SALEM — Oregon lawmakers have created a state fund dedicated to buying farmland-preservation easements, albeit without the $4.25 million initially sought by supporters.

Proponents of the Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund are nonetheless cheering the news, since new spending bills were met with skepticism from legislators due to a tight budget outlook.

“It’s pretty incredible to create a program like this in a not-easy legislative session,” said Nellie McAdams, farm preservation program director with Rogue Farm Corps, a group dedicated to training future farmers.

Because the state’s land use system greatly restricts building on farmland, working lands easements aren’t as common in Oregon as in many other states.

Farmers can sell easements on their land that extinguish most development rights while still preserving their ability to grow crops and livestock on the property.

However, existing funding sources for easements are often geared toward conserving wildlife habitat and riparian areas and not production agriculture.

The Oregon Agricultural Heritage Fund would help solve that problem with money dedicated to working lands easements, but the $4.25 million originally planned for the program was viewed by legislators as an unrealistic request.

Instead, supporters focused on getting the program’s basic mechanisms and governance established.

“We can focus in the future on funding,” said Mary Anne Nash, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau. “There’s a tremendous public benefit so we’ll be looking for public funds in the future.”

Under House Bill 3249, which passed with strong majorities in the House and Senate in the waning days of the legislative session, nearly $200,000 will be directed to writing rules for the program and forming a commission to oversee it.

“The next step will be finding out who will be shaping this program,” said McAdams.

It’s likely that proponents of the fund will go back to lawmakers in 2019 to seek money for the fund, so the next two years will be devoted to setting priorities for the program, she said.

“That process should probably be long and include a lot of public involvement,” McAdams said.

Another farm-friendly program also won funding late in the legislative session.

House Bill 2038, which provides $4.5 million in grants for schools to buy food from local growers, passed both chambers unanimously on July 7, when the session was expected to adjourn.

Funding for the farm-to-school program was pared down from the original request of $5.6 million, but the program is expected to remain functional with the reduced amount, said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

An Oregon rancher is challenging the state government’s method of determining when groundwater well pumping must be shut down to avoid disrupting surface water rights.

Tom Mallams of Klamath County claims the Oregon Water Resources Department has ordered him to stop pumping from a well near Snake Creek, a tributary of the Sycan River, based on an erroneous mathematical model.

The well was drilled into a confined aquifer that’s not connected to the creek or the river, so pumping restrictions won’t have any effect on surface water flows, according to Mallams.

Mallams has petitioned Marion County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Hart to overturn OWRD’s order because it’s “not supported by substantial evidence” as required by Oregon law.

The agency has derived its conclusions from “general studies of the Klamath Basin” without collecting any data specific to Mallams’ well, according to the petition for review.

Mallams claims OWRD should have instead relied on a well driller’s report submitted to the agency, which found the well is hydraulically separate from surface waters.

A representative of OWRD said the agency is reviewing the legal challenge with attorneys from the Oregon Department of Justice and can’t comment on the litigation at this time.

Mallams’ lawsuit is not the first time that OWRD’s method of gauging groundwater pumping impacts on surface water has provoked controversy.

In 2014, lawmakers proposed several bills requiring the agency to prove that individual wells were affecting surface flows before taking enforcement action.

The proposals were divisive in the agricultural community, with some irrigators arguing they’d disrupt Oregon water law while others claimed they’d protect water rights.

According to OWRD, the new testing requirements would have cost the agency $80,000 per well. Ultimately, the bills died in committee.

Aside from Mallams’ petition, the agency’s decision to restrict irrigation in the Klamath region is facing several other lawsuits this year.

Reacting to a “water call” from the Klamath Tribes — which have the most senior “time immemorial” water rights — OWRD has issued orders halting irrigation on roughly 300,000 acres of land.

Since early June, irrigators have filed four lawsuits disputing the agency’s rationale for enforcement action.

NEW YORK (AP) — Campbell Soup says it has agreed to pay $700 million to acquire Pacific Foods, which makes organic broths and plant-based drinks.

The deal marks the latest effort by Campbell to diversify its product lineup to better reflect changing tastes toward foods that are seen as healthier or fresher. The New Jersey-based company’s other acquisitions have included hummus and salsa maker Garden Fresh and organic baby food maker Plum. But its efforts to focus on fresh have run into some struggles , such a recall of Bolthouse Farm drinks as well as smaller-than-expected carrots that hurt sales.

Pacific Foods generated about $218 million in sales for the year ending May 31, according to Campbell. Campbell says it will continue operating Pacific Foods out of Tualatin, Oregon, where it was founded in 1987.

MERIDIAN, Idaho — Farmers in the Treasure Valley of Idaho and Oregon are bracing for an extended heat wave.

High temperatures in the area are forecast to be near or above 100 degrees for at least the next two weeks.

“It’s going to be a tough job the next couple of weeks,” said Meridian, Idaho, farmer Richard Durrant.

Beginning July 4, the high temperature in Homedale, Idaho, is forecast to reach at least 100 degrees on 16 of 17 days through July 20, and it’s expected to hit 99 the other day.

In Parma, Idaho, and Ontario, Ore., the high is expected to reach 100 degrees 15 of 17 days during that same span, with the other two days hitting 99 and 98.

“Having 100-degree weather here is not unusual,” said Stuart Reitz, an Oregon State University Extension cropping systems agent in Ontario. “But having it linger for a couple of weeks is.”

Most crops in the region are behind schedule because of heavy snow cover that lasted longer than normal, followed by a constant string of spring rainstorms, and could use some warm weather to catch up, Reitz said.

But many crops produced in the region stop growing when temperatures reach the high 90s, he said.

“That just puts them that much further behind,” Reitz said. “It just makes things that much more complicated.”

