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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2016
Fewer suppliers means Oregon
Christmas trees may cost more
Task force eyes
tax hikes for fish,
wildlife funding
Associated Press
SALEM — Christmas
trees in Oregon may cost a bit
more this year as the supply
of holiday firs in the state has
dropped.
An oversupply of trees in
2015 led some growers to leave
the market, meaning there are
fewer trees to go around this
year, which could push prices
slightly up, The Salem States-
man Journal reported.
Tracy Fisher, a bookkeeper
and office manager with Hupp
Farms, located in the Silver-
ton area, said the company has
seen high sales and has turned
down at least 50 inquiries for
trees.
“People are just scrambling
for Christmas trees,” she said.
Fisher said Hupp Farms is
selling noble firs for around
$5 per foot — with popular
sizes ranging between 6 and 8
feet tall. She said those prices
are slightly higher and more
in line with 2005 levels. The
farm has sold 22,000 trees so
far.
According to the United
States Department of Agricul-
ture, harvest and sales of trees
dropped 26 percent in 2015
compared to 2010. USDA
statistician Dave Losh said
growers planted an overabun-
By CLAIRE
WITHYCOMBE
Capital Bureau
Danielle Peterson/Statesman-Journal
Gerald Beard and fellow workers bale and sort Christmas trees last week, at Hupp
Farms in the Silverton area. Christmas trees in Oregon may cost a bit more this year as
the supply of holiday firs in the state has dropped.
‘People are just scrambling for Christmas trees.’
Tracy Fisher
bookkeeper and office manager with Hupp Farms
dance of trees compared to the
demand for them and as sup-
ply outpaced demand, prices
fell and growers left.
“Now it’s just a matter of
who’s left,” he said.
Pacific Northwest Christ-
mas Tree Association Execu-
tive Director Bryan Ostlund
says while supplies have tight-
ened, there is no shortage of
Christmas trees in Oregon.
“It’s what mother nature
provides us here in the North-
west,” he said, later adding,
“It’s just a perfect natural
growing environment for these
conifers.”
Wet weather heralds busy season for
Oregon State University slug researcher
Expert studying
slug life cycle
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
It’s the rainy season in
Oregon, which means there’s
plenty of work for Oregon
State University’s new slug
expert, Rory McDonnell.
With slugs emerging from
their underground hiberna-
tion, McDonnell has found
that Oregon’s reputation as
a haven for the slimy pests is
well deserved.
“The populations are very
large,” he said.
The number and size of
slugs is greater in Oregon
compared to McDonnell’s pre-
vious post as a research spe-
cialist at the University of
California-Riverside.
“Sometimes, in California,
I felt like I was trying to fit a
square peg into a round hole,”
he said.
McDonnell assumed his
new position as an assis-
tant professor at OSU in mid-
July, but autumn is when his
research began in earnest.
During the dry season, he
got his laboratory equipped
and met with farmers afflicted
by the prodigious mollusks.
The wet weather has now
allowed him to study the
slug’s life cycle with the aim
of developing efficient ways to
eliminate the pests.
Slug activity peaks in fall
and spring, so McDonnell
is out in the field, checking
traps to see which species are
most problematic in certain
locations.
European brown garden
snails are the worst offenders
in nurseries, while gray field
slugs are the primary culprits
in field crops, he said.
Indeed, the gray slug is
likely the most prominent slug
pest worldwide due to its abil-
ity to adapt to a variety of envi-
ronments and food sources,
McDonnell said.
“It can be successful under
a wide range of conditions,” he
said.
In March 2015, OSU orga-
nized a “slug summit” in
Salem, Ore., where growers
complained that damage from
slugs has intensified in recent
years.
That complaint prompted
the university to seek addi-
tional funding from Ore-
gon lawmakers to hire a slug
researcher. The Legislature
Courtesy of Rory McDonnell
Oregon State University
assistant professor Rory
McDonnell specializes in
slugs. He’s currently help-
ing Oregon farmers find ef-
ficient ways to kill the slimy
pests.
provided an addition $14 mil-
lion to OSU later that year,
allowing the university to fill
this slug position and several
others.
