Jennifer Uranga has been helping farmers sign up guestworkers under the federal H-2A visa program since before the recent surge in demand.

She kept books and oversaw safety for an onion and hop grower near Parma, Idaho, for several years. One day, her boss asked her to figure out how to bring guestworkers to the farm through H-2A. She did, and a couple of major fruit growers in the area subsequently asked her to do the same.

Ultimately she started Mountain West Ag Consulting, which acts as an H-2A agent and provides human-resources and food and worker safety compliance services. She has now been working with the H-2A program for nearly five years.

“This is my dream job. I love what I do and I cannot imagine doing anything else,” said Uranga, who splits time between in the Wilder, Idaho, and Yakima, Wash., areas.

The Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes the H-2A visa program, which allows a U.S. employer to hire foreign workers temporarily — normally for 10 months or less — for agricultural work when sufficient numbers of U.S. workers are not available.

Demand for H-2A workers is rising.

An Idaho Department of Labor report on agriculture’s contribution to the state’s economy said the recently shrinking supply of workers prompted agriculture employers to offer benefits, incentives and higher wages, or use the H-2A program.

The total number of certified H-2A positions in Idaho has nearly doubled from 2013 to 2017 — from 1,539 to 2,994 — and these temporary workers are “on pace to becoming a dominant share of the migrant worker demographic,” the report said.

Strong demand keeps Uranga busy, as does the significant paperwork the application process entails.

Before the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services can approve a visa petition for H‐2A workers, the employer must receive a temporary labor certification from the U.S. Department of Labor.

A Department of Labor handbook says the prospective employer starts by filing a job order with his or her state’s workforce agency 60 to 75 days before the work start date. The Office of Foreign Labor Certification, within the federal Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration, then requires the employer to file an H-2A application with its national processing center in Chicago at least 45 days before the work start date and submit any additional required documentation by at least 30 days before the work start date. The employer recruits workers, subject to advertising and reporting requirements, after receiving an acceptance notice from the processing center.

“I do not recruit workers,” Uranga said. “Rather, in the West, usually the employers contact a recruiter in Mexico or border U.S. states.”

She instead focuses on the H-2A application process after exploring the employer’s operations thoroughly.

“I visit them, and we talk about their farm and their labor needs,” Uranga said. “We ask a lot of questions about their existing work force, and we vet them — their payroll records, HR systems, et cetera.”

She said her clients, who pay a consulting fee, are “all over,” including Oregon, central Washington and southwest Idaho.

“This year, I picked up some smaller farms needing a couple of workers, but I deal with 20 to 200 workers often,” Uranga said.

Workers are contracted for a specified period, such as February through November or August through October. Uranga said it’s possible for a grower to write an additional contract and ask for more workers for a known and documented date of need up to a documented end date.

Recently, she and some larger clients have aimed to transfer workers from one contract to another, “which can keep workers here in the U.S. and help another grower,” she said.

Uranga also has been involved in efforts to address a recent housing shortage for H-2A workers.

“My phone rings every day with people inquiring about H-2A,” she said. More farmers are inquiring about the program, and “a lot are surprised by all of the rules and regulations that go with it.”

Uranga studied ag economics at the University of Idaho and worked for several food companies before staying home for a while, then returning to work in agriculture.

“I love agriculture. I love being able to spend my time on farms with farmers,” she said. “They are my friends and I get to help them.”

ELMIRA, Ore. — Ian Conners had zero farming experience before joining Elmira High School’s Interact Club, which constructed a greenhouse and is working toward offering an agricultural training program at the school.

Conners, a senior at EHS, said he always wanted to start a garden at home, but it wasn’t financially viable for his family.

“This experience has been wonderful for me as it has afforded an opportunity to practice something I’ve always had an interest in while helping my community,” he said.

The Interact club, which is the high school equivalent of Rotary Club, grew vegetable starts that the students sold at a spring bazaar.

The greenhouse at Elmira is just one example of interactive agriculture sprouting up at Oregon schools. For many years, FFA programs have taught agriculture in schools, but now other efforts at the high school and college level are also taking root.

At the University of Oregon, the Urban Farm has integrated itself into course studies, and the School Garden Project in Eugene brings farming into the 4J School District.

“(Students) are learning farm skills and agriculture,” Emily Edwards, development coordinator of the School Garden Project, said. “Part of that for us is not just the opportunity (students have) to grow things themselves, but to taste the various things they’re growing. For kids in Eugene, we have these types of opportunities, but it’s also significant for kids who aren’t having these opportunities often.”

Edwards said the garden serves as a hands-on experience when teaching the students about science.

Harper Keeler, director of the Urban Farm Program at UO, said the skillset the students have is varied.

“Some kids grew up on a farm and they know more than I do; they’re real farmers,” he said. “Then there’s kids who never touched a shovel before in their life. It’s connecting those people to an agrarian community.”

The Urban Farm has been at the school since 1975, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that it merged with educational programs. The 1.5-acred farm is L-shaped, and students grow food year-round. Keeler went through the program as a student in 1992, and became the director in 2008.

Keeler said the course is popular, hosting over 300 students a year. He said he’d like to include more students, but the space isn’t big enough to accommodate everyone. Also, unlike most programs, the students eat all the food in the garden to help combat food insecurity on college campuses.

After graduation, Keeler said he has had students continue by creating farms of their own, Moondog’s Farm in Mabel, Ore., being one example.

Richard Hackett loaned his 15-by-50-foot greenhouse to the EHS Interact Club for a year to support the project. Hackett was former president of the Veneta Rotary Club and president of Sea Mercy, an organization that develops self-sustaining farming and other programs in the South Pacific.

He said the most rewarding aspect of his involvement is helping to restore what has been forgotten by most — growing food.

“There’s hands-on and heads-on learning, and this is both,” Hackett said. “It’s an experience to learn and understand but also to apply (hands-on experience). Agriculture gets a bad name. People will say only ‘dumb people are farmers,’ and that’s not true. They’re brilliant and amazing people. When you understand what they know, and how they’re feeding the world, we don’t want to lose that.”

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — The eruption of a Hawaii volcano has people warily eyeing volcanic peaks on America’s West Coast.

The West Coast is home to an 800-mile chain of 13 volcanoes from Washington state’s Mount Baker to California’s Lassen Peak. They include Mount St. Helens, whose spectacular 1980 eruption in the Pacific Northwest killed dozens of people and sent volcanic ash across the country, and massive Mount Rainier, which towers above the Seattle metro area. The peaks are part of the “Ring of Fire,” volcanoes that sit on tectonic plates. Hawaii is not part of the Ring of Fire.

“There’s lots of anxiety out there,” said Liz Westby, geologist at the U.S. Geological Survey Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, in the shadow of Mount St. Helens. “They see destruction, and people get nervous.”

Kilauea, on Hawaii’s Big Island, is threatening to blow its top in coming days or weeks after sputtering lava for a week, forcing about 2,000 people to evacuate, destroying two dozen homes and threatening a geothermal plant. Experts fear the volcano could hurl ash and boulders the size of refrigerators miles into the air.

Here are some key things to know:

Roughly 450 volcanoes make up this horseshoe-shaped belt. The belt follows the coasts of South America, North America, eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It’s known for frequent volcanic and seismic activity caused by the colliding of crustal plates.