The biggest danger for farmers during a hot spell like this one is reduced yields and timely irrigation will be important to mitigate yield loss, said Joel Felix, an OSU weed scientist and crop production specialist in Ontario.

“The main concern is losing yield through moisture stress,” he said. “If you don’t irrigate when the crop needs it, you will lose the yield.”

Ontario farmer Bruce Corn said maintaining a proper irrigation schedule will be critical during the heat wave and that also means not over-watering “because over-watering will cause stress, too.”

“You just have to watch your water real close,” he said. “You have to be out in your fields every day to see what the moisture levels are. Twelve hours can make a big difference in this kind of heat. It’s just a matter of watching things.”

Growers need to be aware of what’s happening in each of their fields “and water according to their crop’s need and not just keep water going because it’s so hot,” Reitz said. “You just need to pay attention to what each individual crop and field’s needs are.”

Durrant said he’s particularly worried about the impact the lingering heat will have on wheat quality because the high temperatures come as much of his wheat is starting to fill.

The heat could have an impact on some of the region’s seed crops because a lot of them are in bloom or starting bloom and the heat could affect pollinators, said Fruitland, Idaho, farmer Jon Fabricius.

“Sometimes pollinators don’t work best when it’s that hot,” he said.

A new reduced-toxicity pesticide may remain on the market even though its approval violated the Endangered Species Act, according to a federal appeals court.

Cyantraniliprole, or CTP, was registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2014 as an active ingredient in 14 insecticide brands used on numerous crops. It’s commonly known as Cyazypyr.

The chemical provides a new weapon against the spotted wing drosophila in blueberries and the Asian citrus psyllid in citrus crops.

Environmental groups — Center for Biological Diversity, Center for Food Safety and Defenders of Wildlife — filed a lawsuit against EPA claiming the agency never studied CTP’s potential effects on threatened and endangered species.

According to the plaintiffs, CTP may be “fairly persistent” in an agricultural environment even as it degrades, raising the possibility the chemical will accumulate over time.

The plaintiffs pointed to EPA’s own ecological risk assessment that found the insecticide is expected to be sprayed in areas inhabited by 1,377 endangered species.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has now agreed that EPA violated the law by not reviewing the chemical’s potential to affect protected species or consulting about those effects with other federal agencies.

However, the EPA did not have “total disregard” for CTP’s possible adverse consequences, as shown by the ecological risk assessment, and registered the chemical because it’s likely to replace other insecticides more toxic to humans, birds, fish and bees, the D.C. Circuit said.

The D.C. Circuit said it’s convinced that leaving CTP’s registration in place while EPA further evaluates the chemical will maintain “enhanced protection of environmental values.”

The insecticide’s manufacturer, DuPont, intervened in the lawsuit, arguing that CTP’s registration fulfilled the fundamental purpose of the Endangered Species Act.

The D.C. Circuit rejected that argument, ruling that EPA wasn’t excused from the legal requirement to conduct an “effects determination” or consult about the chemical’s impact with other agencies.

Senior Circuit Judge Raymond Randolph dissented from the ruling because he believes the environmental plaintiffs weren’t injured by the pesticide’s approval and thus lack the legal standing to file the lawsuit.

Farmers should take advantage of the surge in wheat prices and sell at least some of their crops, market analysts say.

On the Portland market, dark northern spring wheat prices have ranged from $8.55 to $10.15 per bushel, depending on protein percentages. That’s an increase of more that $2 a bushel from April prices, according to the USDA Market News.

The increase is the result of dry weather and extreme heat in the wheat-growing regions of eastern Montana and the Dakotas, said Byron Behne, marketing manager for Northwest Grain Growers in Walla Walla, Wash.

The Wall Street Journal recently listed wheat as the top-performing commodity, up about 25 percent year-to-date.

“I don’t think we’re going back to $25 (per bushel) DNS like we did in the winter of 2008 ... but $10 isn’t out of the question because it’s a very specific high-end wheat with a high-end use,” Behne said. “People are going to pay whatever it takes to get it.”

Dark northern wheat generally has a high percentage of protein — more than 14 percent — and soft white wheat has a lower percentage of protein, usually below 10.5 percent. Higher protein generally indicates higher gluten content. High gluten content is important for baking light, yeast-leavened breads.

Nearby DNS futures prices are higher than futures prices later on, said Clark Johnston, a marketing consultant in Ogden, Utah.

“That’s because the demand is outrunning the supply,” he said. “The market is saying, ‘We need your wheat right now, we’re not going to give you an incentive to hold it until after the first of the year.’”

The DNS price increase prompted speculators to move into the other wheat classes, said Dan Steiner, grain merchandiser for Morrow County Grain Growers in Boardman, Ore.

Soft white wheat ranged from $5.50 to $5.60 per bushel in Portland this wheat. That’s up from $4.40 to $4.60 a bushel in April. Hard red winter wheat ranged from $5.51 to $6.20 per bushel, up from $4.97 to $5.17 a bushel in April.

“For soft white, six months ago, you’d have thought, ‘This would be a great price,’” Steiner said. “But when you’re looking at $9 wheat (for DNS), it’s like, ‘Gee, can we have some more of that?’”

“They’re just buying ... all wheats now, which probably isn’t really sustainable in Chicago futures because soft wheat and dark northern spring wheat are two completely different things,” Behne said.

Lower protein soft white wheat has less gluten that DNS and is used in Asian noodles, cakes, pastries and flat breads.

“I don’t really see this ending well for soft wheat unless we end up with a corn problem later on,” Behne said.

Corn prices would need to increase to pull excess soft wheat supplies into livestock feed channels and boost demand, Behne said. Wheat futures were nearly $2 over corn futures, making the spread too high for farmers to buy it for livestock.

