November 2, 2018
CapitalPress.com
3
Little Cherry Disease Wild horse roundup
at ‘epidemic levels’ completed in SE Oregon
Area in
detail
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
By DAN WHEAT
26
Capital Press
OREGON
PROSSER, Wash. — Two
of three strains of Little Cherry
Disease “are well into epidem-
ic levels” in cherry orchards
throughout Central Washing-
ton and if they keep spread-
ing eventually will impact the
crop, a Washington State Uni-
versity plant virologist says.
“What I mean by epidemic
levels is that it’s high enough
that it’s not easily controllable,
when it gets above 10 per-
cent of an orchard,” said Scott
Harper, virologist and director
of Clean Plant Center North-
west at the WSU Irrigated Ag-
riculture Research and Exten-
sion Center in Prosser.
The past year has been bad
for the spread of LCD with
most cherry orchards now hav-
ing it to some degree or “if not
they soon will,” Harper said.
Infestations range from a
few scattered trees often on
orchard edges, indicative of
vector spread from the outside,
to 100 percent of an orchard in
heavily hit areas, he said.
The only way to control it
appears to be tearing out in-
fected trees and those around
them and not replanting for
more than a year. The main
saving grace is that it spreads
slowly.
B.J. Thurlby, president of
Northwest Cherry Growers,
the industry’s promotional
arm in Yakima, said LCD is
close behind labor and loss of
the Chinese market as critical
grower concerns.
“Some growers cut out the
infected trees and some have
simply pulled whole blocks
(sections of orchards) and have
started over,” Thurlby said.
No one is tracking acres
of yanked trees but a couple
years ago it was known to be
over 1,000. There were 42,198
acres of cherries in the state
in January 2017, according to
USDA NASS. Planting has
been expanding at 42 percent
annually since 2000, Thurlby
said.
LCD has no cure and robs
trees of energy, reduces pro-
duction and results in small
fruit that’s unmarketable.
Little Cherry Virus 1 and
2 take away fruit flavor and
Western X Phytoplasma is
a bacterial-like strain that
leaves bitter-tasting fruit. All
three pathogens overwinter
in roots and spreads tree-to-
tree in roots. Apple and grape
mealybugs spread virus 2, the
Dan Wheat/Capital Press File
Good Sweetheart cherries are shown at top. The smaller, lighter
cherries at bottom have Little Cherry Disease in this 2014 photo
taken at Kyle Mathison Orchards on Wenatchee Heights, Wash.
dominant pathogen, and 2016
studies show leafhoppers carry
Western X.
Bugs can be sprayed but the
best control is tree removal,
scientists say.
Virus 1 is rare perhaps due
to the absence of an insect vec-
tor, Harper said.
Western X has been found
in peaches and nectarines, he
said.
In 1933, LCD all but wiped
out the British Columbia cher-
ry industry and 90 percent
of trees were removed, Tim
Smith, WSU Extension pa-
thologist emeritus, has said.
British Columbia experienced
another serious episode in the
1970s. LCD was detected in
Washington in the 1930s but
was dormant until wet, cool
springs may have contrib-
uted to an initial rise in the
Wenatchee area around 2009.
From September 2017
through September 2018, the
virus diagnostic laboratory at
WSU-IAREC received more
than 1,500 samples of tree
leaves and wood to test, Harp-
er said.
Of those, 24 percent had
Western X, 15 percent had vi-
rus 2, less than 1 percent had
virus 1 and 60 percent had no
LCD, he said.
Western X was dominant in
the southern counties of Yaki-
ma, Benton and Franklin and
virus 2 dominated in the north-
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LET’S TALK!
ern counties of Grant, Chelan
and Okanogan, Harper said.
This may be due to different
vector compositions or geo-
graphic barriers, he said.
County percentages of
Western X, V-2 and nothing
found: Yakima, 58, 2, 40;
Benton, 91, 0, 9; Franklin,
79, 0, 21; Grant, 25, 38, 37;
Chelan, 8, 18, 74; Okanogan,
1, 56, 43.
Harper is in the final stag-
es of testing a real time Poly-
merase Chain Reaction test-
ing more sensitive to lower
amounts of infection in leaves
and tree tissue to detect dis-
ease before symptoms show at
harvest so removal can occur
earlier.
Western X has occurred in
young trees with no known
nearby infestations. Harper has
studied weeds and other near-
by plants looking for hosts but
has found less than 1 percent
with Western X.
“There are no easy or pain-
less ways of dealing with this
disease,” Harper said. “It will
take a concerted approach of
vector management, removal
of infected trees and replace-
ment from pathogen-free
sources. It also takes close
work with neighbors because
LCD doesn’t respect boundary
lines.”
