As the 2015 legislative session winds down in Oregon, lawmakers are making their final votes on agricultural bills that have undergone extensive review in various committees.

Meanwhile, final action on other legislation that’s critical to farming — like $50 million in additional funding for water projects — isn’t expected to take place until the last days of the session in late June or early July.

Following is a summary of bills that have won approval from lawmakers or appear likely to pass the legislature:

Two bills that provide more than $1 million in financial assistance for juniper harvesting and processing are awaiting a signature from Gov. Kate Brown after passing the House and Senate.

Juniper is a native species in Oregon’s dry regions but is behaving like an invasive due to fire suppression and other effects of European settlement. Its spread depletes water and threatens the habitat of sensitive species, such as the sage grouse, that can impact livestock grazing.

While there are economic uses for lumber from juniper, its extraction and processing are complicated and expensive.

House Bills 2997 and 2998 aim to help juniper companies overcome these barriers by providing them with $900,000 in loans and grants, technical assistance and mapping services, as well as $250,000 in funding for cooperative efforts led by Portland State University.

The goal of the legislation is to simultaneously increase the removal of juniper trees, which have taken over 10 million acres in Oregon, and assist new companies that make products from the wood. Both bills passed the House unanimously on June 10 and passed Senate 26-2 on June 18.

Livestock producers will be able to raise funds for increased predator control under a bill that’s headed for a vote on the Senate floor after recently passing muster with environmental and finance committees. The bill previously passed the House 56-2.

Under HB 3188, landowners could petition county governments to create special districts where they’d be charged fees that would compensate the USDA’s Wildlife Services for enhanced predator control.

Landowners with more than 10 acres would be charged $1 an acre while smaller ones would pay a flat fee of $25. If they chose not to pay the fees, they wouldn’t benefit from the program.

USDA’s Wildlife Services already hunts coyotes and other predators but the amount of county funding for this program has shrunk due to reduced federal timber payments.

Opponents of HB 3188 said that decisions about predator management should not be made at the local level and urged lawmakers to consider non-lethal methods of control, but those objections have not impeded the bill’s progress thus far.

Disputes over cross-pollination between biotech, organic and conventional crops would be encouraged to seek mediation through state or federal farm regulators under HB 2509.

The original version of the bill introduced and passed in the House had much sharper teeth, as farmers who refused mediation would be liable for the opposing party’s legal bills in the event of a lawsuit.

After quietly passing the House, HB 2509 encountered a strong backlash from critics of genetic engineering, which prompted lawmakers to significantly scale back its scope in the Senate.

The Senate unanimously passed an amended version on June 11, the language about liability for legal bills was eliminated. The bill now simply allows a judge to consider a farmer’s reluctance to mediate when imposing sanctions or considering an injunction.

Before HB 2509 heads to Brown for a signature, the House must first sign off on the changes made in the Senate. Those amendments were scheduled to be considered on the House floor on June 22.

The House and Senate have approved increased fees on fertilizers, veterinary products and nurseries, with the bills awaiting the governor’s signature.

HB 2443 creates a new 5-cent fee per ton of lime and increases the evaluation fee on new fertilizer products from $50 to $500. The Oregon Department of Agriculture expects the bill to raise $70,000 during the 2015-2017 biennium to pay for fertilizer and water research.

SB255 raises the maximum registration fee on veterinary products from $75 to $150, which could generate up to $225,000 in revenue for ODA. However, the agency must still complete the rule-making process for the rate increase and it’s unclear how much registration fees will actually rise.

SB 256 hikes the maximum annual fee on nurseries $20,000 to $40,000 and from a half-percent to one percent of their revenues. The annual cap on fees for Christmas tree growers would increase from $75 to $110 and from $3 to $4.50 per acre, with the total not to exceed $7,000. The increased caps would allow ODA to raise $436,000 in additional revenues during the next biennium.

Water regulators have largely stopped permitting new agricultural wells in Oregon’s Harney Basin due to concerns about groundwater depletion.

Groundwater pumping is exceeding the rate of recharge in the area, which has prompted the Oregon Water Resources Department to deny most new permits until it conducts a multi-year study of the situation, said Ivan Gall, the agency’s groundwater section manager.

“You can see these declines occur over a fairly broad area of the valley,” Gall said during a recent meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees the department.

Preliminary data indicates the basin is experiencing an overall downward trend in groundwater levels, but the agency hopes to gain a better understanding by measuring a larger number of wells and conducting detailed geological mapping, Gall said.

“We have some significant holes in our data,” he said. “We don’t think it’s at a crisis right now, but that’s also based on not a lot of information.”

The agency estimates that 201,250 acre feet of groundwater rights are used each year, while only about 170,800 acre feet are available for use.

Heavy rains only offer a temporary reprieve from the problem, Gall said. “A really wet year helps for a period of time, but then it rolls over and begins its downward trend again.”