Outside of Hawaii, America’s most dangerous volcanoes are all part of the Ring of Fire, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. They include: Mount St. Helens and Mount Rainier in Washington; Mount Hood and South Sister in Oregon; and Mount Shasta and Lassen Volcanic Center in California.

Images of lava flowing from the ground and homes going up in flames in Hawaii have stoked unease among residents. But experts say an eruption in Hawaii doesn’t necessarily signal danger on the West Coast.

“These are isolated systems,” Westby said.

No eruption seems imminent, experts say.

The Cascades Volcano Observatory monitors volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest and posts weekly status reports. All currently register “normal.”

But the situation can change fast.

“All our mountains are considered active and, geologically speaking, things seem to happen in the Northwest about every 100 years,” said John Ufford, preparedness manager for the Washington Emergency Management Division. “It’s an inexact timeline.”

Some geologists believe Mount St. Helens is the most likely to erupt.

But six other Cascade volcanoes have been active in the past 300 years, including steam eruptions at Mount Rainier and Glacier Peak and a 1915 blast at Lassen Peak that destroyed nearby ranches.

The Big Island scenes of rivers of lava snaking through neighborhoods and sprouting fountains are unlikely in the Pacific Northwest.

“Lava is not the hazard, per se, like in Hawaii,” said Ian Lange, a retired University of Montana geology professor. Cascade volcanos produce a thicker, more viscous type of lava than Hawaiian volcanoes, so it doesn’t run as far, Lange said.

The Cascade volcanoes can produce huge clouds of choking ash and send deadly mudslides into rivers and streams. Two of the most potentially destructive are Mount St. Helens, north of the Portland, Oregon, metro area, and 14,000-foot Mount Rainier, which is visible from the cities of Seattle and Tacoma.

Mount Rainier eruptions in the distant past have caused destruction as far west as Puget Sound, some 50 miles away.

The volcano hasn’t produced a significant eruption in the past 500 years. But it remains dangerous because of its great height, frequent earthquakes, active hydrothermal system, and 26 glaciers, experts said.

An eruption on Mount Rainier could rapidly melt glaciers, triggering huge mudflows — called lahars — that could reach the densely populated surrounding lowlands, Westby said.

Another major danger from a Cascade volcano eruption would be large amounts of ash thrown into the air, where it could foul aircraft engines.

The closest settlement to a West Coast volcano may be Government Camp, on Oregon’s Mount Hood. Lava could conceivably reach the town, but the greater threat is an eruption triggering a so-called pyroclastic flow, which is a fast-moving cloud of hot ash and gas, experts said.

But Lange believes California’s Mount Shasta is the most dangerous, in part because it is surrounded by towns.

The town of Mt. Shasta has numerous response plans for emergencies, including a volcano eruption, Police Chief Parish Cross said. But the plan for a volcano is pretty fluid, he said.

“We don’t know the size or scope of the event,” Cross said, including which direction the eruption would occur.

This is not an issue in Orting, Washington, about 20 miles west of Mount Rainier. Orting would be directly in the path of a lahar, and local officials each year conduct drills in which children move from school to higher ground to escape the flow.

Students usually take about 45 minutes to walk the 2 miles to higher ground, which should be fast enough to escape, officials said.

“Our concern is ice and snow melting rapidly on Mount Rainier,” said Chuck Morrison, a resident of the town of 7,600 who has long been involved in evacuation planning. “We need a quick way off the valley floor.”

Orting is the town most vulnerable to lahar damage from Mount Rainier, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Scientists say that in the worst case, a 30-foot-high lahar with the consistency of wet concrete could rumble through Orting at 50 mph if volcanic activity suddenly melted snow and ice on Rainier.

SPRINGFIELD, Ore. (AP) — A glut of legal marijuana has driven Oregon pot prices to rock-bottom levels, prompting some nervous growers to start pivoting to another type of cannabis to make ends meet — one that doesn’t come with a high.

Applications for state licenses to grow hemp — marijuana’s non-intoxicating cousin — have increased more than twentyfold since 2015, and Oregon now ranks No. 2 behind Colorado among the 19 states with active hemp cultivation. The rapidly evolving market comes amid skyrocketing demand for a hemp-derived extract called cannabidiol, or CBD, seen by many as a health aid.

In its purified distilled form, CBD oil commands thousands of dollars per kilogram, and farmers can make more than $100,000 an acre growing hemp plants to produce it. That distillate can also be converted into a crystallized form or powder.

“Word on the street is everybody thinks hemp’s the new gold rush,” said Jerrad McCord, who grows marijuana in southern Oregon and just added 12 acres of hemp. “This is a business. You’ve got to adapt, and you’ve got to be a problem-solver.”

It’s a problem few predicted when Oregon voters opened the door to legal marijuana four years ago.

The state’s climate is perfect for growing marijuana, and growers produced bumper crops. Under state law, none of it can leave Oregon. That, coupled with a decision to not cap the number of licenses for growers, has created a surplus.

Oregon’s inventory of marijuana is staggering for a state its size. There are nearly 1 million pounds of usable flower in the system, and an additional 350,000 pounds of marijuana extracts, edibles and tinctures.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which regulates the industry, says some of the inventory of flower goes into extracts, oils and tinctures — which have increased in popularity — but the agency can’t say how much. A comprehensive market study is underway.

Yet the retail price for a gram of pot has fallen about 50 percent since 2015, from $14 to $7, according to a report by the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. Growers and retailers alike have felt the sting.

“Now we’re starting to look at drastic means, like destroying product. At some point, there’s no more storage for it,” said Trey Willison, who switched his operation from marijuana to hemp this season. “Whoever would have thought we’d get to the point of destroying pounds of marijuana?”

That stark prospect is driving more of Oregon’s marijuana entrepreneurs toward hemp, a crop that already has a foothold in states like Colorado and Kentucky and a lot of buzz in the cannabis industry. In Oregon, the number of hemp licenses increased from 12 in 2015 to 353 as of last week, and the state now ranks No. 2 nationally in licensed acreage.

Colorado, which is No. 1 in hemp production, and Washington were the first states to broadly legalize marijuana. Both have seen price drops for marijuana but not as significant as Oregon.

Like marijuana, the hemp plant is a cannabis plant, but it contains less than 0.3 percent of THC, the compound that gives pot its high. Growing industrial hemp is legal under federal law, and the plant can be sold for use in things like fabric, food, seed and building materials.

But the increasing focus in Oregon is the gold-colored CBD oil that has soared in popularity among cannabis connoisseurs and is rapidly going mainstream. At least 50 percent of hemp nationwide is being grown for CBD extraction, and Oregon is riding the crest of that wave, said Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, a nonpartisan organization that advocates for pro-hemp legislation.

“There are a lot of growers who already have experience growing cannabis, and when you’re growing for CBD, there are a lot of the same techniques that you use for growing marijuana,” he said. “Oregon is definitely a hotbed of activity around this.”

CBD is popping up in everything from cosmetics to chocolate bars to bottled water to pet treats. One Los Angeles bar sells drinks containing the oil, massage therapists use creams containing CBD, and juice bars offer the stuff in smoothies. Dozens of online sites sell endless iterations of CBD oils, tinctures, capsules, transdermal patches, infused chocolates and creams with no oversight.

