Friday, April 16, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
New ag complex a giant leap forward
for Chemeketa Community College
Idaho lawmakers hear pitch to
absorb three-fourths of Oregon
By MITCH LIES
For the Capital Press
By KEITH RIDLER
Associated Press
SALEM — Since 2004,
Phil LaVine, instructor in
Chemeketa Community Col-
lege’s AgriBusiness Manage-
ment Program, has taught out
of modular classrooms with
limited capacity.
Come next fall, providing
COVID restrictions are lifted,
LaVine and other CCC agricul-
tural sciences instructors will be
working out of a state-of-the-art
complex that could more than
double his classroom sizes.
The 20,000-square-foot sig-
nature building of the Cheme-
keta Agriculture Complex is
expected to be open for business
next month. Already, students
are working in the outdoor labs
adjacent to the building, which
serves as a feature draw of the
8-acre complex.
And LaVine couldn’t be
happier.
“This is a boon for us in
terms of being able to get 60
farms (150 people) in the same
classroom together” for his
agribusiness management pro-
gram, he said.
LaVine added that he reg-
ularly has been forced to turn
away farms that wanted to par-
ticipate in the program.
“We’ve never been able
to overcome the small class-
room sizes,” he said. “We were
limited to around 15 to 20
new farms a year and we had
upwards of 40 to 60 that wanted
to participate.”
Joleen Schilling, program
chair of the college’s horticul-
ture program, said moving from
her old classrooms into the new
building will be like entering
the 21st century.
“This is an amazing oppor-
tunity,” Schilling said. “It is
going to dramatically change
what we can off er students and
what we can off er industry.
“I think it is really going to
attract more students to our pro-
gram,” she said. “It is creat-
ing so many diff erent teaching
opportunities, from the outside
classrooms to the inside class-
rooms. It is creating opportu-
BOISE — Idaho
lawmakers
appeared
intrigued but skeptical on
April 12, when pitched
a plan to lop off about
three-fourths of Oregon
and add it to Idaho to cre-
ate what would become
the nation’s third-largest
state geographically.
Representatives
of
a group called Move
Oregon’s Border For a
Greater Idaho outlined
their plan to a joint meet-
ing of Idaho lawmak-
ers from the House and
Senate.
The Idaho Legislature
would have to approve
the plan that would
expand Idaho’s south-
western border to the
Pacifi c Ocean. The Ore-
gon Legislature and the
U.S. Congress would
also have to sign off .
Supporters of the idea
said rural Oregon voters
are dominated by liberal
urban areas such as Port-
land, and would rather
join conservative Idaho.
Portland would remain
with Oregon.
“There’s a long-
time cultural divide as
big as the Grand Can-
yon between northwest
Oregon and rural Ore-
gon, and it’s getting
larger,” Mike McCar-
ter, president of Move
Oregon’s Border for a
Greater Idaho, told Idaho
lawmakers.
If everything falls in
line with Oregon, sup-
porters envision also
adding adjacent portions
of southeastern Wash-
ington and northern Cal-
ifornia to Idaho. Back-
ers said residents in those
areas also yearn for less
government
oversight
and long to become part
of a red state insulated
from the liberal infl u-
ence of large urban cen-
Mitch Lies/For the Capital Press
First year horticulture student Kahlan Fowler of Salem takes
soil samples in an outdoor lab at the Chemeketa Communi-
ty College’s new Agriculture Complex.
nities for us to apply for grants
that we probably wouldn’t have
been able to apply for previ-
ously, just because we have so
many more resources available
to us.”
The complex, four years
in the making, dating back to
when the Oregon Legislature
allocated funding for the proj-
ect, is expected to serve as a
hub for students, industry pro-
fessionals and the community,
according to Holly Nelson,
Chemeketa’s executive dean of
Regional Education and Aca-
demic Development.
“From high school students
and college partners to small
family-owned farms and large
grass seed companies, this will
be the place for one of the Wil-
lamette Valley’s largest indus-
tries to come together in one
learning space,” Nelson said in
a press release.
In addition to state invest-
ments, grants and Chemeketa
Community College funds were
used to support the project.
The complex will include
several outdoor laboratory
areas, including an orchard, a
half-acre that will be put into
vegetable production, a woody
ornamental lab that will be sep-
arated from the vegetable lab by
a hedgerow, three hoop houses,
an arboretum, a low-water xeric
garden and a large bioswale
that will be part of the col-
High psyllid pressure expected
in potato fi elds this year
lege’s classroom experience,
and a greenhouse yet to be con-
structed that will include 3,000
square feet of growing area.
Construction of the green-
house, which was made pos-
sible by a $200,000 donation
from Northwest Farm Credit
Services, is expected to begin
in June.
Plants that dot the complex’s
landscape “were very strategi-
cally selected,” Schilling said,
“so that they can be utilized in
plant identifi cation courses.”
As for the 20,000-square-
foot signature building, it
includes three community
classrooms, a science lab class-
room, a lab preparation room,
two conference rooms, a stu-
dent resource room, faculty
offi ces and a work area.
The work area, or open
study area, comes with two
garage doors that fold up to cre-
ate an open-air environment on
sunny days.
The complex, on the north-
east corner of the Salem cam-
pus at the intersection of 45th
Street and Fire Protection Way,
will be open for use in May,
according to LaVine, but due
to COVID restrictions, won’t
be used for classes until the fall
at the earliest.