Once the agency completes the study, it may continue denying new well permits for agriculture and only allow “exempt” domestic uses, he said.

However, the OWRD will establish rules for the region that may allow an existing permit to be canceled — likely in return for money — so that a new well can be drilled, Gall said.

OWRD’s decision to halt new well permits came after WaterWatch of Oregon, an environmental non-profit, protested several approvals last year.

The group became concerned after seeing the agency issue multiple well permit without determining if water is available or the wells would affect surface water, said John DeVoe, its executive director.

“This was happening over and over,” he said.

Even so, it was becoming apparent that groundwater pumping in the basin was unsustainable, which would require action to prevent the area from developing more severe problems such as those seen in the Umatilla Basin, DeVoe said.

“I think it’s an area that was going to get some scrutiny whether we were involved or not,” he said.

The Harney Basin experienced a major increase in well drilling over the past decade for farm uses, said Gall.

However, it’s difficult for OWRD to deny permits unless it has data to support such a decision, and the agency’s resources are limited, he said.

“The development got ahead of the data collection,” he said.

T.J. Hafner, agronomist for AgriCare, said spotted wing drosophila pressure on the company’s Jefferson, Ore., blueberries this year is three or four time heavier than he’s ever seen.

And, Hafner said, trap counts on AgriCare’s Jefferson acreage have been lower than elsewhere.

As blueberry harvest swings into full gear, growers throughout Western Oregon have their hands full battling high populations of the spotted wing drosophila.

Oregon State University entomologist Vaughn Walton compares this year’s SWD pressure to 2013, when growers treated blueberry fields 10 and 11 times for the pest, compared to a typical six- or seven-spray regime.

“The input costs this year will be way higher,” Walton said, “both for the earlier crops and for production costs in general.”

Walton said Western Oregon’s mild winter and warm spring — conditions that helped blueberry crops get off to a fast start — were ideal for the spotted wing drosophila.

“If you have a cold winter, it takes a long time for those SWD populations to build up, and the early fruit can usually escape damage,” Walton said. “Now you don’t have that.”

SWD populations survived the winter on alternative hosts, Walton said. When the pest moved to fruit crops, it did so in large numbers and with overlapping generations.

“That is why you have to space your sprays so close to each other,” Walton said. “It is not as if you are getting discrete generations. You are getting overlapping generations at this stage already, and so you have constant egg laying.

“And preventing that egg laying is what growers are trying to do,” he said.

Hafner, who oversees agronomic activities on certified organic blueberries for AgriCare, said he started treating the early-season Duke variety with organic crop protectants in late May, well ahead of a normal treatment regime.

And, he said, any thought of stretching intervals between treatments have been tossed aside.

“Early on, you can usually get a little gap between sprays,” he said. “But we’re tightening up the intervals and getting back over the fields quicker than we have in the past.”

Hafner said he’s using electrostatic sprayers from On Target Spray Systems of Mount Angel to apply the organic protectants. The electrostatic component of the sprayers attracts material to leaves, providing good coverage in the shady under-part of the canopy, which is where the flies tend to hang out, he said.

To date, Hafner said he’s confident that he’s staying ahead of the pest, but only time will tell.

“We’re doing everything we can and I’m optimistic right now, but we’ll see how the season goes,” he said.

“I think conventional guys are going to have a hard time later on in the season,” Hafner said, “and I think organic guys are going to have a really hard time.”

ONTARIO, Ore. — The iris yellow spot virus, which can severely impact onion yields, has made an early appearance in the Treasure Valley.

Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon produce about 25 percent of the nation’s fresh bulb onion supply and the virus normally appears in onion fields in this region later in the summer.

But it was detected in commercial bulb fields in Payette County, Idaho, June 12 and in Malheur County, Oregon, last week, said Oregon State University Cropping Systems Extension Agent Stuart Reitz.

The advanced symptoms seen on some of the infected onion plants suggests they were probably infected around the first of June, he said.

“That would be really early,” said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn, who said the virus can devastate onion fields.

“It can take a whole field out in a pretty short amount of time,” he said.

The virus is transmitted to onion plants by thrips and growers are being encouraged to aggressively manage the tiny insects.

“Keep vigilant about watching what’s happening in your fields,” Reitz said. “Don’t wait until you get a full-blown infection across your field.”

Reitz said thrips populations didn’t experience their normal die-off rate this year because of a relatively mild winter and he believes that is a factor in the early appearance of the virus.

The mild weather also permitted the survival of more volunteer onions, which allow thrips to over-winter, he said.

The region faced less virus pressure than normal last year and a big reason for that was onion farmers sprayed for thrips earlier and more often, said Nyssa farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

Skeen said it’s critical that growers stay on top of their thrips management programs. Skeen, who has farmed for 43 years, used to never spray before the first of June but sprayed two times before that date this year.