“We have a big soft white crop coming again this year,” Behne said. “Without some feeding going on, I don’t know how we’re going to chew through that.”

Wheat needs to trade at roughly $4.95 per bushel to be viable for feed, Steiner said.

Steiner isn’t sure how long the higher prices will last.

“I had no idea this rally was going to be this big, that it was going to go this far, or how long they’re going to push this,” he said.

Behne and Johnston both expect an eventual drop in prices. But weather forecasts indicate heat will continue in the spring wheat production areas of the Northern Plains, Behne said.

Johnston advises farmers to look for futures bids that are in keeping with current cash prices, and contract their wheat now before prices begin to decline, particularly in the other classes.

If DNS gets to be too expensive, some end-users won’t want it, he said, which will impact cash markets.

“There’s been a 90-cent spread between the high and the low of the day,” he said. “When that kind of stuff happens, I start to get a little nervous about this market.”

In recent tenders, Russia sold wheat to Egypt at $5.80 per bushel and Romania at $5.75 per bushel. France offered wheat at $6.10 per bushel, while U.S. wheat prices were $8.03 per bushel, Steiner said.

“We’re not remotely close to being competitive on the world market,” he said. “(Prices are) spectacular, but probably a selling opportunity (for farmers), I would guess.”

PORTLAND — Remember all that talk and worry about the next farmers? Who are they? Where are they coming from? How will we replace the retiring generation?

Relax. Kids such as Cole Laube are already taking charge.

Cole, who is 12, and his younger brother, Jake, 9, are the sons of Julie and Jason Laube, who operate Greens Bridge Gardens in Jefferson, Ore., about 60 miles south of Portland.

The parents grow berries, vegetables, pumpkins, silage corn, wheat, grass seed and more. They have a fruit and veggie stand at their farm, and also sell at farmers’ markets in Salem, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Lebanon and — every Wednesday — at the Moreland Market in Southeast Portland.

The boys are part of the family economy. Jake polished up some petrified wood pieces in a tumbler and sold them at one of the markets. This past week, Cole was helping his mom at the Moreland Market as they sold raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, tayberries and a selection of vegetables.

Cole was keeping an especially keen eye on sales of Columbia Star blackberries. He marked containers filled with berries that he personally picked, and got to keep the proceeds from those sales, He estimated he’s earned $50 this season.

His mom said the money goes into the bank, and there’s a lesson in the arrangement.

“They go pick it, they can sell it,” Julie Laube said. “There are a lot of ways for kids to make money. I’m not just going to give it to them.”

The operation may require some negotiation in the future. The boys provide the picking labor, sure, but so far haven’t been assessed a share of input costs and so on.

“Right now it’s 100 percent profit,” Julie Laube said with a smile.

Cole said he wants to be a berry grower when he grows up, and he’s already showing an awareness of business practicalities. He chose to sell Columbia Star blackberries “because they’re the biggest berries my dad grows” and quickly fill picking containers.

“And they’re thornless,” his mom added.

SALEM — NORPAC Foods has sold its canning business to Seneca Foods Corp.

“In our 93 years as a farmer-owned cooperative, our canning business has been an important part of our history, but over time, it gradually represented a smaller percentage of our overall business,” Shawn Campbell, president and CEO of NORPAC, said in a press release. He has been the company’s top executive since April.

The canning business represented 6 percent of the company’s volume, according to NORPAC spokeswoman Amy Wood.

“The company is now looking at really focusing energy on growth and innovation in the frozen category,” she said.

A spokesman for Seneca Foods declined to comment on the purchase.

NORPAC is a cooperative owned by more than 200 family farmers in the Willamette Valley, and provides frozen vegetables, fruit, soups and other value-added products to the foodservice, retail, club store, remanufacture and export market segments, according to its website.

The June 30 sale will result in the closure of a small Salem beet processing facility and the consolidation of the Hermiston, Ore., facility with the Brooks, Ore., and Quincy, Wash., operations. In 2018 the plants in Brooks and Stayton, Ore., will be redesigned to accommodate more frozen vegetable processing.

NORPAC will continue manufacturing other products for Seneca through late 2017.

“The transition away from our canning business and the closure of our Hermiston processing facility will help us drive efficiencies and reduce operational complexities as we invest in continued growth and innovation in our frozen product lines,” Campbell said.

In April, Seneca also acquired the remaining 50 percent ownership of Truitt Bros. Inc. from David Truitt, making the Salem-based company a wholly owned subsidiary. Truitt Bros. also has an operation in East Bernstadt, Ky.

Seneca Foods is the leading provider of packaged fruits and vegetables in North America.

The McGregor Co. will offer limited amounts of a soft white winter wheat variety for planting this fall.

The variety, M-Press, is suited for regions with a 16 to 22 inches of annual rainfall, said Cat Salois, company director of research and technology.

“For the last two years, this particular variety was a standout in yield and performance,” Salois said. “I’ve seen it do better in situations where we have a little bit more summer heat.”

M-Press has performed well in the Pendleton, Ore.; Walla Walla, Wash.; Waitsburgh, Wash., and Pomeroy, Wash., areas.

The line has good medium maturity timing and a thick straw to handle a high yield. According to McGregor, the line yields 6 to 8 percent more than SY Ovation or WestBred 1529, Salois said.

The variety will be available through a “limited launch” in the fall of 2017 through Tomco Seed, the seed division of the company.

The variety was slated to be discontinued by its original genetic supplier, as it has a relatively small footprint where it performs best, Salois said.

Under the terms of its agreement, McGregor cannot reveal the original company or the variety’s parentage, Salois said.

M-Press has a solid rust defense package and has a medium susceptibility to cephalosporium stripe rust. It has more snow mold susceptibility, so McGregor will keep it out of areas where that problem is prevalent. It carries a different resistance gene for soilborne wheat mosaic virus than most lines, Salois said.