Proponents say CBD offers a plethora of health benefits, from relieving pain to taming anxiety. Scientists caution, however, that there have been very few comprehensive clinical studies of how CBD affects humans — mostly because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration still considers cannabidiol a Schedule 1 drug, and the government requires special dispensation to study it.

Pre-clinical studies have shown promise for treatment of chronic pain, neuro-inflammation, anxiety, addiction and anti-psychotic effects in animals, mostly rodents, said Ziva Cooper, an associate professor of clinical neurobiology at Columbia University who focuses her research on the therapeutic potential of cannabis and cannabinoids.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration next month could approve the first drug derived from CBD. It’s used to treat forms of epilepsy.

Christina Sasser, co-founder of Vital Leaf, isn’t waiting for government action to market CBD products in stores and online. She sells about 500 bottles of Oregon-sourced CBD oil a month and ships only to customers living in states with state-run hemp pilot programs, to better avoid the possibility that federal agents will go after her for selling something the U.S. government considers illicit.

“Everybody in the CBD world has recognized the risks involved, and I would say the vast majority of us really believe in the power of the plant and are willing to operate in this, sort of, gray area,” she said.

Willison was selling marijuana clones to pot startups when he realized last spring he was selling way more clones than Oregon’s market could support. The two-story building where he grew 200 pounds of weed a month sits nearly empty, and a greenhouse built to expand his pot business is packed with hemp plants instead.

He breeds hemp plants genetically selected for their strong CBD concentration, harvests the seeds and extracts CBD from the remaining plants that can fetch up to $13,000 per kilogram. His future looks bright again.

“The (marijuana) market is stuck within the borders of Oregon — it’s locked within the state,” he said, as he took a break from collecting tiny grains of pollen from his plants. “But hemp is an international commodity now.”

Jacob Valentine, a fifth-generation sheep shearer from Crabtree Ore., sells the fleeces almost as fast as they come off the animals.

He does it by shearing live online as prospective wool buyers watch, bid and buy.

With a cell phone for a camera and Facebook for a platform, Valentine is able to show the potential customer the animal in full fleece, the wool as it comes off and a close-up of the fleece as it is skirted.

The bidding goes quickly — if you snooze, you lose because it’s on to the next shearing. At least half of the online auction customers live in the Midwest and East Coast.

Born in Gold Beach on the Oregon Coast and raised in the tiny town of Langlois, Valentine learned to shear from his family members. His natural ability to think outside the box was evident in high school when he gutted a school bus, added lights and held a dance in it. It’s not a surprise to those who know him hear that he is shearing and auctioning fleeces live online.

“I started live on Facebook with a group of approximately 3,000 fleece lovers and the sales started pouring in,” Valentine said. “When a grower decides to participate in the auction, I cut them a check for more than market price for the wool and keep the auction receipts to cover the cost of my crew.”

Valentine, who shears throughout the Pacific Northwest, works out of his three shearing trailers and sometimes brings along his wool press when he shears close to home.

“I may shear one weekend on Whidbey Island, Washington, and the next in Willows, California, and when that’s the case I use the customers’ facilities,” Valentine said. “I try to shear my customers’ sheep as if they were my own and I know that animals that have injuries aren’t productive.”

When asked about the name of his business, Darkside Shearing, Valentine laughed and admitted that he was known among his fellow shearers for being hard to please when things didn’t live up to his standards.

“I heard that one of my buddies commented when they were coming to the valley to help me shear that they were going to the dark side and it stuck,” Valentine said. “I’m a Pink Floyd fan so I decided to run with the ‘Darkside of the Moon’ theme and it worked.”

Contact him at Facebook.com/DarkSideShearing or email at jacob_valentine88@yahoo.com

Sunshine Dairy, a longtime Portland dairy producer, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and will close its 85-year-old West Plant building on N.E. 21st Avenue.

Dan Boverman, chief restructuring officer, said Sunshine Dairy will continue to run its East Plant on N.E. Halsey Street near Portland International Airport. However, the West Plant will be shut down and operations sold to Alpenrose Dairy, a cross-city competitor in Southwest Portland.

Alpenrose will take over production at its facilities, and the West Plant will eventually be sold to its “highest and best use,” Boverman said. The bankruptcy court still has to approve the agreement, which could happen by late May or early June.

Boverman said Alpenrose is expected to hire some of the current Sunshine Dairy employees, though it is not yet certain how many positions will be affected. Between the East and West plants, Boverman said Sunshine Dairy has roughly 100 employees.

The East Plant, which makes yogurt and other non-dairy cultured products, is still profitable and will emerge from the bankruptcy proceedings as a going concern, Boverman said.

Formed in 1935 by Greek restaurateur John Karamanos, Sunshine Dairy sells milk, cream, butter, cheese and ice cream to Northwest grocery stores and restaurants, including Whole Foods Market, Burgerville and Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Its largest vendor is the Oregon Milk Marketing Federation, made up almost exclusively of small to mid-size dairy farms in the Willamette Valley in Oregon and the Yakima Valley and Chehalis area in Washington.

“Given the vast changes currently going on with the consolidation of dairies across the country and the reduction of family-owned dairies, we feel this restructuring will enable us to provide for the future benefit of the employees, customers and suppliers,” said Michael Anderson, president and CEO of Sunshine Dairy. “And it will allow us to provide even greater products and services in the community.”

Court filings show Sunshine Dairy is more than $12 million in debt, including more than $9 million to First Business Capital Corp., a Wisconsin bank. The dairy’s estimated assets are less than $10 million.

Whilst looking at the waste product of the meadowfoam plant, scientists at Oregon State University think they’ve found a potential new ingredient for sunscreen.

Meadowfoam is a native plant, cultivated in Oregon and Washington for oil, which is used in shampoos and cosmetics.

The problem is, the process creates a fair amount of plant waste, which can’t be eaten by animals because it’s toxic. Farmers spread it on fields instead, as a form of herbicide.

But they noticed that sometimes the herbicide didn’t work. So they took it to OSU.

Researchers found that the soil bacteria needed to break down the waste wasn’t always present, which meant the herbicide didn’t always work.

But Fred Stevens with the OSU College of Pharmacy said they also found that the breakdown process created compounds with anti-cancer and sunlight-protectant properties.

“These products they inhibit enzymes … which breaks down the collagen in the skin, your wrinkles and sagging skin,” Stevens said. “And the other thing is it shields the skin from harmful irradiation.”

The scientists setup a 3-D facsimile of human skin and hit it with ultraviolet B radiation — the more harmful type of sunlight. They found the meadowfoam derivatives reduced the UV damage.

“There’s a highly complex cascade of biochemical reactions that occur as stress responses in the skin attempt to counteract UV-induced damage,” said co-author Gitali Indra, OSU associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences.

“We need better ways to block UV exposure and also ways to lessen the damage by limiting detrimental physiological processes.”

Affiliate investigator Arup Indra, an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at OSU’s Linus Pauling Institute, said DNA damage is a precursor to skin cancer, “And these derivatives reduce that damage, which means improved skin health and reduced cancer risk.”

“The findings show a tremendous potential for utility in skin care products, besides just demonstrating the science on its own,” Indra said.

“Most cosmetics just sort of patch things up, cover up the damage, but this actually protects the skin,” Stevens said.

The team’s findings were published in the journal Frontiers in Pharmacology.

