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4 CapitalPress.com Friday, August 30, 2019 Hemp boom spurs cross-pollination disputes By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press File The state’s burgeoning hemp industry has led to disputes among growers about unwanted cross- pollination. the male plants from the females once they begin to flower, said Barry Cook, founder of the Boring Hemp Co. in Bor- ing, Ore. Growing seed traditionally, with- out the feminization technique, is eas- ier for breeders, but some farmers plant the mixed seed without considering the impact on neighbors, he said. However, if a market develops in Oregon for hemp fiber and oilseeds — used for crushing rather than planting — farmers will have to plant both males and females out of necessity, Cook said. “I think it could potentially complicate things.” While growers can pay a great deal of attention to individual plants to max- imize CBD in female flowers, it’s tough to apply the same level of scrutiny to large fields of hemp, said Jay Noller, hemp leader at Oregon State University. “It’s a scale issue,” he said. In Oregon, there is a valuable market for smokable hemp flower that’s com- pletely seed-free and has made some growers particularly cautious about exposure to pollen in recent years, said Cook. “That’s where you’re probably seeing more of the pressure coming.” WSU’s AgWeatherNet reorganizes networks in Oklahoma, Brown said. C r a i g Oswald became the new Craig field mete- orologist in Oswald Prosser on Aug. 15. He has a master’s degree in operational fore- casting from the Univer- sity of Wisconsin-Madison and worked for a private weather company in Utah. He will interpret forecasts and forecast models for spe- cific crops and locations. A third field meteorolo- gist, yet to be hired, will be stationed in Wenatchee. “Our big focus is pro- viding better site-specific weather data and forecasts and feeding this into our models and into the Deci- sion Aid System and any other support tools growers might want to use,” Brown said. The WSU Decision Aid System uses current and historic weather data from AgWeatherNet for insect and disease models to help growers know when to com- bat pests and diseases. The 174 stations moni- tor air temperature, relative humidity, dew point tem- peratures, soil temperatures at 8 inches, rainfall, wind speed, wind direction, solar radiation and leaf wetness. Variables are recorded every 5 seconds and summa- rized every 15 min- utes, provid- ing a run- ning record Jonathan of weather Contezac a f f e c t i n g agriculture. Growers want greater site specific information. With improvements in technol- ogy, stations can be built for $2,000 and maintained for $1,000 per year versus $8,000 and $2,000 in the past, Brown said. Growers, companies, conservation districts and others have built an addi- tional 13 stations for which AgWeatherNet is managing data and sending the owners weather alerts. “Because of topogra- phy, this state has complex weather patterns. Ideally, we would like to have 500 sta- tions to give us the resolu- tion we need,” Brown said. AgWeatherNet will job shadow Clearwest Inc., an agricultural weather fore- cast company in Wenatchee, for a year to take over the service when Clearwest principals retire, Brown said. Run by two retired National Weather Ser- vice meteorologists, Clear- west specializes in forecasts through the spring frost sea- son for tree fruit and wine- grape growers. ‘Adjacent’ aquifers debated before Court of Appeals Several Klamath irrigators challenge state regulatory policy By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Several Klamath Basin irrigators want the Oregon Court of Appeals to curtail water regulators’ authority to shut down groundwa- ter pumping from aquifers that aren’t immediately next to surface waters. A three-judge panel of the appellate court heard oral arguments in Salem Aug. 21 that cen- tered on the Oregon Water Resources Department’s interpretation of the word “adjacent” in this context. Sarah Liljefelt, attor- ney for the irrigators, argued OWRD shouldn’t have “regulated off” their four wells to preserve water in the Sprague River because they don’t tap into a groundwater source next to it. Under the “prior appropriations” doctrine of Western water law, “senior” irrigators with older water rights can pro- tect their access to water by asking regulators to shut down diversions or pump- ing by “junior” irrigators. None of the wells in question rely on the allu- vial aquifer alongside the river and instead depend on deeper sources of ground- water, so they shouldn’t have been required to stop pumping, the irrigators argued. “The water my client is drawing water from is not adjacent to the Sprague River,” Liljefelt said. The OWRD has com- mitted a legal error by adopting a broad