“Performance alone with that disease package should drive demand,” she said.

If it performs well, Salois believes more farmers will look into the variety.

McGregor may look into other licensing opportunities for varieties to fill a niche in specific areas where they are best suited, Salois said.

Online

http://www.mcgregor.com/home/about/seed-division/

Capital Bureau

SALEM — The nearly 600,000 acres of state rangeland leased to ranchers to graze livestock have struggled quietly to generate a profit for decades, even as similar management issues involving the Elliott State Forest are a higher priority and have erupted in public controversy.

But state lands officials say they continue to explore strategies to yield larger returns on eastern grazing lands.

In the 2016 fiscal year, it cost the state $1.2 million more to manage its rangeland — a term that can denote grasslands as well as Eastern Oregon’s iconic stretches of sagebrush — than it realized in revenues.

The state holds a variety of trust lands, including forests, mineral resources and agricultural land. They’re required to generate revenue for the Common School Fund, an endowment for public K-12 education. Rangeland is the largest trust land segment.

Environmental regulations have restricted logging on state forests, causing the forests to operate at a loss. So the state land board — which oversees state trust lands — has been considering selling the Elliott, an 82,500-acre swath of forest near the southwestern Oregon coast.

The possible sale of the Elliott galvanized the state’s environmental activists, though, who spoke of the state’s duty to protect public lands from privatization, turning the debate political in heavily-Democratic Oregon. In May, the board — the governor, secretary of state and treasurer — decided to pull out of its planned sale to a timber company.

By contrast, the state’s rangelands, concentrated mostly in southeastern Oregon, haven’t received much public attention.

Returns from the rangeland have varied.

Between 2013 and 2015, each acre of rangeland generated an average profit of only four cents. That means that rangelands did generate positive net revenues some years, but the margin is thin. The state’s trust agricultural land had an average per-acre profit of $18.84 in that period.

Much of last year’s losses were due to the costs of fighting wildfires. Fires cost the department $1.8 million in 2016, Department of State Lands Director Jim Paul said.

The risks that trust rangeland pose to the Common School Fund are not new. In the early aughts, the problem caught the attention of Oregon’s chief public auditor.

Back in 2004, after finding that state rangelands had lost money as far back as 1987, an audit by the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office made three main recommendations: that the state lands department sell some or all of the rangeland in a competitive bidding process, exchange it for a “better performing asset,” or get market rates for leases.

More than 10 years later, though, the state’s rangeland holdings remain relatively intact. In 2004, the state held 613,000 acres of trust rangeland. In 2016, it held 596,784 acres.

The department says the size of its holdings complicates the sale of rangelands. Putting a large share of it on the market could depress prices, meaning that sales have to be spread out over time.

And the state’s trust forests, such as the Elliott, which are consistently losing more money more quickly, have presented a more immediate problem, Paul said.

“The bigger picture is just around the issue of prioritization and where do we need to focus now, versus which things are sort of in process and are going to take longer,” Paul said.

He said you can look at the state’s trust lands like an investment portfolio.

“An individual one-year loss or one portion of the fund that’s doing poorly isn’t necessarily the trigger,” Paul said. “It’s, are you tending to the whole and getting the performance that a prudent investor would with that kind of asset?”

And since the 2004 audit, Paul said, the department has increased its lease prices, which means the department has brought in more revenue.

The department’s most recent annual report on its trust lands also seems to indicate that the department wants to find other uses for rangeland, such as installing irrigation to convert it to agricultural use, which could improve the land’s money-earning prospects.

It’s also still possible that the Legislature might come up with another plan for trust lands. A bill under consideration would give the land board the authority to develop a list of trust lands with limited performance potential, and a process for transferring them to another entity better equipped to manage it, whether that’s a state or federal agency, or an American Indian tribe.

As hazelnut orchards proliferate across Western Oregon, geographic information system expert Mike McDaniel keeps a bird’s-eye view of their progress.

McDaniel is constantly scouring aerial photographs taken by USDA and commercial image providers to detect where new trees are being planted and where old ones are being removed.

Over the past several years, he’s documented a surge in hazelnut acreage — up roughly 60 percent, to nearly 60,700 acres, between 2012 and 2016.

“I don’t think it can maintain that pace forever, but there’s plenty of room to grow if the market can support it,” said McDaniel.

Pacific Agricultural Survey, McDaniel’s company, is contracted by the Oregon Hazelnut Marketing Board to track the industry’s growth and anticipate future crop supplies.

“The industry infrastructure has to be ready to handle new product as it comes online,” said Polly Owen, the board’s manager.

Fueled by strong prices, healthy Chinese demand and disease-resistant varieties, the hazelnut industry is rushing to take advantage of the fortuitous circumstances.

With each passing year that McDaniel collects data about hazelnut orchards, the industry will develop a deeper, more refined understanding of the state of affairs, Owen said.

“As we move along, it will help more and more,” she said.

When McDaniel began his venture in 2012, he expected to see large blocks of old orchards suffering from eastern filbert blight to be replaced with new EFB-resistant cultivars.

So far, though, that isn’t happening on a major scale.

Instead, growers are planting new orchards in fields traditionally devoted to grass seed and field crops while maintaining their old trees with pruning and fungicides.

“They’ve been doing everything they can to drag them along as long as prices are high,” McDaniel said.

To supplement the aerial images, he also takes field trips to inspect on-the-ground conditions. These visits are necessary to learn facts that aren’t readily visible from the air, such as how badly older trees are infected with blight.

“You can’t expect the same volume from them year after year if they’re struggling,” he said.

Farmers are often opting to plant new orchards in phases over several years, which McDaniel attributes to a limited number of seedling trees and a desire to preserve capital.