More than 800 wild hors-
es were recently rounded up
in southeast Oregon by the
U.S. Bureau of Land Man-
agement as part of a steriliza-
tion project to control their
population.
The BLM conducted the
wild horse gather Oct. 2-23,
during which time the agen-
cy rounded up 846 horses,
41 burros and two mules,
leaving roughly 20-30 hors-
es in the Warm Springs Herd
Management Area, said Tara
Thissell, public affairs spe-
cialist for the agency.
“We are overpopulated on
the range for sure,” Thissell
said.
The agency plans to re-
turn 200 horses to the range,
with the ovaries removed
from half the female popula-
tion and the other half being
left intact as a control group,
she said.
A portion of the mares
and stallions will be outfitted
with tracking collars.
The two populations that
will be returned to the range
are part of the “behavioral
and spatial ecology portion
of the study,” which will also
sterilize additional mares
that will remain in captivity
so the rate of medical com-
plications can be analyzed,
Seneca
GRANT
395
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HARNEY
Burns
20
Wagontire
Crane
Malheur
Lake
Harney
Lake
78
395
Warm Springs Herd
Management Area
205
N
10 miles
Fields
140
Ore.
Nev.
Alvord
Lake
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
Thissell said.
Thissell noted the project
is supported by the American
Association of Equine Prac-
titioners, which wants to see
whether ovary removal from
wild mares is a “viable popu-
lation management tool.”
Wild horses are controver-
sial on the range, as ranchers
often blame them for caus-
ing environmental damage
that’s blamed on livestock or
that justifies grazing curtail-
ments.
Before the roundup was
even finished, however, the
BLM’s project was chal-
lenged in federal court by the
Friends of Animals, a non-
profit advocacy group based
in New York that calls it an
“unethical and ill-informed
experiment.”
The plaintiff complains
that separating the two study
populations with a fence will
create a “zoo-like herd man-
agement area” without first
conducting sufficient analy-
sis and public participation
as required under the Nation-
al Environmental Policy Act
and the Wild Free-Roaming
Horses and Burros Act.
Friends of Animals notes
that testing conducted be-
tween 2001 and 2010 found
genetic diversity in the herd
had declined and claims that
BLM doesn’t plan to conduct
additional environmental as-
sessments each time it con-
ducts roundups as part of the
10-year management project
contrary to NEPA.
Removing ovaries is char-
acterized in the complaint
as a “dangerous surgery”
that will leave mares “high-
ly traumatized” and will ad-
versely affect their health
over the long term.
The lawsuit seeks an in-
junction against the steriliza-
tion experiment and 10-year
management plan for the
wild horses as well as reim-
bursement of the plaintiff’s
litigation costs.
Tilth conference looks to boost different voices
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
The Tilth Alliance wants
to help more voices be heard
in agriculture.
The Tilth Conference is
Nov. 9-11 at the Davenport
Grand Hotel in Spokane,
Wash.
California grain farmer
Mai Nguyen will deliver the
keynote address.
The conference com-
mittee wanted to bring out
the farmer perspective, but
make space for new voices
to share their experiences,
said Erin Murphy, education
coordinator for the Alliance.
“People wanted a farm-
er,” Murphy said. “Folks are
really interested in having a
keynote speaker that tells a
different story. Mai is an ac-
tivist for racial equity, a fe-
male and a person of color.”
Audra Mulkern, execu-
tive producer and host of the
in-development documen-
tary, “Women’s Work: the
untold story of America’s
female farmers” and founder
of the documentary project,
“The Female Farmer Proj-
ect,” will deliver the capnote
address.
“She’s local, she’s from
Washington state,” Murphy
said. “It’s a really cool way
to have someone that’s su-
per-involved in agriculture
and very well-known na-
tionally. Just the work she’s
doing is really awesome.”
The conference includes
sessions for various aspects
of farming: production, mar-
keting, finances, regulations
and certifications and in-
creasing diversity in farm-
ing.
“We’re really trying to
make space to have that
storytelling and have folks
say, ‘Hey, we’re all farmers,’
but no two farmers’ experi-
ence is exactly the same,”
Murphy said. The idea is to
have “those opportunities to
converse and for people to
network and learn from one
another.”
Many farmers are con-
sidering seeds as a way to
diversify their farms and
markets, she said. The con-
ference offers several topics
about seed production.
A session on and mental
health has also generated
some excitement, she said.
“Mental health is so
important ... when you’re
farming and so focused on
getting things done, your
overwhelming to-do list, it’s
just really important to re-
member to practice self-care
both physically and mental-
ly,” she said.
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