The team is now working with Natural Plant Products Inc. in Salem to make a natural sunscreen. It’s not known when a new product might reach the shelves.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/plant-based-sunscreen-waste-oregon-state/

Stephen Machado reaches into a clear plastic Ziploc bag and pulls out the brittle but still intact remains of a pine branch collected from the Umatilla National Forest in Eastern Oregon. The blackened tree limb looks and feels and lot like charcoal.

In fact, that’s exactly what it is.

Woody debris from the forest is just another raw material for making what is known as biochar, which can also be made from organic material such as leaves, grasses, crop residue and even manure.

Machado, a professor and agronomist with the Oregon State University Extension Service, believes biochar has a huge upside potential for dryland farms in the arid Columbia Basin.

Working at the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center north of Pendleton, Ore., Machado stumbled onto biochar as part of his mission to make local wheat farms more sustainable.

Most growers in the area use a fallow rotation, meaning they grow a crop every other year and leave their fields fallow during the off years to build soil moisture. But Machado said that system has led to a steady decline in soil organic matter, which is the foundation of crop health and productivity.

“Organic matter is a source of nutrients for both the microbes and the crops,” Machado said.

Still, farmers are reluctant to give up fallow — especially in areas that get less than 10 inches of rain per year. With such little water available, they need every drop to grow enough wheat to pay the bills.

That is where biochar might be able to help. It contains up to 70 percent carbon, and its molecular structure is like a sponge for soaking up and holding water.

Machado began experimenting with biochar on small plots in 2012. Though he was initially skeptical, the results have shown a roughly 25 percent increase in wheat yields.

“I’ve been pleasantly surprised,” Machado said. “There is promise to this technology.”

Machado grew up in Gweru, Zimbabwe, in southern Africa. He remembers spending summer vacations at his grandfather’s farm outside the city, raising cattle and growing corn, peanuts and wheat.

At the time, Machado said he had no interest in farming — “Too much hard work,” he chuckles at himself in hindsight. Even then, he could see the soils deteriorate as they were depleted of nutrients.

“My grandfather was very poor, and could not afford fertilizer,” Machado said. “I could see, every year, the reduction in yields.”

Following Zimbabwe’s war for independence, Machado left the country as a refugee for nearby Swaziland. When the time came for college, he was given a choice between studying animal sciences or agriculture, two important skills that were needed back home.

Machado also played semi-professional soccer for Mbabane Swallows F.C. in Swaziland, and though they competed in packed stadiums, he said the players were not paid well. He decided to stay in school, eventually graduating with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture.

At the time, Machado said Zimbabwe was struggling economically, with 80-90 percent unemployment. Rather than return, he headed for the University of Reading in England, where he earned a master’s degree in crop physiology and agronomy.

From there, Machado arrived in the U.S., where he obtained a doctorate in crop sciences and agronomy from Kansas State University. He joined OSU in 2001, and applied for U.S. citizenship four years later.

Thinking back to the exhausted soils at his grandfather’s farm, Machado said the goal of his current research is to promote cultural sustainability without harming the environment.

“Farming is a business, and they’re looking at this year’s yield, but I want them to think about their children and their grandchildren,” Machado said. “If they’re gone, what are they leaving them with?”

Sustainability is the foundation of Machado’s interest in biochar.

The history of the substance dates back to prehistoric Amazonian tribes in South America. By burning vegetation and raking the charred leftovers into the soil, they could spend their entire lives growing crops in a single location within the dense rainforest.

European settlers came to know it as “terra preta,” or “black earth.”

“I was fascinated by the fact that these soils can remain productive for a thousand years without putting in anything,” Machado said.

Today, biochar is created through a process called pyrolysis, where biomass is burned at extremely high temperatures — up to 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit — with low levels of oxygen, avoiding combustion and leaving behind mostly carbon.

The material can be burned in pits, trenches, homemade kilns or larger, more sophisticated industrial equipment. By restricting oxygen, 50 to 70 percent of the carbon is retained in the solid biochar, while the rest is released as carbon dioxide.

But it’s the structure of biochar that makes it especially valuable to farmers.

Just one gram of biochar has a surface area of 1,000 square meters, Machado said. “It can hold onto everything.”

At the research station, Machado has several small plots of wheat and peas treated with biochar at different rates. His results show steady gains in crop yield for amounts of biochar ranging up to 5 tons per acre.

Another benefit, Machado said, is that biochar can mend acidic soils caused by ammonium nitrogen fertilizers, an issue increasingly seen among Eastern Oregon and Washington farms.

In his trials, soil pH increased from as low as 4.5, or highly acidic, to 6.5, which is closer to neutral. The critical pH level for growing wheat, Machado said, is 5.2.

“This is doing the job we need,” he said.

Gary Betts, who grows 260 acres of wheat near Athena, Ore., is working with Machado on biochar testing at his farm. The first year, Betts said they saw a 20 percent increase in yield on the experimental plots.

“You can dramatically reduce the use of fertilizer, maybe eliminate it completely, and it raises the pH,” Betts said. “It holds incredible promise of reducing agricultural costs, at the same time improving the environment for everyone in the area.”

The challenge is getting more farmers such as Betts to buy into biochar. Machado said the material is still quite expensive, up to 10 cents per pound, because not much is currently produced. That adds up to $1,000 for 5 tons, enough for about an acre.

Different types of biochar also have different properties, which makes it critical that farmers know exactly what they are getting.

“Because it’s a new technology, many farmers are not yet convinced,” Machado said. “And if farmers want it, it’s still a limited supply.”

Machado and Betts are part of a new nonprofit organization dedicated to making biochar more affordable, accessible and widespread.

Forest 2 Farm, established in June 2017, proposes using forest waste as a local feedstock for biochar, which would not only benefit farmers but provide a value-added market for otherwise unsellable wood.

Jim Archuleta, biomass and wood innovation coordinator for the Forest Service Region 6 in Portland, is working alongside the nonprofit. His interest in biochar traces back to his time working in the Diamond Lake Ranger District in the Umpqua National Forest of southwest Oregon, where applying charred material was shown to keep forage green into August, when other vegetation would turn brown.

The goal now is to create a market for biochar that can benefit farms, while also helping the forests harvest fine fuels that help spread increasingly large, destructive wildfires. Archuleta said their focus is branches less than 6 inches in diameter, slash and bark — material that would otherwise be burned in piles or left on the ground to rot.

“We can walk away from it, but at what cost?” Archuleta said. “If we’re able to figure out how to use this system strategically to create zones of reduced wildfire risk ... that’s what I hope this (project) can do.”

It takes 16 tons of raw material to make one ton of biochar, Archuleta said. At that rate, he figures the forests could make a serious dent in halting the rapid spread of wildfires by treating forests and converting the materials to biochar.

Archuleta also said the Forest Service is working with a private company to develop an in-woods mobile biochar processor capable of producing 10-20 cubic yards of biomass per hour. A beta version of the equipment could be placed in the Umatilla National Forest, near where Machado conducts his on-farm research.

Machado said the next step is to expand his trials to one or more acres to demonstrate the value of biochar on a larger scale.

Jerry Adams, secretary of Forest 2 Farm and executive director of the Evaluation and Development Institute, a climate-focused consulting group based in Houston, said they hope to secure funding through a combination of grants and public donations.

“It’s difficult to get farmers to change their practices based on small plots,” Adams said. “They want to look out over the horizon and see what’s changed.”