“They’ll go in small chunks to slowly plant a new area,” he said.

Rather than invest all at once in a large orchard, many prefer to plant this year’s trees with last year’s profits.

That’s not to say there aren’t any huge plantings going in, McDaniel said. “Every year, you see something really impressive.”

Growers are also eager to fit hazelnut trees wherever they have suitable ground available, even odd locations like the corners of a field irrigated with a center pivot.

“People are finding all kinds of nooks and crannies to cram a few trees in,” he said.

The northern part of the Willamette Valley has the greatest proportion of high-quality soils suitable for hazelnut orchards, but other uses compete for that acreage.

“You’re fighting for space with urban growth,” he said. “Each year there is less good land available.”

The southern valley, on the other hand, has poorer growing conditions but more room to grow.

Experienced hazelnut farmers are seizing on these fields and improving them with soil amendments and drainage improvements.

“They have a lot more space to devote to new orchards,” McDaniel said.

New blight-resistant trees developed by Oregon State University, such as the popular Jefferson cultivar, are more compact than traditional varieties, allowing growers to pack more of them into an acre.

Little is known about how the novel trees will perform upon reaching full maturity, which is why it’s important to observe yields as they grow.

“They basically want to know what they will be faced with in the next few years,” McDaniel said. “The key is to fill in the blanks on how those varieties are going to behave.”

With the industry undergoing a revitalization, McDaniel has also noticed farmers are more willing to experiment with different tree spacings and orchard geometry.

The traditional rules for planting stalwart cultivars, such as Barcelona, aren’t seen as set in stone, he said. “All of that is really going out the window.”

McDaniel’s introduction to the hazelnut industry came when he was a youngster, helping out on his aunt and uncle’s orchard. Later, while attending college, he became fascinated with geography.

“It tracks so many different parts of life, everything from economics to politics,” McDaniel said. “People fight wars over boundaries. Lines on a map have mattered since early human history.”

While his current work fortunately isn’t likely to inspire violent conflict, McDaniel is gratified by the potential to help the hazelnut industry shape its future.

“There’s a lot of planning to be done,” he said.

Mike McDaniel

Occupation: Geographic information system specialist

Hometown: McMinnville, Ore.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in geography from Portland State University in 2000, master’s degree in geography from Syracuse University in 2003

Age: 39

Previous work experience: Mapping infrastructure for the Portland Bureau of Transportation, analyzing satellite imagery of forest fires for the Sanborn Map Co., conducting a nationwide land use survey for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service

HERMISTON, Ore. — July Fourth is just around the corner, and that means famous Hermiston watermelons — in all their sweet, juicy glory — are almost back in season.

This year’s melon crop may have gotten off to a slow start compared to recent years, but growers say they are making up ground quickly as temperatures have started rising above 90 degrees during the heat of day.

Jack Bellinger, owner of Bellinger Farms, said watermelons fell behind early following a cool and wet spring, which impacted both the timing of planting and limited the number of hot days needed for the plants to absorb energy.

A recent stretch of warmer weather, including a record high of 101 degrees on Monday, has helped to speed things up, Bellinger said. Still, he is looking at beginning harvest July 12-14, which is about a week later than usual.

“The name of the game for all crops is heat units,” Bellinger said. “They’ve been pretty hit and miss.”

Patrick Walchli, of Walchli Farms, also figures to push back harvest by a week to 10 days, though he is not alarmed. Weather patterns like this aren’t unheard of for the region, Walchli said, and he is not expecting any problems with yield or quality.

“The crop, for the weather we’ve had at this stage, looks pretty nice,” Walchli said. “I expect the melons will be just as good of quality as ever.”

Watermelons are an iconic crop for Hermiston, thriving in the region’s sandy soils and desert climate. Once summer rolls around, the plants spend all day soaking up the hot sun, which they convert into sugar as a source of energy. Having chilly nights allows the fruit to retain all that sugary goodness.

Hermiston watermelons can be found all over the Northwest, including Portland and Seattle, and have been shipped as far as Maryland and Texas.

Given their immense popularity, it is no surprise that Scott Lukas has chosen to include watermelons as part of his research program at Oregon State University’s Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center south of town.

Lukas, who was hired as the station horticulturist last year, is experimenting with different treatments for soil-borne Fusarium and Verticillium wilt that can infect watermelon vines, causing them wither and die.

Most growers use chemical fumigants to keep the diseases in check. For his trial, Lukas is treating the plants with a couple of alternative products that, if successful, could be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than traditional fumigants without impacting yield, he said.

“That’s the idea, trying different combinations of green chemistries to solve a common issue this region’s watermelon growers face,” Lukas said.

It is still too early to measure results, though Lukas is optimistic. The experiment, which involves irrigating roughly 800 watermelon plants, was not launched until late June, and the melons themselves are still no larger than the size of a bean.

Lukas said growers have been cooperative and enthusiastic about the project, which he intends to expand next year over several acres.

“It is using a potentially cheaper product, and one that has less environmental restrictions and consequences,” he said.

Prior to hiring Lukas, HAREC was without a horticulturist for about five years. While the station is still primarily known for its work with potatoes, Lukas has made it clear he sees plenty of potential for high-value crop diversification across the Columbia Basin.

“We have affordable land prices. We have plentiful water. We have good soils. And we have good distribution as well, in terms of corridors to ship food out,” Lukas said.

Apart from watermelons, Lukas’ program also involves projects with onions, blueberries, sweet corn and broccoli. Lukas may eventually look at the possibility of growing tree fruit and nuts around Hermiston, though he said that research is likely a few years away from happening.

Lukas said he is getting good feedback from local growers who previously didn’t have a lot of resources available for specialty crops at HAREC.

