Friday, August 19, 2022
CapitalPress.com 7
Oregon researcher builds ‘smoking
Senate bill would
chamber’ to test impact on winegrapes remove barrier to
By GEORGE PLAVEN
Capital Press
meat processing
CENTRAL POINT, Ore.
— At first blush, the “smok-
ing chamber” at Oregon
State University’s South-
ern Oregon Research and
Extension Center might
look like your average gar-
den hoop house, with plastic
sheeting draped over a PVC
frame.
In reality, the prototype
was designed for a novel
purpose — to simulate wild-
fire smoke in rows of wine-
grapes, allowing scientists
to study the effects on fin-
ished wine.
Alec Levin, a viticul-
turist and associate profes-
sor at SOREC, is leading
the experiment as part of a
$7.65 million federal grant
to researchers at three West
Coast universities targeting
smoke exposure on grapes
and potential solutions for
growers.
By next summer, Levin
hopes to build five chambers
over rows of Pinot noir at the
research farm near Medford.
Each will be fixed to a wood
pellet grill piping in varying
levels of smoke, replicating
wildfire conditions.
Once the grapes are har-
vested, they can be tested
for several types of organic
compounds believed to con-
tribute to “smoke taint” in
wine.
Tainted wines have been
described as having an
unpleasant ashy or chemi-
cal taste, and worries over
diminished quality can
prompt wineries to reject
grapes from vineyards inun-
dated with wildfire smoke.
“As of late, we’ve had a
lot of fires toward the later
part of the summer and early
fall,” Levin said. “Fire sea-
son is getting longer and
longer.”
That observation was
recently backed up by data
from the state Department
of Environmental Qual-
By CAROL RYAN DUMAS
Capital Press
Courtesy of Alec Levin
A prototype “smoking chamber” has been developed at Oregon State University’s
Southern Oregon Research and Extension Center to simulate wildfire smoke expo-
sure in Pinot noir winegrapes.
Alec Levin
ity, which
found the
number of
days with
poor
air
quality due
to wildfire
smoke
is
increasing
across the state.
Medford had 27 such
days last year, the sec-
ond-highest total on record
dating back to 1985.
A team of scientists from
OSU, Washington State
University and the Univer-
sity of California-Davis is
now working to solve the
riddle of smoke taint and
provide tools for the wine
industry to adapt. Fund-
ing for the four-year study
is provided by the USDA’s
National Institute of Food
and Agriculture.
According to WineA-
merica, an industry group
based in Washington,
D.C., winegrapes contrib-
ute $220 billion to the U.S.
economy, with Califor-
nia, Washington and Ore-
gon representing three of
the top four wine-produc-
ing states.
Levin said he is still
fine-tuning the smoking
chamber to provide just the
right amount of smoke con-
centration for his project.
“Our first few (trials)
that we did, it got really
smoky, really fast,” he said.
“Where we’re at now, we
need to figure out how to
get a really low concentra-
tion of smoke that is more
akin to what we’d have
during a wildfire event.”
The plan, he said, is
to begin collecting data
next year. Each row of
vines will be “smoked”
twice per year, including
once in early August at
the onset of ripening and
again 4-6 weeks later, just
before harvest. Each time
will be about eight hours
overnight.
Levin said they will
use Douglas fir pellets as
the fuel source for smoke.
They chose Pinot noir
since it is Oregon’s signa-
ture variety, and as a thin-
skinned red grape variety,
it is highly susceptible to
smoke taint.
“A lot of the problem-
atic compounds that reduce
wine quality are in the
skins,” he said.
As if to underscore the
urgency, Medford was
awash in wildfire smoke
earlier this year from three
blazes burning just across
the California border,
including the 60,392-acre
McKinney Fire and 7,886-
acre Alex and Yeti fires.
Levin said his findings
could help growers better
determine which smoke
levels are problematic,
and when they should file
a claim for crop insurance.
“We just don’t know
what those thresholds are,”
he said.
Other facets of the
USDA grant across the
three universities involve:
• Developing coatings
for winegrapes to mini-
mize or prevent uptake of
compounds that contribute
to smoke taint.
• Establishing low-cost
sensors and sensor net-
works for real-time risk
assessment in the vineyard.
• Optimizing a rapid
small-batch fermentation
method to predict what a
wine impacted by smoke
will taste like when fer-
mented on a commercial
scale.
“Because we have this
huge group of researchers
on this grant, everybody is
taking a piece of the puz-
zle and working with it,”
Levin said.
Legislation introduced
in the U.S. Senate would
remove regulatory road-
blocks to increasing meat
processing capacity by
allowing livestock auction
market owners to invest in
small and regional packing
facilities.
Livestock auction mar-
kets are not currently able
to own, invest in or partic-
ipate in the management
or operation of a pack-
ing plant or meat market-
ing business due to a Pack-
ers and Stockyards Act
regulation.
The Expanding Local
Meat Processing Act,
S.4709, would remove that
barrier.
The bipartisan bill was
introduced by Sens. Ben
Ray Luján, D-N.M., and
Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, both
members of the Senate
Agriculture Committee.
Reps. Vicky Hartz-
ler, R-Mo., and Jimmy
Panetta, D-Calif., intro-
duced companion legis-
lation, H.R.7438, in the
House last April.
The legislation directs
the secretary of Agricul-
ture to amend the Packers
and Stockyards Act regula-
tion to allow livestock auc-
tion market owners to own,
finance or participate in the
management or operation
of a meat packing plant
with a cumulative slaugh-
ter capacity of less than
2,000 animals per day.
The slaughter cap would
exclude investment by the
top 10 meat packers.
The legislation would
remove outdated regula-
tions that hinder producers’
ability to increase livestock
processing capacity, Luján
said in introducing the bill.
“This is a priority that I
will continue to advocate
for in the upcoming farm
bill,” he said.
Ernst said eliminating
outdated regulations hin-
dering the livestock indus-
try and increasing process-
ing capacity is a no-brainer.
“Allowing
livestock
auction owners to invest
in local and regional
meat packers will expe-
dite the safe processing
of meat, increase compe-
tition within the industry
and, ultimately, lower meat
costs for consumers,” she
said.
National Cattlemen’s
Beef Association supports
the legislation, said Tan-
ner Beymer, NCBA senior
director of government
affairs.
“Opening new process-
ing facilities is essential
for removing longstanding
bottlenecks in the beef sup-
ply chain, but these facili-
ties require substantial cap-
ital and technical expertise
to get off the ground,” he
said.
“Livestock market own-
ers understand complex
commodity markets and
have the industry experi-
ence to launch successful
processing facilities,” he
said.
The legislation is sup-
ported by a number of other
national and local agricul-
ture groups, including the
Iowa Cattlemen’s Associ-
ation, Livestock Marketing
Association and U.S. Cat-
tlemen’s Association.
The companion leg-
islation in the House is
also supported by several
organizations,
includ-
ing the NCBA, Livestock
Marketing Association,
National Pork Produc-
ers Council, U.S. Cat-
tlemen’s Association and
American Sheep Industry
Association.
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