Adams believes biochar could sequester massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the ground and help stave off the effects of climate change.

Machado, meanwhile, is optimistic biochar could catch on in agricultural circles, if and when the market develops.

“Farmers are so good at transferring knowledge,” he said. “If it works on one farm, others will adopt it.”

That’s despite efforts by the Trump Administration to beef up trade tariffs targeted at China. President Donald Trump has said he considers China a bad actor when it comes to trade.

But ODA says trade with China is critical for Oregon’s agricultural producers. China is Oregon’s fourth largest trading partner. Last year, more than $290 million dollars in Oregon food and agricultural products were shipped to China.

“I think there is a lot of trade rhetoric going on at the federal level, but China is a top market across the country for food and agriculture from states all over the country,” said Alexis Taylor, director of the ODA.

“So I think [this trade mission] is very much in line with where agriculture is across the country whether that’s where we are from a policy aspect from the federal government or not.”

Representatives from several Oregon agricultural companies and the Oregon Potato Commission, the Port of Portland and the Oregon Beef Council will also participate in the trade mission to promote their products. The companies will also look at Chinese consumer trends and how to connect with those consumers.

Taylor says this is a great opportunity for Oregon beef producers in particular because it’s the first time in more than a decade that they can ship beef to China.

“Trade is so important to a strong agricultural economy. A strong ag [agriculture] economy equals a strong Oregon economy, and China is a really exciting and dynamic market,” Taylor said.

ODA hosts outbound trade missions throughout the year. The department also has a marketing staff that connects Oregon businesses with markets nationally and internationally.

The trade mission to China will take place from May 12-17.

April Aamodt likens it to the zombie apocalypse.

It was about this time last year when hordes of hissing, cannibalistic Mormon crickets began swarming the small town of Arlington, Ore., climbing up the sides of houses, marching down the streets and devouring local crops.

“It was awful,” said Aamodt, who lives in Arlington along the Columbia River in north-central Oregon. “My land was infested with thousands of them. I was working from 5:30 in the morning to 9 at night trying to kill crickets.”

The community is now bracing for round two, but this time Aamodt said they have a plan. With help from Oregon State University Extension and the Oregon Department of Agriculture, residents are mapping hot spots of Mormon crickets and targeting the grotesque insects with an arsenal of pesticides and bait.

Aamodt, who works for the Gilliam County District Attorney’s Office, is at the forefront of the battle, hoping to avoid a repeat of last year’s creepy, crawly invasion.

“Everyone has to do their part to prevail against this infestation,” she said.

Mormon crickets are not actually crickets, but flightless members of the katydid family, closely related to grasshoppers and crickets. Their name comes from the Mormon settlers in Utah, who encountered the pests while pushing westward in the 1800s.

The insects can grow up to 2-3 inches long, emerging in the springtime and undergoing seven stages of development — known as instars — before reaching adulthood, usually after 60-90 days.

Jordan Maley, OSU Extension agent for Gilliam County, said hatchlings began to surface roughly a month and a half ago, and it will be several weeks before adults are on the move.

“They consume anything that is in their path,” Maley said, highlighting the risk to agriculture.

Mormon cricket populations are cyclical, though longtime Arlington resident and rancher Dick Krebs claimed it was the worst infestation since 1942. A public meeting was called in June 2017 to deal with the nightmare, though by that time it was too late.

Instead, Maley said they turned their attention to the next year, plotting a comprehensive strategy to keep the pesky bugs at bay.

“We’re doing whatever it takes to get these things under control,” he said.

Using Google Maps, landowners and townspeople have been able to report sightings of Mormon crickets right from their smartphones. Workers from ODA have also spent the last two weeks scouting for crickets on the hilly rangeland surrounding town.

The highest concentrations of crickets seem to be about a mile west of Arlington in Jones Canyon, Maley said. In some cases, the crickets are “too numerous to count accurately,” as many as 200 per square yard.

By mapping the hot spots for Mormon crickets, Maley said they can make the best use of their limited resources.

“We’re just trying to make sure we’re being effective,” he said.

Outside city limits, the county has agreed to pay $105,000 for an aerial applicator to spray Dimilin, a pesticide that targets younger, smaller crickets and inhibits their growth.

Charlie Anderson, a wheat farmer up Blalock Canyon, was hit especially hard by last year’s infestation, as crickets devastated 50 acres on the outskirts of his fields. He was the first to conduct aerial spraying around his property on April 24, and so far the treatments appear to be working.

“Those crickets are gone,” Anderson said. “There’s not a sign of them.”

Once the Mormon crickets become adults and Dimilin is no longer effective, Maley said they will begin applying 4,000 pounds of grainy Sevin bait, donated by the Utah Department of Agriculture and Food, to kill the oncoming swarm.

In town, residents are already spraying Tempo, a general use insecticide that is considered safe to use around children and pets. The city of Arlington and Gilliam County also joined together to bring in a herd of goats to eat overgrown grass on steep, tricky hillsides where crickets might hide.

To prevail against the infestation, Aamodt said everyone is going to have to do their part.

“I do think that people are working together,” she said. “I receive phone calls and messages every single day.”

Maley said it is unrealistic to think they will solve the problem in one year, but is optimistic they are on the right track.

“We had that outbreak last summer, which was really horrendous and pretty much ruined the summer for Arlington,” he said. “We got organized, and I think we’re going to put a dent in it this year.”

BEND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s second-largest cider maker is changing its name after another company complained it was too similar.

The Bulletin newspaper of Bend reports Atlas will soon be named Avid Hard Cider.

The name dispute was with Atlas Brew Works, which produces beer in Washington D.C.

The 5-year-old cider company has a production facility in Bend and is getting ready to open a restaurant in Portland’s Pearl District.

SALEM, Ore. — Kirk Hutchinson, former agriculture instructor and FFA adviser at Perrydale High School in Amity Ore., came out of retirement to become executive director of the newly organized Future Natural Resource Leaders of Oregon.

Chartered in 2016, the organization is the first statewide Career Technical Education program in the nation for students who wish to pursue careers in forestry, outdoor recreation, fish and wildlife, ecology, environmental science or other areas of natural resources. The group held its second annual convention April 27-28 at Hopkins Demonstration Forest in Oregon City.

The organization is the brainchild of Reynold Gardner, agriculture and natural resource systems specialist for the Oregon Department of Education, and Peter Matzka, Oregon State University Clackamas County forestry outreach coordinator. It is modeled after the 90-year-old nationwide FFA program that provides a vital connection between classroom study, real world applications, leadership training and career placement.

Matzka, who led the group through the first year to get it started, will continue to work with Hutchinson as its adviser.

“My ultimate goal is education, and to that end I am challenged to build a career education organization that does the best possible for these kids,” Hutchinson said. “We had 125 kids or so from 11 schools attend the convention, we have five or six more (schools) that are ready to be on board.”

The five-year plan anticipates 50 schools enrolled in the program.

“It’s thanks to the help, support and enthusiasm of students, teachers, industry representatives and other partners, that we have had a remarkable year of growth and development,” Hutchinson said. “We’ve been fortunate to have a great group of Career Technical Education instructors that have understood the importance of broadening the kids’ education beyond the classroom, putting time and effort into these kids outside of their regular teaching duties.”