“I want to do what the growers need,” he said. “That’s where this program is and where it’s going to go.”

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — A man who robbed a medical marijuana grow operation at gunpoint has been sentenced by an Oregon judge to almost 17 years in prison.

Authorities say Delonte Brooks and another man were armed when they confronted three men and stole more than 40 pounds of marijuana at the grow operation in Veneta, west of Eugene.

The 24-year-old man from Palmdale, California, was found guilty of robbery, burglary, theft and kidnapping — all with a firearm.

The Register-Guard reports that Brooks apologized to the victims at Thursday’s hearing in Eugene. Two victims described Brooks as a former friend, but encouraged the judge to give him a long prison term, so he could “sit and think” about his crimes.

Rickreall Dairy, owned by Louie Kazemier of Rickreall, Ore., is one of the recipients of the U.S. Dairy Sustainability Awards in the sixth annual round of the awards by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy.

Award winners represent the U.S. dairy community’s voluntary efforts toward continuous improvement in sustainability, according to a press release from the Innovations Center today.

“This year’s winners demonstrated impressive leadership and creativity in the application of technology and other practices that protect our land, air and water,” said Barbara O’Brien, president of the Innovation Center.

“And they’re proactive about building strong relationships with their communities and employees. Based on this year’s nominations, it’s clear that dairy farms and companies of all sizes use sustainable practices because it’s good for the environment, good for their community and good for business,” she said.

Judges evaluated nominations based on their economic, environmental and community impact. The independent judging panel — including experts working in the dairy community — also considered learning, innovation, scalability and replicability.

Through creative problem solving, this year’s winners addressed water quality, soil fertility, community outreach, energy efficiency and other topics.

Kazemier is known by local residents as a good neighbor, and his relationships are the force behind his farm’s frequent improvements, the press release stated.

For example, when solids were building up in the manure lagoon, he initiated a trade with a seed farmer to provide fertilizer in exchange for feed.

He also collaborated with a local food processor to use the company’s wastewater for irrigation. Kazemier depends on a whole-system approach to tend to what matters — and that turns out to be everything. The results are big: for one, most of the dairy’s 25 employees have been there for more than 20 years.

Glanbia Nutritionals, with several operations in Idaho, was the recipient of the Outstanding Dairy Processing and Manufacturing Sustainability award.

While consumers don’t see the Glanbia Nutritionals brand in their grocery stores, the company has a big footprint as one of the leading manufacturers of American-style cheese and whey.

To implement a sustainability plan, the company started with a single plant in Idaho. The team determined priority impact areas, measured social presence, determined metrics to demonstrate progress and identified areas where additional resourcing was needed.

By 2016, the company had replicated this approach with three more plants and adopted a global sustainability strategy that promises to “nurture, grow and sustain the lives of our employees, milk producers, customers, consumers and communities.”

Other winners of this year’s sustainability awards are: Kinnard Farms, Casco, Wis.; SwissLane Farms, Alto, Mich.; and Kellercrest Registered Holsteins, Mount Horeb, Wis.;

Honorable mention awards went to Mercer Vu Farms, Mercersburg, Pa.; Oakland View Farms and Midshore Riverkeeper Conservancy, Caroline County, Md.; U.S. Dairy Education and Training Consortium Extension, College Station, Texas; and Food Bank of Eastern Michigan, The Kroger Co. of Michigan, Michigan Milk Producers Association and Michigan State University Extension, Novi, Mich.

Online

For more details on the winners, go to www.usdairy.org

PRESCOTT VALLEY, Ariz. (AP) — Jill Baker grabbed her dogs and took refuge at a high school after a raging fire forced her northern Arizona town to evacuate.

Baker was one of nearly 2,000 people who fled a wildfire that has charred 32 square miles of dense shrubbery over the same area devastated by a blaze that killed 19 firefighters four years ago.

“It looked like five fires,” Baker said. “We were probably 7 miles from the actual fire and it was pretty scary.” Baker, a Mayer resident, got word of the evacuation while filling up at a gas station. She said that as she left, with a huge plume of smoke darkening the sky, residents were pulling onto the side of the road and discussing what to do about their belongings, pets and horses.

More than 600 firefighters were battling the blaze burning in communities around Prescott, a mountain city about 100 miles north of Phoenix that draws a mix of desert dwellers escaping the heat, retirees and visitors to its famed Old West-themed Whiskey Row.

Yavapai County spokesman David McAtee said Wednesday about 3,400 people in the area have been affected by the fire and roughly 3,000 structures in the evacuated areas were at risk but officials were not immediately sure how many are homes. Residents of Mayer, Dewey-Humboldt and several other communities took flight. Dewey-Humboldt has about 4,000 residents. Mayer has about 1,400.

“It’s scary because we’re coming up on the four-year anniversary of the Yarnell Hill fire — there’s still a lot of fresh memories,” said Arizona state Sen. Karen Fann, who represents the area where the fire is burning.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey plans to visit the area Thursday after declaring a state of emergency in Yavapai County that directs $200,000 in emergency funds to fire suppression efforts and reimbursements for emergency response and recovery costs.

It’s also a key requirement should federal aid be requested.

Elsewhere across the western U.S., a fire in the foothills north of Los Angeles was burned right up to homes before the blaze was beaten back.

Fifty homes were put under mandatory evacuation orders on the suburban edges of Burbank, where flames raced uphill through tinder-dry grass.

No homes were destroyed, and most evacuations were canceled after a few hours.

In Utah, firefighters braced for more high winds as they tried to slow a stubborn wildfire that has burned 13 homes and forced the evacuation of 1,500 people from a ski resort town.

Firefighters in Washington state were battling three fires near Wenatchee that had grown to about 37 square miles.

