Friday, February 19, 2021
CapitalPress.com 3
Trade commission: Imports aren’t hurting blueberry farmers
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Imported blueberries are not seri-
ously injuring U.S. growers and don’t
pose a threat to them, the U.S. Inter-
national Trade Commission has
concluded.
A coalition of blueberry growers,
including those represented by the
Oregon, Washington and California
blueberry commissions, had sought
trade relief.
“We are certainly very disappointed
with the ITC decision,” American
Blueberry Growers Alliance spokes-
woman Emily Vander Weele said.
“We’ll move forward as an alliance.”
The alliance claimed that a grow-
ing volume of blueberries, particu-
larly from Canada, Mexico and South
America, is surging into U.S. grocery
stories in the spring and fall. The flood
of foreign fruit depresses what should
be profitable early and late harvest
prices for American growers, the alli-
ance argued.
Food makers and blueberry farms
with international operations argued
that prices were being set by compe-
tition among U.S. farmers and that it
was wrong to blame imports.
“The U.S. blueberry industry is
healthy and thriving,” the Blueberry
Coalition for Progress and Health said
in a statement reacting to the commis-
sion’s decision.
“Restricting blueberry imports into
the U.S. would have limited consum-
ers’ access to these healthy, delicious,
and nutritional berries with no benefit
to U.S. producers.”
The Trump administration asked
for the trade commission to investi-
gate, possibly leading to trade protec-
tion measures such as tariffs or quotas.
The trade commission voted 5-0
last week not to pursue trade actions.
The commission will submit a
report to the White House on its rea-
sons for rejecting the blueberry grow-
ers’ claims by March 29, a commission
spokeswoman said.
Other sectors of the farm economy
weighed in on the investigation.
Groups representing major com-
modities that rely on exports to other
countries warned that erecting trade
barriers to protect blueberries could
provoke retaliation that harms other
U.S. farmers.
Other farm groups, however, urged
the trade commission to help blue-
berry farmers, arguing that the case
was emblematic of the U.S. losing the
capacity to grow its own food.
George Plaven/Capital Press File
An over-the-row harvester shakes loose ripe blueber-
ries. The U.S. International Trade Commission on Feb.
11 rejected claims that foreign blueberries are seriously
injuring U.S. farmers.
Hazelnut orchards sustain severe ice damage
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Sierra Dawn McClain/Capital Press
Rows of young trees at a tree nursery prior to the winter
storm.
Winter storms disrupt
nursery industry
By SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN
Capital Press
The winter storms that
tore through the Pacific
Northwest with ice and snow
over the weekend are posing
challenges for the nursery
and greenhouse industry.
Some nursery crops, espe-
cially trees, suffered damage,
and the weather has also dis-
rupted work during a critical
shipping time. Industry lead-
ers and shippers say because
many people are still stuck at
home or without power, it’s
too early to tell the scale of
the damage, but early anec-
dotal reports are trickling in.
“Reports are coming in
slowly,” Jeff Stone, execu-
tive director of Oregon Asso-
ciation of Nurseries, told the
Capital Press Monday. “It
appears that the shade tree
side got hit pretty good.”
The Capital Press reached
out to several shade tree
growers and other nursery
businesses. One grower said
they are cleaning up from
ice damage and won’t have
a full assessment for a few
days. Others did not immedi-
ately respond to requests for
comment.
According to utility com-
pany data, more than a quar-
ter-million customers across
Oregon and Washington
remained without power
Monday after storms downed
more than 4,400 power lines.
Some outages may extend
into Thursday, according to
officials.
“It is also prime ship-
ping time (for the nursery
industry), so the ice storm
was very ill-
timed, just
like COVID
and
the
fires,” said
Stone of the
association.
The nurs-
Jeff Stone
ery industry is
currently ramping up for its
peak spring shipping season.
Oregon’s $1 billion nursery
industry ships about 75% of
its stock out of state.
Aron Asbell, an agent
with Gulick Freight Service
Logistics, a freight broker
that coordinates shipments of
nursery stock, among other
things, said the winter storms
have definitely impacted the
industry.
“There are quite a few
trucks canceled or delayed,”
he said. “I’ve got a lot of
trucks stuck in snow that are
getting towed out.”