Hutchinson, who was born and raised on a small farm in southwest Portland’s Multnomah Village, attended Wilson High School before achieving agriculture and teaching degrees from Oregon State University. His award-winning years as an agriculture teacher and FFA adviser at Perrydale High School are legendary.

“I milked the cow, fed the chickens and pigs every morning before school and thought I wanted to be a farmer when I grew up,” Hutchinson said. “I went to Portland Community College and learned to be a welder but didn’t like sitting in fumes all day so went to OSU and studied agriculture. I had never heard of FFA or seen a ‘blue jacket’ and when I found out that you could teach agriculture, I decided I would teach for 10 years and then be a farmer. I taught two years in St. Paul, came to Perrydale in 1984 and stayed there until I retired in 2011.”

During the first day of convention, students heard talks from representatives of Seneca Sawmill Co. and Basco Logging and participated in technical events that included such topics as compass and pacing, ground log scaling, job interviews, map reading, timber cruising and tree identification.

The next day included skill events such as arbor tree climbing, ax throwing, crosscut bucking, spur tree climbing, cable splicing, choker setting, chainsaw bucking and log rolling.

“FNRL isn’t just about coming to convention and sawing logs and throwing a few axes, however,” Hutchinson said. “It is learning how to work hard, be on time, be respectful and learn to work in groups. Many will work in jobs we don’t even know about today so it is important get away from specific knowledge and focus on the type of worker you are. We need to prepare these kids to be successful in any job that may come their way.”

This summer they will develop a handbook for chapters at the local and state levels.

“It is this education beyond the classroom that I believe helps make lifelong learners and to help them realize that what we learn today will just be background for what we do tomorrow is important.”

For more info call Kirk Hutchinson at 503-550-0471 or email him at hutchfnrl@gmail.com

ENTERPRISE — Northeastern Oregonians are leading a grassroots effort to get Spalding’s catchfly, a wildflower endemic to the inland Northwest, removed from the Endangered Species List.

Convinced that the elusive plant with its irregular blooming cycle is more populous than some fear, the Wallowa County Stockgrowers Association asked Kelly Birkmaier, a rancher and rangeland consultant in Joseph, to spearhead a community-wide project to map the county’s Spalding’s catchfly.

The plant is found all over Wallowa County from ridge tops to canyon bottoms, but is most prevalent on the Zumwalt Prairie and around Wallowa Lake. Its range extends north into Eastern Washington, northern Idaho and northwestern Montana. Ever since it was federally listed as threatened in 2001 Birkmaier said there has been ongoing National Environmental Policy Act analysis on federally managed pubic grazing allotments that includes protection of Spalding’s catchfly.

“Stringent mitigation measures have been placed on allotments where catchfly is located,” Birkmaier said.

At the Stockgrowers scholarship dinner in January, Birkmaier asked for volunteers to help locate catchfly on their land. Those who sign up are asked to photograph plants they find and either mark the location with a GPS unit or flag the site. Birkmaier will then go out to confirm the plant’s identity.

If the landowner approves, Birkmaier said she will upload the information into a database run by Oregon Biodiversity Information Center, part of Oregon State University’s Institute for Natural Resources based at Portland State. Created by the legislature in 1979 ORBIC houses the most comprehensive database of rare, threatened and endangered species of Oregon.

“If you have the plant on your land, by law nothing can happen — the government can’t tell you what you can or can’t do, but if someone has catchfly on their property, putting it in the database can help their neighbor grazing on federally managed land.”

Once sites are documented Birkmaier said she will begin monitoring population trends in different areas around the county.

“Then we can start doing soil disturbance monitoring, but it’s going to require funding,” Birkmaier said.

In April Birkmaier received a grant from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to find and document catchfly. Jodie Davalan, a biologist with Fish and Wildlife, said Fish and Wildlife is already funding a contract for catchfly monitoring on the Wallowa Lake moraines for the Wallowa Land Trust.

“It’s not uncommon to find someone who specializes in a particular survey,” Davalan said. “A lot of times it is more efficient to pass money to someone who does this regularly.”

Researchers with The Nature Conservancy’s 33,000-acre Zumwalt Prairie Preserve have been documenting catchfly for a couple decades. Manager Jeff Fields said his staff has data eligible for OSU’s database and is happy to share the information.

“Our general goal is supporting ORBIC so it can be as complete as it can be,” Fields said.

Fully involved in the catchfly monitoring effort, Conservancy staff has served on a multi-agency technical committee the last 10 years and alongside the U.S. Forest Service, Fields said his staff has developed successful monitoring methods.

“Across thousands of acres we can get an estimate of population sizes based on a repeatable survey method,” Fields said.

All together, at least 100 new sites have been found in Wallowa County over the last few years, Birkmaier said.

Fields said his staff is going to try to do a small scale case study on the Preserve’s grazed pastures looking for impacts of cattle browse and hoof shear on the plant.

“We want to observe those populations of catchfly before and after livestock grazing,” Fields said.

Wallowa Resources, an Enterprise-based natural resource organization, is also contributing to catchfly monitoring.

Wallowa Resources Director Nils Christoffersen said, “The most productive step now is to get more botanists in the field to assess the distribution and condition of Spalding’s catchfly; not only in the grazing allotments but in the surrounding areas as well.”

While concerns of a possible trade war continue to loom between the U.S. and China, representatives of Oregon agriculture will embark Friday on a week-long trade mission May 12-17 to Shanghai in hopes of building new relationships with overseas customers.

Alexis Taylor, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, will lead the statewide delegation, including beef, berry, potato and grain producers, as well as the Oregon State University Food Innovation Center and Port of Portland.

“I’m excited about showcasing the variety of what we have here in Oregon,” Taylor said in an interview with the Capital Press.

China is the fourth-largest export market for Oregon agriculture, behind Japan, South Korea and Canada. Last year, China purchased $290 million worth of Oregon food and agricultural products.

Oregon’s farm economy is also highly dependent on exports. About 80 percent of all agricultural goods leave the state, half of which are shipped overseas. The total value of exports in 2015 topped $1.8 billion, according to ODA.

Factor in China’s rapidly growing middle class, which is poised to add 160 million households over the next decade, and Taylor said there is a clear opportunity for Oregon farmers and ranchers to broaden their customer base.

“There’s a lot of room to grow in some of these high-value products,” Taylor said. “They bring a premium in China.”

One industry especially looking to court Chinese buyers is Oregon beef. China has reopened access to U.S. beef for the first time since 2003, following an agreement between the countries last year, though USDA figures show sales of beef to China is still less than 1 percent of overall exports this year.

Both the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and Oregon Beef Council will participate in the upcoming trade mission. Nathan Jackson, OCA president and general manager of sales and administration at K Bar Ranches in Myrtle Creek, Ore., said the trip is all about finding out what Chinese consumers want from beef producers, and how they can supply the market in a way that makes sense.

“This is really more of a research and reconnaissance mission,” Jackson said. “There is obviously a really big potential opportunity there. We want to know how we can do that profitably. If we can’t add dollars to our production, then it doesn’t make much sense.”

Exports are vitally important to the beef industry, Jackson said, adding as much as $300 of value per head of cattle. Overseas customers tend to buy parts of the animal that aren’t as desirable domestically, such as tongue and offal.

The question is how Oregon ranchers can deliver the product economically, Jackson said.