And in Idaho, fire officials say quick responses by ranchers and others to more than 20 wildfires sparked by lightning have kept the small fires from becoming major blazes like those that scorched the region in recent decades.

A wildfire in southwestern Colorado has burned at least one home and forced the evacuation of about 140 others, as well as a busy campground. The fire was reported about 2 miles west of Durango on Wednesday afternoon. It’s unclear if a second, smaller fire nearby was sparked by the initial blaze.

In Arizona, Jennifer Johnson of Phoenix noticed smoke while driving into Prescott Valley for a meeting Tuesday. By the time the meeting wrapped up, things had changed dramatically.

“Getting closer to Mayer, it looked like we were driving into some alien sort of invasion, like the whole sky was on fire,” she said.

Video she took along the freeway shows huge clouds of smoke colored red by flames.

The blaze is burning in thick chaparral that has not seen a fire in more than 40 years. The steep, rugged terrain makes it difficult for firefighters to reach.

“Fires are a very, very personal thing,” Yavapai County Emergency Management Coordinator Denny Foulk said. “When you lose memories, when you lose homes, that affects you for a very, very long time.”

———

AP writers Clarice Silber, Josh Hoffner and Bob Christie contributed from Phoenix.

With hundreds of thousands of eclipse watchers converging on Oregon’s Willamette Valley on Aug. 21, grass seed growers and the state Department of Agriculture have agreed to do their part in keeping the air clear.

To keep from obscuring the view of the rare phenomenon and avoid possible impacts on traffic, farmers have agreed not to burn their fields either the weekend before the eclipse or on Monday, Aug. 21, said John Byers, manager of the Oregon Department of Agriculture Smoke Management Program.

Burning is also “not expected to be occurring on Tuesday, Aug. 22,” Byers said in an email.

“We will monitor burning conditions on the 22nd; it will be an option, but monitored closely to make sure any traffic issues won’t be a problem,” said Roger Beyer, executive director of Oregon Seed Council.

The decision was reached at the most recent meeting between the Seed Council and ODA smoke management officials.

According to Beyer, there was unanimous agreement between the growers and ODA not to burn.

Field burning helps farmers rid their fields of weeds, pests and debris without using chemicals. It is allowed only in certain parts of the valley, mainly in the eastern hills of Marion County. Some is also allowed in Clackamas and Linn counties, according to a state Department of Environmental Quality fact sheet. Farmers must obtain a permit from ODA to burn their fields.

The no-burn decision is good news for Daniel Adamo, an Oregon astrodynamics consultant who initially had concerns about how the field burning might obscure the view of the eclipse from the valley.

“Although the sun will be about 40 degrees above the east-southeast horizon during total eclipse, its extended atmosphere can easily be masked from view by thin clouds, smoke from forest fires or agricultural activity,” Adamo said. “Particularly at risk from smoke obscuration are lower elevations such as the Willamette Valley floor.”

Oregonians will have the first opportunity to witness the event because the path of the eclipse is expected to run from west to east and about 62 miles wide through Salem and Albany.

A total eclipse won’t happen again in this region for 601 years.

According to Adamo, the eclipse will start at 10:17 a.m. Pacific time at the Oregon Coast. Its path will cross a huge swath of the continental U.S.

The eclipse will attract groups from Japan, Germany and Australia in addition to watchers from neighboring states, according to Maricela Guerrero, Travel Salem destination development manager. Hotels are at 95 percent capacity for the weekend, she said.

While the exact number of people expected to visit for the eclipse is unknown, Guerrero said that the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry is estimating about 1 million statewide, increasing the state’s population by about 25 percent.

A couple of rural Oregon landowners are accusing their neighbors of operating marijuana-growing operations in violation of federal anti-racketeering laws.

The lawsuit filed by Rachel and Erin McCart of Beavercreek, Ore., accuses 43 defendants — including neighboring property owners as well as affiliated marijuana growers and retailers — of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.

Because it remains illegal under federal law, Oregon’s “regulatory scheme” for marijuana does not protect the defendants from RICO charges for conspiring to grow, process and sell the controlled substance, according to the plaintiffs.

“Given the strict federal prohibitions against each of those purposes, defendants knew these purposes could only be accomplished via a pattern of racketeering,” the complaint said. “In furtherance of that goal, defendants pooled their resources and achieved enterprise efficiency that no one defendant could have achieved individually.”

Beginning in late 2014, the defendants began installing equipment to produce marijuana on two properties neighboring the McCarts, who own nearly 11 acres of fenced pastures and forestland, the complaint said.

While the neighborhood was once quite and safe, the marijuana operations have drawn unwanted visitors who litter nearby properties, play loud music, ride loud all-terrain vehicles and harass landowners, the plaintiffs claim.

The McCarts allege that a narrow, one-lane easement running across their property is now a busy commercial roadway traveled “seven days a week, at all hours of the day and night” by the marijuana growers as well as their customers, employees and building contractors.

“While passing plaintiffs’ property, these easement users stared menacingly at plaintiffs, directed obscene gestures at them, peered into plaintiffs’ kitchen window (which looks out onto the easement), openly used marijuana, rolled their windows down and blasted loud music and dramatically accelerated or decelerated when they observed plaintiffs outdoors on their property,” the complaint said.

These problems, as well as the “unmistakable, skunk-like stench of marijuana” and the incessant barking of guard dogs, have reduced the McCarts’ property value and would make it tough to sell at any price, the lawsuit alleges.

“No one’s idea of a dream home includes noxious odors, invasive and persistent racket, heavy commercial traffic, a location next door to two illegal drug manufacturing sites, or aggressively obnoxious neighbors,” according to the plaintiffs.

The McCarts seek compensation for three times the amount of damages caused to their property in an amount that’s not specified in the lawsuit, which has been assigned to U.S. Magistrate Judge John Acosta in Portland.