under- standing of the term “adja- cent” that encompasses more distant aquifers than the one immediately bor- dering the river, the irriga- tors argue. “My clients’ argument is the regulation means what it says,” Liljefelt said. The irrigators also con- tend that OWRD didn’t account for the limited ability of groundwater to pass through the stream bed when analyzing whether the wells affected flows in the Sprague River. In other words, the agency didn’t base its deci- sion to shut down pumping on substantial evidence, as required by Oregon water regulations, the irrigators claim. “What we’ve argued is the Oregon Water Resources Department omitted an entire factor LEGAL CHERRY AVENUE STORAGE 31-5-1/103 PULLMAN, Wash. — Washington State Uni- versity’s AgWeatherNet is reorganizing with new staff and more weather sta- tions after a year with no meteorologist. Nicholas Loyd left that position, based at the WSU Irrigated Agricul- ture Research and Exten- sion Center in Prosser, last August to take a job with the state Department of Ecology. AgWeatherNet is a net- work of 174 automated agri- cultural weather stations in Washington providing cur- rent and historical weather data and a range of models and decision aids for farm- ers. It normally operates on an $800,000 annual budget with 8.5 staff positions but currently is at 6.5. No one took Loyd’s place doing data quality control and meteorology extension for a year. David Brown, 55, associate professor of soil science, became A g We a t h - erNet direc- tor last November. “I came David in after Nic Brown was gone. The whole weather world was chang- ing and we needed different expertise and more meteo- rological and data syncing,” Brown said. He reorganized staff positions from one meteo- rologist, two field techni- cians and one lab engineer into three field meteo- rologists. The three will increase collaboration with WSU researchers in their locales and handle main- tenance of the 174 stations that field techs had done. One of the field techs, Jonathan Contezac, became field meteorologist in Mt. Vernon on Aug. 1. Instru- ment calibration is his expertise, and he previ- ously worked for one of the nation’s best state weather 35-4/101 By DAN WHEAT Capital Press Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press The Oregon Supreme Court building in Salem, Ore., where the state’s Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Aug. 21 over shutting down groundwater pumping in aquifers “adjacent” to surface waters. 2680 Cherry Ave. NE Salem, OR 97301 (503) 399-7454 AUCTION SATURDAY, AUGUST 10TH, 2019 AT 10 AM Unit AS-2 - Luwanna Hall Unit AS-41 - Desiree Wells Unit AS-131 - Alex Hernandez Unit 23 - Madora Guerrero Unit 69 - Eva Castellanos Unit 75 - Joy Bryant Unit 149 - Gene Boyd Unit 212 - Rosallena Sanchez Unit 217 - Elise VonKemp Unit 222C - Ashley Bailey CherryAvenue Storage reserves the right to refuse any and all bids. 34-2-1/999 A heightened emphasis on seed- free flowers in Oregon’s hemp industry, combined with booming crop acreage, is causing legal conflicts among grow- ers over cross-pollination. The industry’s focus on generating cannabidiol — a compound known as CBD touted for its healthful qualities — has fueled demand for female hemp flowers, which generate the substance in greater abundance. Male flowers, meanwhile, not only contain less CBD but their presence can degrade the quality of female flow- ers if they become pollinated and prior- itize growing seeds over producing the compound. For that reason, inadvertent polli- nation of hemp crops between neigh- bors has spurred litigation alleging large financial losses from drifting pollen. “You have the right to farm, but you don’t have the right to destroy your neighbor’s opportunities,” said Seth Crawford, whose Jack Hempicine seed company is pursuing a lawsuit accus- ing nearby hemp growers of negligence, nuisance and trespass for pollination from a mixed crop of male and female plants. Such disputes are partly the result of the hemp industry’s surging growth in Oregon, where production has increased from 100 acres to more than 60,000 acres in five years. A huge spike in acre- age corresponds with a rush to make seeds available. “The number of seed vendors that have popped up because they see money is incredible,” said Crawford. In some cases, people who aren’t actually hemp breeders have misrep- resented their seeds as “feminized” — capable of only sprouting female plants — even though they weren’t grown with that technique, said Courtney Moran, an attorney and president of the Oregon Industrial Hemp Farmers Association. “There are males popping up in fields that people weren’t prepared for,” she said. Only non-feminized seed is avail- able for some strains of hemp, but grow- ers can then “rogue out,” or eliminate, Eventually, farmers in Oregon may