“If people are not staying on top of their spraying, they’re going to get in trouble” he said.

Skeen said his fields are free of the virus but he’s also spraying a lot, which raises his production costs substantially.

“We’re at the point now where we’re spending more money trying to fight back the thrips than we do on fertilizer,” he said.

Plant health plays a major role in controlling the impact of the virus, Reitz said, since healthier plants are less susceptible to it.

Growers can minimize the stress on their onion plants by ensuring they have adequate moisture and fertility levels, he said.

“It’s every bit as important to try to minimize the stress on your plants,” said Corn. “If you can keep your plants healthy, (the virus) seems not to be as devastating.”

Despite the early appearance of onion farmers’ main production challenge, the region’s top cash crop looks good so far, Skeen said.

“For the most part, the onion crop looks very good and it looks healthy,” he said.

Willamette Valley farmers are advised to check their wheat fields for a fungus that hasn’t typically been seen in the area for more than a decade.

Oregon State University Extension cereals specialist Mike Flowers recently notified growers that leaf rust has been found in several research plots and grower fields in the northern and southern regions of the Willamette Valley.

Leaf rust is generally a warmer-season rust pathogen that typically arrives later in the season.

“We’re seeing it about a month earlier than we would normally see it,” Flowers said.

Leaf rust has largely been absent for the last 10 to 15 years, but the relatively unusually warm and moist weather has allowed it to infect earlier, Flowers said.

Leaf rust has dark orange pustules that appear in a random pattern across the leaf, unlike the stripes and bright orange pustules of stripe rust, a more common wheat disease, according to Flowers.

Leaf rust has been found on the varieties Bobtail and Cara, which are typically less susceptible to stripe rust.

When temperatures get hot, stripe rust usually shuts down, Flowers said. Leaf rust doesn’t fare well in cold temperatures, but does well in warmer temperatures.

“If it gets into irrigated spring wheat fields, it will act a lot like stripe rust,” Flowers said. “It probably won’t be slowed down by warmer temperatures, whereas stripe rust might.”

Similar to stripe rust, a heavy infection of leaf rust reduces yield, he said.

“We don’t have a very good idea of the susceptibility of our varieties to leaf rust, because we generally don’t see it to a point where we can actually take notes on it,” Flowers said. “Generally, when it comes in, it comes in late enough that it doesn’t really cause any economic harm. So it’s not really been worth the time and effort to screen varieties for it.”

Most wheat in the Willamette Valley is past flowering, so fungicides aren’t likely to be economical. Flowers recommends an application if fields are heavily infected or have not flowered yet.

“I don’t think it’s worth controlling, it’s not a heavy enough infection to try controlling,” he said.

Flowers wants to be sure the industry is aware of the situation and can identify it if it comes up.

“I don’t think it’s a big concern,” Flowers said. “There is this pathogen out there they may or may not run across ... this is not something a lot of the younger field men have probably seen.”

ONTARIO, Ore. — The Owyhee Irrigation District has increased its 2015 water allotment to 1.6 acre-feet and the bleak irrigation situation facing farmers who get their water from the district has improved ever so slightly.

The new allotment for the 2015 season is up slightly from the previous level of 1.5 acre-feet. But it’s still below last year’s allotment of 1.7 acre-feet and well below the normal allotment of 4 acre-feet.

A two-week stretch of rainstorms added about 10,000 acre-feet to the Owyhee Reservoir system, said Jay Chamberlin, manager of the OID, which provides water for 1,800 farms and 118,00 acres of irrigated land in Eastern Oregon and part of Southwestern Idaho.

“Spread out amongst all the acres, that’s (not a lot) but we’re going to try to get them another tenth of a foot,” Chamberlin said.

The Owyhee Reservoir was dropping at a pace of about 2,000 acre-feet a day but fell only about 200 acre-feet a day during the stretch of rain storms, said OID board member Bruce Corn, a farmer.

Stream in-flows into the reservoir increased from 135 cubic feet per second to about 900 during part of that stretch, Corn said.

Farmers in the area are suffering through a fourth straight year of drought conditions and have left a lot of ground fallow and planted less water-intensive crops as a result.

While the rains didn’t turn things around, they have helped this year’s situation a little bit by enabling OID to provide farmers a tad bit more water, Corn said.

“That’s still only 40 percent of the normal allotment, but every little bit helps,” he said.

Chamberlin said the district hopes to keep the water flowing until the first part of August, which is the same time OID stopped delivering water last year. He said the rains may add a few days to the end of the season.

Nyssa farmer Craig Froerer hopes the rains allow the water to flow until close to September.

If the season is extended, that could make a big difference for some growers, said Froerer, who estimates last year’s tight water supply had about a $1 million impact on his farm.

Froerer will be finished watering his short-term crops, like wheat and peas, by then, but the extra water would be especially important for his long-term crops, such as mint and asparagus.

