-
ity to set organic standards
that relate to animal welfare
beyond the substances used
and that there must be signif-
icant market failure in order
to change the organic stan-
dards and justify the associ-
ated costs, she said.
The center will challenge
the withdrawal based on
those rationales, she said.
The lawsuit, which was
filed in March, also includes
plaintiffs Center for Envi-
ronmental Health, Cultivate
Oregon, International Center
for Technology Assessment,
National Organic, Coalition,
Humane Society of the U.S.
and the Animal Legal De-
fense Fund.
The Organic Trade Asso-
ciation filed a lawsuit against
USDA in September 2017. It
originally targeted USDA’s
failure to implement the rule
finalized in the waning days
of the Obama administra-
tion. OTA amended its orig-
inal complaint in February
to reflect USDA’s announced
intention to withdraw the fi-
nal rule.
In a statement to Capi-
tal Press, OTA said: “The
Organic Trade Association
welcomes the decision of the
Northern District of Califor-
nia U.S. District Court that
recognizes our colleagues’
standing to challenge the
USDA’s handling of the Or-
ganic Livestock and Poultry
Practices final regulation.”
Conventional livestock
and poultry groups have
fiercely opposed the rule, cit-
ing health threats to animals
and the public. They have
argued the animal-welfare
standards aren’t based on
science and are outside the
scope of the OFPA, which
limits organic to feeding and
medication practices.
They have also argued
that it would vilify conven-
tional livestock practices,
open the door to activists’
lawsuits and create barriers
for existing and new organic
producers.
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