SALEM — A bill that’s expected to disqualify many Oregon small farms from lower tax rates has passed the House but opponents still hope to stop it in the Senate.

Under the version of House Bill 2060 that passed the House 31-28 on June 23, small business tax breaks would only apply to certain companies with 10 or more employees during every pay period.

Those workers would also each have to work at least 1,200 hours a year for their employer to qualify for reduced taxes.

The change would exclude many farms whose workforce expands during peak seasons but then contracts when labor demand ebbs, opponents say.

“It’s going to impact the smallest of the small farming families,” said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

The bill, which applies to S corporations, limited liability corporations and partnerships that pass profits through to shareholders, is projected to raise nearly $200 million during the 2017-2019 biennium.

For farms that are disqualified by the change, tax rates would increase by less than 1 percentage point in some cases up to 2.7 percentage points in others, depending on revenues.

Companies earning between $250,000 and $500,000 a year would be subject to the sharpest hike, from 7.2 percent to 9.9 percent.

After passing the House Revenue Committee on a party-line vote, the bill is now likely to be considered by the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee, where Democrats outnumber Republicans 3 to 2.

However, a similar proposal, Senate Bill 164, was considered by that committee and hasn’t won a “do pass” recommendation.

“I really hope the bill gets more scrutiny” in the Senate Finance and Revenue Committee, said Dresler.

At this point, there hasn’t been any discussion of creating an exemption to the 10-employee standard for companies with large seasonal workforce fluctuations, she said.

Revenue-raising bills must ordinarily win a three-fifths majority in each legislative chamber but Dexter Johnson, an attorney with the Office of Legislative Counsel who advises lawmakers, has determined this standard doesn’t apply to HB 2060.

Based on Oregon Supreme Court legal precedent, HB 2060 doesn’t qualify as a tax because it is “adjusting the parameters of a tax benefit rather than enacting a new tax,” Johnson said in a letter to lawmakers.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — The U.S. Department of the Interior will pay nearly $465 million this year to local governments primarily in rural areas that have come to rely on the funds because they cannot levy taxes on federal lands.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the sum in Nevada on Monday.

The $13 million increase this year is slightly less than the average annual growth of $22 million over the last decade.

Most of the money goes to Western states, where the Interior Department collects most its $8.8 billion in annual revenue from commercial activities on public lands.

California will see more than $48 million this year from the program.

Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Utah will each receive between $30 million and $40 million.

Alaska, Nevada and Wyoming will each get more than $25 million.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A lengthy legal battle over the alcohol industry’s exclusive rights to distribute marijuana in Nevada won’t affect the state’s plans to begin recreational pot sales at medical dispensaries on Saturday, state officials said.

The Nevada Tax Commission also approved emergency regulations Monday with stricter labeling and packaging requirements aimed at protecting children. Among other things, the rules prohibit edible pot products modeled after products marketed primarily to children or bearing likenesses of animals, fruit or cartoon characters.

The marijuana industry is eager for the fast-approaching July 1 kickoff of recreational sales in Nevada, where demand from tourists is expected to eventually make the state’s market bigger than other states where it’s legal, including Colorado, Oregon and Washington.

The state intends to appeal a Carson City judge’s order that only alcohol wholesalers can obtain pot distribution licenses, Stephanie Klapstein, Taxation Department spokeswoman, confirmed Monday.

It won’t happen on an emergency basis, and it won’t affect retail sales starting Saturday, Klapstein said.

State regulators argued they have the authority to issue distributor licenses to existing medical dispensaries if there aren’t enough applicants from the alcohol industry to meet demand. Judge James Wilson disagreed.

“Nobody said they are going to just roll over and accept the court’s finding. It’s a fairly big issue,” said Michael Willden, chief of staff to Gov. Brian Sandoval.

But that fight is for another day, he said, because Sandoval has decided they don’t want to pursue that matter through an emergency regulation.

In the meantime, properly licensed medical dispensaries can sell off their stockpiles for recreational use and expect to have enough supply to meet demand for three weeks or longer. The state anticipates at least some alcohol wholesalers will be licensed to distribute pot by then.

“I get the sense that most, if not all, dispensaries will have sufficient inventory to serve retail customers until distributors are up and running,” Nevada Dispensary Association President Andrew Jolley said Monday.

Nevada officials estimate 63 percent of recreational pot sales will go to tourists. More than 40 million tourists visited Las Vegas last year.

“I think it is going to be the largest cannabis market in the country until California gets its sales going,” said Nancy Whiteman, co-owner of Colorado-based Wana Brands. The firm sells edible marijuana products through a Nevada affiliate to about half of the Silver State’s 60 licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.

California law prohibits recreational sales until at least Jan. 1, 2018, and industry experts anticipate Californians will be among those travelling to neighboring Nevada to take advantage of recreational sales starting Saturday.

“I think there will be long lines,” Whiteman said. “I think because of the sheer historical precedent and the novelty of it that people will want to be a part of that first day.”

Medical dispensaries licensed to sell recreational pot must comply with the new regulations regarding children, including labels that state, “THIS IS A MARIJUANA PRODUCT,” and “Keep out of reach of children.”

Whiteman said her company has about 15 edible labels it must redesign before those products can be sold in Nevada, primarily gummies.

“We are frantically having our graphic people rework those as we speak,” she said.

Clint Cates, director of compliance for Mainstream Partners and Kynd Cannabis Co., said his company is changing molds used to produce chocolates infused with marijuana to comply with the new rules.

That adds to the firms’ wholesale costs, “but we knew that was coming because we are the strictest regulated industry in the country,” Cates said. “This is the ‘big boy’ state. If you are the ‘who’s who’ of the cannabis industry, you are in Nevada because of our tourism.”