decide that increasing efficiency and yields with mixed male-female fields is worthwhile, even if it does reduce the flower’s CBD content, said Jerry Nor- ton, founder of American Hemp Seed Genetics, based in Portland, Ore. “If you chop it all up anyway, what’s the difference?” he said. For now, though, the industry’s focus on seed-free flower means that farmers should be careful to acquire their genet- ics from reputable dealers, Norton said. “It’s really buyer beware. Who are you getting your seed from, and what are they telling you?” Even when growers are careful to use feminized seed, an occasional hemp plant will emerge with male flowers that generate pollen and result in unwanted seeds, said Crawford of Jack Hempicine. The solution is for growers to walk their fields with a trained eye to weed out the males that may spring up, he said. To protect against unscrupulous deal- ers, growers also want to eventually rely on OSU-certified seed to ensure they’re getting what they paid for, he said. Crawford is also involved in a non- profit organization, the Oregon Canna- bis Pinning Association, that’s devising a pinning map to help maintain isolation distances between hemp fields and pre- vent cross-pollination. “We’re trying to provide it as a way to initiate conversation between farm- ers, because that is the only way this is going to work,” Crawford said. A new company, Willamette Valley Assured, is providing an inspection ser- vice to find and remove male flowers from within hemp fields. “Seeing this rapid increase, we know there’s a need for a third-party quality control service,” said Mike Baker, the company’s founder and an executive at the Pennington grass seed company. The company’s business model fol- lows that of similar firms in the grass seed industry, which commonly relies on third party services to monitor and place acres, Baker said. As the company becomes aware of hemp fields, it can also coordinate such information among farmers to ensure quality, he said. “It’s all rapidly developing,” Baker said of the hemp industry. “These new opportunities don’t come around very often.” from their modeling,” said Liljefelt. The OWRD countered that its interpretation of “adjacent” is plausible and entitled to deference in court, since the water can move between the irriga- tors’ groundwater sources and the Sprague River. The definition of “adja- cent” isn’t limited to “next to,” and can include “not distant,” “relatively near,” and “close to, but not nec- essarily touching,” accord- ing to OWRD. A well within a mile of a river is assumed to be adja- cent for regulatory pur- poses, though even more distant aquifers are poten- tially connected to surface flows, said Inge Wells, attorney for the agency. Beyond one mile, how- ever, “the impact isn’t sig- nificant enough to be worth regulating,” she said. Several irrigation dis- tricts in the region inter- vened in the case to support the OWRD’s understand- ing of “adjacent,” argu- ing the narrower defini- tion ignores scientific data about water movement and would harm senior water rights. “It is the prior appropri- ations system in action,” said Richard Deitchman, attorney for the interven- ing irrigation districts. As for the model OWRD used to support the decision to “regulate off” the wells, the calcula- tions were reasonable and relied on the best available information at the time, the agency said. Aside from questions of water law, the judges also face another compli- cation involving regula- tory changes in the Klam- ath Basin. The litigation involves wells that were shut down in 2016, which would ordinarily render a case moot unless the situation is capable of repetition and likely to evade review. Since the irrigators chal- lenged the OWRD’s deci- sions in court, however, the agency has adopted new groundwater rules that will expire in 2021. For that reason, the judges debated whether it’s worthwhile for them to still weigh in on the dispute. The OWRD argued that the modeling controversy was moot but the defini- tion of “adjacent” was still worth reviewing. Liljefelt, attorney for the irrigators, said both questions are worth reviewing because OWRD will revert to its previ- ous rules in 2021 unless they’re first replaced by newer regulations. At this point, though, it’s uncertain the agency will adopt newer rules, she said. “It’s a hypothet- ical inquiry about what the department may or may not do.” LEGAL Pursuant to ORS Chapter 87 Notice is hereby given that the following vehicle will be sold, for cash, to the highest bidder, on 9/12/ 2019. The sale will be held at 10:00am by A-1 TRANSMISSION 3653 SILVERTON RD. NE SALEM, OR 1999 FORD F 250 CW VIN = 1FTNW21F8XEB87861 Amount due on lien $5092.00 Reputed owner(s) DREW CLINTON COOPER DUSTIN SULLENGER 35-2-1/999 New industry contends with unwanted pollen in fields