“We now have a lot of
potential for growth,” LaVine
said, “and I’m looking forward
to it.”
Greateridaho.org/La Grande Observer
Greater Idaho would combine parts of Oregon
and California with Idaho.
ters that tend to vote
Democratic.
“Values of faith, fam-
ily, independence. That’s
what we’re about,” said
Mark Simmons, an east-
ern Oregon rancher and
former speaker of the
Oregon House of Rep-
resentatives. “We don’t
need the state breath-
ing down our necks all
the time, micromanag-
ing our lives and trying
to push us into a foreign
way of living.”
President Joe Biden
easily won Washington,
Oregon and California in
November, while Presi-
dent Donald Trump car-
ried Idaho with 64%. The
Idaho House and Senate
each have supermajori-
ties of Republicans.
The group’s strategy
has been to get advisory
votes in Oregon coun-
ties likely to make the
switch. But last Novem-
ber the group had mixed
success with two coun-
ties opting to join Idaho
but two wanting to stay a
part of Oregon. Support-
ers blamed the setback
on the coronavirus pan-
demic and an inability
to get their message out.
Five more Oregon coun-
ties are expected to vote
on the matter in May.
The county votes
carry no weight, but are
intended to potentially
sway lawmakers to ulti-
mately approve the plan.
Republican Rep. Ben
Adams, one of Idaho’s
more conservative law-
makers who gave a fi ery
speech on the House
fl oor last week revolving
around freedom, said his
interest was piqued but
wondered why Oregon
lawmakers would agree
to the plan.
“How is it being
received right now by
the state of Oregon?” he
asked. “How hard would
they be fi ghting to make
it not happen? Most
states don’t like to lose
their resources to their
neighbors.”
McCarter said he’s
had no contact with the
state government but
expects supporters will
make themselves known
eventually.
“I believe that there
are a lot of people stand-
ing on the sidelines
watching this particular
issue,” McCarter said. “Is
there any traction to it? Is
there anything behind it?”
He said the votes
coming up in the fi ve
counties in May could be
an indicator.
How do you make the best even better?
Start with revolutionary design features, like a
By MATTHEW WEAVER
Capital Press
split-box configuration, higher capacity, and
Washington potato farm-
ers can expect high pressure
this year from psyllids, the
insects that can carry zebra
chip disease, researchers
say.
Potato psyllid popula-
tions fl uctuate from year
to year, said Rodney Coo-
per, temperate tree fruit and
vegetable research leader
for the USDA Agricultural
Research Service in Wapato,
Wash.
The psyllid populations
that occur in potatoes in late
summer correlate with psyl-
lid populations that occur on
matrimony vine, a non-na-
tive shrub, in early spring.
When researchers cannot
fi nd psyllids on matrimony
vine in March, the psyllid
pressure in potatoes remains
low. During years research-
ers fi nd psyllids on matri-
mony vine in March, psyl-
lid pressure can be high in
potatoes later in the summer,
Cooper said.
“This year, we are see-
ing a very large number of
potato psyllid in matrimony
vine,” Cooper said. “In fact,
we are seeing perhaps three
times more psyllids on mat-
rimony vine than we did
leading up to the 2016 potato
psyllid outbreak. If 2021
follows the same trends we
have seen over the last fi ve
or six years, then grow-
ers can likely expect a high
psyllid pressure this year.”
Matrimony vine was fi rst
brought to the Pacifi c North-
west by homesteaders in the
late 1800s or early 1900s.
The vine is the fi rst potato
psyllid host plant to leaf out
in the spring, Cooper said.
Psyllids can complete at
least one generation on mat-
rimony vine before the emer-
gence of potatoes. The plant
survives the hot dry condi-
tions of summer by going
into dormancy, which forces
the psyllids to disperse in
speed for greater accuracy. Then, add practical
innovative feeder cups that meter by shaft
technology like DrillCommand ® and hydraulic
drive to execute variable-rate and prescription
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cab. As a result, you end up with the most
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drill ever produced – the Great Plains BD7600.
Rodney Cooper/USDA ARS
An adult potato psyllid on
a leaf next to two eggs.
Researchers say early
psyllid populations on
matrimony vine indicate
increased psyllid pressure
for potato farmers later in
the year.
search of new host plants,
including potatoes.
It appears that matri-
mony vine is a source of
psyllids arriving in potato in
the region, Cooper said. But
the plant does not appear to
be susceptible to the zebra
chip pathogen and therefore
is not a source of infective
psyllids.
In fact, psyllid popula-
tions seem to lose the zebra
chip pathogen when reared
on matrimony vine in the
laboratory, Cooper said.
“While matrimony vine
might be a source of psyl-
lids arriving in potato, matri-
mony vine might also be the
reason why zebra chip dis-
ease is rare in our region,”
Cooper said. “Without mat-
rimony vine, potato psyllids
might utilize less favorable
non-crop hosts that have
potential to be reservoirs of
the zebra chip pathogen.”
Even though the region’s
zebra chip infection rates
in psyllids are lower com-
pared to other areas, about
1 in 10,000, years when
there are more psyllids still
increase the risk, said Carrie
Wohleb, regional vegetable
specialist.
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