“That’s where the rubber really meets the road,” he said.

Part of the trade mission will focus heavily on the rise of E-commerce in China, which surpassed the U.S. in 2016 to become the world’s largest online retail market.

Before becoming ODA director, Taylor spent four years at the USDA in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw the Foreign Agricultural Service. She said a survey of Chinese consumers found about 70 percent buy food online as well as in stores — including fresh produce and seafood.

“It’s really interesting, and an exciting part of selling into China as a market,” she said. “They’re looking for that convenience even more today than they were two years ago.”

The final day of the visit will overlap with SIAL China, the largest food and beverage trade show in Asia. Bob’s Red Mill of Portland and the Oregon Potato Commission will be exhibiting at the show, while others in the delegation will make the rounds to see how competitors are marketing their products in the country.

“It’s about opening those doors and making those sales,” Taylor said.

Reaching out to China may be more important now than ever, Taylor added, given uncertainty around federal trade policies between the two countries that could result in hefty tariffs on U.S. agriculture.

Taylor said Oregonians need certainty at the federal level, though by developing business-to-business relationships they can help keep their markets open.

“Doing business in China is about long-term relationships,” Taylor said. “I think it’s important that we’re still showing up and saying, ‘We still value you, and we’re still investing in you.’”

The entire Oregon delegation to China will include:

• All Berry & Fruits, Portland.

• Bob’s Red Mill, Portland.

• Country Natural Beef, Burns, Ore.

• Fresh Elements Farms, Salem, Ore.

• Harper Farms, Junction City, Ore.

• Herb Guru Brand, Portland.

• Hoopla Global, Portland.

• Kombucha Wonder Drink, Portland.

• Seaview Cranberries, Sixes, Ore.

• Willamette Valley Fruit Co., Salem, Ore.

• Oregon Beef Council, Portland.

• Oregon Cattlemen’s Association/K Bar Ranches, Myrtle Creek, Ore.

• Oregon Potato Commission/Gold Dust Potato Processors, Merrill, Ore.

• Oregon Potato Commission/Bailey-Trotman Farms, Malin, Ore.

• Oregon State University Food Innovation Center, Portland.

• Port of Portland.

A new report finds that legalizing and taxing marijuana boosts revenue for state and local governments, but not by much.

The credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service says in a study released Tuesday that legalizing recreational use of marijuana brings governments more money than it costs to regulate it.

Despite high taxes on the legal sales of the drug, the revenue accounts for a small portion of government budgets. In Colorado, the first state to legalize recreational use, a marijuana tax brings in the equivalent of about 2 percent of the state budget.

In Washington state, gross revenue from marijuana legalization equaled 1.2 percent of general fund revenue in the 2015-17 state budget.

Most of the states that have legalized marijuana earmark the revenue for law enforcement, drug treatment and other specific programs, which doesn’t help the states’ financial flexibility.

Likewise, Moody’s described the revenue effect as minimal on local governments in states with legalized pot.

Creating revenue for the state is one argument proponents use for legalization in New Jersey. Gov. Phil Murphy, who supports the effort, is planning on having an additional $60 million in taxes from legalized marijuana in the next fiscal year. That’s less than 1 percent of the state’s annual spending.

Twenty-nine states now allow marijuana for either medicinal or recreational uses, and the business is growing quickly. Moody’s cited data from the market research firm Euromonitor International that projects it will grow from a $5.4 billion business in the U.S. in 2015 to $16 billion by 2020.

Meanwhile, illegal marijuana sales are estimated at $40 billion.

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal and state funds totaling $1 million have been set aside to study a new endangered species protection plan in Oregon forests, a decade after a similar effort stalled amid controversy.

The money is earmarked to pay for the first step in laying out new rules for protecting endangered species in 630,000 acres of state-owned forest land west of the Cascades, including large tracts on the state’s northern coast.

The plan would consider species including the spotted owl and marbled murrelet, and set guidelines for timber harvesting and recreational use. Officials hope the study phase will take about a year, followed by a year to craft the rules themselves, and a final year of review, said Cindy Kolomechuk, leader of the project at the Oregon Department of Forestry.

Formally called Habitat Conservation Plans, the plans facilitate logging on lands where threatened species are found, essentially authorizing negative impacts in exchange for enhancing other protections.

Previous efforts have sparked controversy in the state. A plan laying out protections in the Elliot State Forest, in southwestern Oregon, became mired after disagreement over marbled murrelet rules. And an attempt to create a broader plan ended in 2008 without guidelines being adopted, amid controversy over balancing protections against logging revenues.

The conflicts reflect deeper tensions in the state, where businesses with ties to an historic logging industry have found themselves pitted against environmental groups.

Preservation efforts potentially have a new dimension amid a national focus on climate change, said Bob Van Dyk, of the Wild Salmon Center, a Portland conservation group.

“These are soggy, long-lived forests,” Van Dyk said. “They sequester enormous amounts of carbon.”

The forestry department announced the funding for the study Monday.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service contributed $750,000 with the remainder coming from the state.

Despite a mercifully wet April, water shortages remain likely for farmers and ranchers across much of Oregon, especially in southern and eastern portions of the state that are dealing with the onset of drought.

Gov. Kate Brown has already declared a drought emergency for Klamath and Grant counties, while a request from Harney County is pending, according to a spokeswoman for the Oregon Water Resources Department.

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service released its May 2018 Oregon basin outlook report, detailing stream flow forecasts heading into summer. Though statewide precipitation was 124 percent of average for April, most of the state is still below average for the water year dating back to October.

As of May 6, the Hood, Sandy and Lower Deschutes basins are holding onto 95 percent of their normal snowpack for the season. Nowhere else is even close to average, with the John Day and Owyhee basins at 2 and 5 percent, respectively.

“During a normal May, about 45 percent of our snow monitoring sites are snow-free,” said Julie Koeberle, snow survey hydrologist for NRCS Oregon. “This year, 60 percent are without snow.”

Just eight snow monitoring sites recorded above-average snow for the season — all on the west side of the Cascade Range. More than half of the sites failed to break 70 percent of average snowpack.

All of that combines for gloomy summer stream flow forecasts throughout much of the state. Stream flows in the Klamath Basin are projected to be 26-68 percent of normal through September. The John Day Basin should range between 38 and 84 percent of average, and the Owyhee and Malheur basins are forecast at 30-55 percent of average.

Farther north, higher snowpack should translate into healthier flows for local streams. Flows should be 89-100 percent of normal in the Hood, Sandy and Lower Deschutes basins; 79-97 percent in the Willamette Basin; 68-120 percent in the Umatilla, Walla Walla and Willow basins; and 41-103 percent in the Grande Ronde, Powder, Burnt and Imnaha basins.

Reservoir levels vary across the state, though most are at or near capacity, which may be the saving grace for farmers and ranchers who rely on surface water for irrigation.

“Water supplies will still need to be carefully managed, but healthy reservoir storage across the state will likely provide some buffer for the low stream flows that are anticipated this summer,” the NRCS reports.

As bad as water supplies are shaping up this year, conditions still are not as bad as they were before the 2015 drought. That year holds the record for the lowest snowpack in Oregon, which was just 11 percent of normal as of May 1 and peaked months ahead of schedule.

A local effort to study water resources in the Lower John Day Basin of north-central Oregon is garnering statewide recognition.