McDonnell is exploring
strategies to fight the pests.
For example, farmers could
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use extracts from food or slug
pheromones to attract them to
a certain area of a field that’s
treated with a hefty dose of
molluscicide. This approach
may kill the slugs more effec-
tively than spreading a lesser
concentration of molluscicide
across an entire field.
McDonnell and other
researchers have identified
slug attractants that work in
the laboratory, and they plan to
see if the substance also works
outdoors.
“What happens in the lab
isn’t necessarily what happens
in the field,” he said.
Another technique would
involve parasitic nematodes
that kill slugs, which are used
for biocontrol in Europe.
If such nematodes were
found in Oregon, research-
ers would have to prove to
the USDA’s Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service that
the parasites don’t affect native
species.
“We only want to use tools
that are safe and specific to the
pest species,” McDonnell said.
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SALEM — A task force
convened to find ways to
raise revenue for the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wild-
life Monday will recommend
two tax increases to add $86
million to the department’s
budget.
The next challenge will
be selling them to the Oregon
Legislature.
The agency, which has a
biennial budget of about $370
million, is looking for more
money for conservation pro-
grams, maintenance and out-
reach. It gets about a third of
its revenue from hunting and
fishing license fees, and the
remainder from state and fed-
eral sources.
After evaluating dozens
of options to raise revenue,
the task force recommends an
income tax surcharge and a
surcharge on beverages at the
wholesale level.
Task force members
acknowledged Monday that
the roughly $86 million ask
every biennium will be politi-
cally challenging.
Shortfall
The state faces a $1.7 bil-
lion shortfall going into the
next biennium, according to
the Governor’s Office.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown
is expected to release her bal-
anced budget Thursday.
The tax force’s recommen-
dations will come in a legisla-
tive session that will likely be
characterized by attempts to
both cut costs and raise funds
across the board.
Much of the discussion at
Monday’s meeting revolved
around gaining traction for
the additional ask — both in
terms of support from mem-
bers of the legislature and
from the state’s hunting, fish-
ing, outdoor recreation and
conservation communities.
Many at Monday’s meet-
ing pointed to the success of
Measure 99 — which passed
at the ballot box earlier this
month to allocate state lottery
funding for outdoor education
— as an example of an initia-
tive that leveraged the sup-
port of those Oregonians who
value outdoor recreation such
as cycling or hiking, but don’t
hunt or fish.
A ST O R S T R E E T
O PRY C O M PA N Y ’ S
21 A N N U A L
ST
Oregon State Rep. Ken
Helm, a nonvoting member of
the task force, advised the task
force to meet with all mem-
bers of the Legislature and to
gain the support not only of
conservation groups, but also
of Oregon businesses.
Task force members also
met with Rep. Phil Barnhart,
D-Eugene, and Rep. Brad
Witt, D-Clatskanie, last week.
Barnhart is chairman of the
House Interim Revenue Com-
mittee, while Witt is chairman
of the House Interim Com-
mittee on Agriculture and
Natural Resources.
Reps. Barnhart
and Witt
discouraged
emphasizing
either tax,
said task force
members.
According to task force
members, Barnhart and
Witt discouraged them from
emphasizing either tax and
instead were advised to “lead
with” the mission of ODFW
and what it plans to do with
the additional money.
Conservation
That money, according to
task force recommendations,
is to be allocated toward addi-
tional conservation activities,
improved hunting and fishing
opportunities, increasing out-
reach and education efforts,
and the cost of needed main-
tenance to department infra-
structure that has been put off
in prior budget years.
The largest chunk of the
approximately $86 million
target — about $46.7 million
— would be dedicated to con-
servation efforts.
Stakeholders and legis-
lators also appear to want to
see more oversight for the
department’s ongoing work
— another bill passed last
year is intended to track in
the coming years how many
hours ODFW workers spend
doing work on behalf of other
departments.
A final report of the task
force’s recommendations is
expected to be complete by
the year’s end.
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