Asbell said since it’s all
still happening in real time
and he’s responsible for
coordinating logistics, he
doesn’t have a sense yet
of the volume of disrupted
shipments or how much this
will affect the overall mar-
ket for nursery stock.
“I’m too deep into it to
really see the big picture
yet. I’m still in the middle
of it,” he said.
But one bright spot,
Asbell said, is that the cold
weather front will keep bare
root material from warming
up and pushing out of dor-
mancy too early.
“That’s the upside,” he
said. “It’s been a challeng-
ing couple of days, but
we’re getting through it.”
Hazelnut trees across Oregon’s
Willamette Valley have lost limbs
or collapsed under the weight of ice
that accumulated over the week-
end, requiring extensive pruning or
replacement.
While many trees were flexible
enough to bounce back once the ice
melted, some toppled over or cracked
in half from the strain.
“I think it’s the worst damage
I’ve seen in terms of ice damage to
orchards,” said Bruce Chapin, a hazel-
nut grower near Salem, Ore.
The ice storm isn’t likely to seri-
ously reduce hazelnut production
in 2021, particularly since so many
younger, more resilient orchards
have been in planted in recent years,
experts say.
“If they were young enough to
bend, they were young enough to sur-
vive the ice,” said Peter Ziedrich, a
farmer near Dayton, Ore.
However, farmers who’ve sus-
tained damage will be spending
more money on labor to prune their
orchards, eating into their bottom
line.
“What it’s going to affect is the
profitability,” Chapin said. “We’re
going to have a lot of work out there
and that’s pretty discouraging.”
Orchards planted within the past
12 years or so are in “pretty good
shape” compared to older ones, which
typically consist of cultivars suscepti-
ble to Eastern Filbert Blight, he said.
Trees that split from the ice load
can survive, albeit with massive
scars that will decay in the long term,
Chapin said. In some cases, farm-
ers will opt to replace older cultivars
with those resistant to EFB, a fungal
pathogen.
“Probably a few people will look
at their orchards and think this is the
year to replant with other varieties,”
he said.
Damage was sustained through-
out the Willamette Valley but it’s
too early to tell how it will affect the
region’s overall hazelnut output, said
Nik Wiman, an Extension special-
ist in orchard crops at Oregon State
University.
Even so, production is still likely
to increase in 2021 because orchards
Courtesy of Peter Ziedrich
Some of the damage that last weekend’s ice storm inflicted on Ziedrich
Orchards near Dayton, Ore.
Courtesy of Larry George
A young hazelnut orchard in Ore-
gon’s Willamette Valley is coated
with a thick layer of ice after last
weekend’s freezing rain.
planted to EFB-resistant cultivars are
now reaching maturity, Wiman said.
“A lot of the new acres are starting to
really produce.”
Temperatures didn’t get low
enough to harm hazelnut flowers,
which are pollinated in January and
February, and the ice actually pro-
vided a protective layer around the
blooms, he said.
Though blight-infected orchards
were most affected by the ice
storm, some younger trees were
also split along their trunks, Wiman
said. In severe cases, growers can
regrow them from suckers rather
than buy new seedlings.
“You just have to cut it out, there’s
nothing you can do with it,” he said.
Some cultivars, such as McDon-
ald and Jefferson, appear to have suf-
fered more from the ice than varieties
such as Yamhill and Sacajawea, said
Larry George, hazelnut grower and
founder of the George Packing Co.
Trees that lost major limbs will
require several years to recover
their hazelnut-producing capacity,
while farmers who just finished win-
ter pruning will be saddled with that
expense twice, George said.
“Now they get to go back out there
and do the whole cleanup again,” he
said.
Aside from cultivar, the amount
of ice damage depended on orchard
location, since some microclimates
were more affected, as well as prun-
ing practices and soil drainage, Zied-
rich said.
Trees in areas that aren’t well-
drained won’t have expansive root
systems and are more prone to top-
pling over, he said.
Growers who are planning to
replace their orchards after the ice
storm will need to hurry, since the
planting window is quickly closing,
Ziedrich said. Trees must go in the
ground while it still has enough mois-
ture for them to develop solid roots.
“You don’t want to put trees in a
dry hole and watch them wither away
and die,” he said.
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