The Lower John Day Working Group is one of four pilot projects funded in part by the Oregon Water Resources Department to conduct water resources planning, led by local partners as opposed to agency officials.

Last month, the group received a Partnership Award from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board during the 2018 CONNECT Conference, hosted by the Oregon Conservation Education and Assistance Network.

OWRD awarded a grant for $190,000 in 2016 to establish the Lower John Day Working Group, focusing primarily on Gilliam, Sherman and Wheeler counties. The state also approved planning groups in the Upper Grande Ronde, Mid Coast and Malheur Lake basins.

Christina Kirwan, manager of the Gilliam Soil and Water Conservation District in Condon, Ore., said she was “beyond pleased” to be honored by OWEB.

“Water is important for everyone, in my field especially,” Kirwan said. “We have worked very hard to build a collaborative process to bring all of these stakeholders to the table.”

Partners in the Lower John Day Working Group include conservation groups, such as WaterWatch of Oregon and the Oregon Natural Desert Association; agricultural groups such as the Gilliam County Cattlemen; agencies such as the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service; and local tribes such as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

Kirwan said the group is nearly finished writing its report detailing water resources available in the basin. From there, members will look to address demands and conflicts on the system before implementing a full water resources plan by 2019.

“We’re pulling data from municipalities in our area, agricultural data, recreation and every water use in the lower basin,” Kirwan said.

Steve Parrett, OWRD planning coordinator, said the local water resource plans are intended to mirror the state Integrated Water Resources Strategy, which was most recently updated in December 2017.

The agency fully funded the Lower John Day and Upper Grande Ronde projects, while partially funding the Mid Coast and Malheur Lake studies. The hope, Parrett said, is to expand place-based planning across the state.

“The idea is it could become sort of an addendum to the statewide strategy,” Parrett said. “I think the value is to get the local folks both interested and knowledgeable about their water and their water issues, and get them to work together.”

Sustainable Northwest, a Portland-based nonprofit, has helped to facilitate meetings with the Lower John Day Working Group. Program Director Lee Rahr said he has been impressed by the group’s effort and dedication.

“This is a place where people are planning ahead to avoid a possible water crisis,” Rahr said. “And that’s good news for anyone who cares about local economies, recreation, fish and wildlife.”

For more information about the group, or to request a copy of the latest report, email Kirwan at christina.gilliamswcd@gmail.com.

It arrived at 3 a.m on July 26, 2013. Dennis Sifford remembers details like this. They marked the beginning of his final shift as an incident commander on a wildfire.

“The lightning storm came in — dry lightning storm,” Sifford said, describing that morning. “It was unexpected.”

The storm touched down in mountainous terrain just north of the town of Glendale, Oregon. More than 80 fires started.

Twelve hours later Sifford got the call. He would lead the 3,000 people needed to fight what would be known as the Douglas Complex.

Sifford would retire afterwards, bringing an end to a long career in wildland firefighting. The Douglas Complex would eventually cover close to 50,000 acres — two large, ashy smudges on a landscape referred to as “the checkerboard” — because forest ownership alternates every square mile.

“Pretty much the fire area was evenly split between Bureau of Land Management land and private commercial timber lands,” Sifford said.

Fast forward five years and the scar of the Douglas Complex is at the center of new research looking at what causes some wildfires to creep along at low intensity and others to rip through the forest, scorching everything in its path.

“The perception for a long time has been that high-biomass forests will burn more severely,” said Harold Zald, forestry researcher at Humboldt State University in Northern California.

Zald is author of a new paper published in the journal Ecological Applications.

The checkerboard of ownership allowed Zald and his fellow researchers to compare different variables across property boundaries. He looked at weather during the Douglas Complex, and, not surprisingly, that was the dominant driver of fire severity.

But they also looked at things like how forest management and tree age affect how severely the wildfire burned.

And what they found flipped the common narrative.

“Management and forest age were really important, but oddly enough how much biomass was there before the fire was not important,” Zald said.

In fact, he found that the private timberland in the Douglas Complex burned 30 percent more severely than the public lands.

University of Washington Tacoma fire researcher Maureen Kennedy said these kinds of studies should be approached with a degree of caution.

“Each individual fire tells its own story. So a lot of these individual fires you’re going to find different factors in that moment … that are really more about the story of that fire,” she said.

Zald acknowledges this. He said he probably wouldn’t support extrapolating these findings to the Rockies or even northeast Oregon. But he says parts of the analysis should stand up across different landscapes and regions.

“Plantation forestry, due to both the tree ages and the homogenization of fuel … making things simpler. It’s easier for things to burn in a simpler pile of fuel. I think that basic finding holds,” Zald said.

Study co-author Chris Dunn of Oregon State University says federal forests (BLM- or Forest Service-managed) still burn severely. And the exclusion of fire in the 20th century likely means the wildfires across public lands are burning hotter than they did historically.

But he said tree plantations on commercial timberland play a larger role in severe wildfire than is often acknowledged.

“To me it means that they share in the responsibility in this checkerboard landscape to the overall picture of fire risk,” Dunn said. “It’s not the full picture, but it’s part of it. But if they contribute to part of it, then they share in that responsibility.”

Whether that means paying a greater share to help fight fire or changing how logging is done to reduce risk or something else entirely, what “responsibility” means here is not a question scientists will answer.

That will be up to communities, businesses and policy makers to decide how to deal with the increasing threat of severe wildfire going forward.

Capital Press

Farmers in parts of southwestern Idaho and southeastern Oregon were scouting their onion fields this morning looking for damage from a strong thunderstorm that swept through the region last night packing high winds and hail.

“We got a little bit of rain and thunder, but no hail at all,” said Dell Winegar, a Fruitland-based grower and president of the Idaho Onion Growers Association. “We have no damage this morning.”

Winegar had not received calls from other onion growers as of mid-morning May 7, but said he planned to call growers in various locations around mid-day to see how their crop fared.

Hail can wound onion plants and leave them susceptible to disease if not treated correctly and promptly, ultimately reducing yields.

Stuart Reitz, an Oregon State University Extension agent based in Ontario, said in a May 6 post on the Pacific Northwest Pest Alert Network that the National Weather Service reported the storm went from Nyssa, Ore., to the Fruitland and Payette areas in Idaho.

OSU’s Reitz, in the alert, said If onions sustained damage, plants will benefit from a protective bactericide/fungicide application. Hail can create wounds that leave the plants extremely vulnerable to disease, he said.

“As soon as you can get on the field, apply a copper-containing protectant spray,” he said in the alert. “Copper protects against bacterial and fungal diseases, so it is a better option than fungicides that do not contain copper. This will help prevent infections while those wounds heal. The sooner after any damage occurs, the better.”

In an interview, Reitz said a couple of growers on May 6 reported they were getting some hail. The National Weather Service alert at the time called for half-inch-sized hail.

“That would pack a wallop,” he said. And the windblown dirt and debris can nick and cut leaves, creating “an entry point for pathogens, just like if you cut your finger.”

Onion planting this year was in line with typical schedules and overall the crop looks good so far, Reitz said. Irrigation water is ample. Early on in a few fields, wind picked up drip-irrigation tubing, which was replaced, he said.

Last year’s late start to planting, following the harsh winter and subsequent wet conditions, factored into onion production that was 20 to 25 percent below normal, he said.