“If we can last a little bit longer ... it will make a big difference to us,” he said.

The rains didn’t solve all the region’s water problems “and it was not a game-changer, but it may lengthen the season a little bit, which is very, very important,” Corn said. “It’s still a bit better than it would have been and it gives people a little hope.”

Cliff Thomason’s goal is to be growing 10,000 acres of industrial hemp in five years. But right now he’s dealing with opposition from medical marijuana growers and Oregon legislators.

Thomason is among the first growers licensed by the state to raise hemp, which lacks the THC levels that gets pot smokers high but is valued because it can be used to make a wide variety of food, health and fiber products.

Thomason’s Oregon Hemp Co. has grow operations in Murphy and near Grants Pass, in Southwest Oregon, and he is negotiating to sharecrop space on an organic farm near Scio, in the Willamette Valley.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has issued 13 hemp licenses, but it’s unclear how many growers have a crop in the ground this summer.

Thomason said growers are hampered by infrastructure and political problems. First, it’s difficult to obtain seed, although Thomason said he has seed from China, Lithuania, Slovakia and Germany. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.

The Oregon Legislature is another matter. Medical marijuana growers in Southern Oregon believe pollen from industrial hemp will contaminate their potent pot and reduce THC levels. A bill in the Legislature would force a 5-mile separation between hemp and pot growers.

Hemp growers say that would essentially prohibit them from growing, because so many pot plots fill the area.

Thomason said he’s trying to be a good neighbor by keeping pollen-bearing male hemp plants in greenhouses and transplanting only females outdoors.

“I keep saying that with responsible farming practices, it will regulate itself,” he said.

Thomason described himself as “truly an accidental farmer” who was asked to help find seed and land for the hemp industry because of his real estate background.

“When I did, we formed a company to move the project forward,” he said.

He said his plants are growing rapidly and are intended for the medical market. The German seeds seem to do the best, perhaps because its climate is similar to Oregon’s, he said.

The other licenses issued so far are:

27B Stroke6 Farm, Corvallis; American Hemp Seed Genetics, Salem; Cannalive Organics, Yamhill County; Central Coast Enterprises, Seal Rock; Genesis Media Works, Baker County; Hemp for Victory Gardens, Wilsonville; Hughes Farms LLC, Bend; Integrative Health Source, Corvallis; Mark McKay Farms, St. Paul; Oregon Agriculture Food and Rural Consortium, Eagle Point; Went to Seed LLC., Bend; and Wildhorse Creek Hacienda, Adams.

Wheat yields are projected to take such a hit this summer that some Eastern Oregon growers may not even harvest their crop, a senior grain merchandiser said.

Sparse rainfall and diminished snowpack is the story for producers all across the West, but an unseasonable heat wave in late May and early June hit developing wheat plants at exactly the wrong time, said Dan Steiner of Pendleton Grain Growers.

Dryland wheat growers, who farm without irrigation, were hit especially hard as the National Weather Service recorded temperatures of 90, 96 and 102 degrees in the Pendleton area from May 29 to June 10.

“Production will be down significantly,” Steiner said. He estimated a 20 percent yield drop overall from the statewide average of about 60 bushels an acre.

“Some of the dryland areas are going to have zero,” he said. “Some (fields) will be abandoned.”

Steiner said the heat wave came as wheat plants were in the stage of filling out their grain kernels. Evaporation stole what little water was left for plant development, he said.

“It came at a very, very bad time,” he said. “A lot of moisture that could have gone to the kernel was simply lost.”

If temperatures had been in the 70s or 80s during that time, there would have been a chance to have an average crop, Steiner said.

As things stand, some dryland growers in parts of Morrow, Wasco, Sherman, Umatilla and Gilliam counties may decide it’s not worth the expense of running a combine over their ground, Steiner said. Some Eastern Washington growers may be in similar situations, he said.

Steiner said growers need to harvest seven or eight bushels an acre simply to pay for the cost of operating a combine. Growers may be cushioned from some of the loss by revenue guarantees of their insurance, he said.

Steiner said he’s been in Oregon since 1988, including the past 15 years with Pendleton Grain Growers. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”

The same problems have hit wheat growers before, of course. Steiner said El Nino weather patterns always bring hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters, neither of which is good for dryland wheat.

Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said hot weather also raises the protein level of soft white wheat above what Asian buyers prefer. It won’t drive customers away, but they will be aware of it, he said. Most of the wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is exported to Japan, Korea and elsewhere, where it’s used to make crackers, cakes and other products.

Steiner, of Pendleton Grain Growers, said the bad weather this year isn’t likely to change how farmers operate. Dryland growers don’t have many options, he pointed out,

“I would imagine they’ll plant like always do, and try to be optimistic,” he said. “The timing of that rain is absolutely critical. We can’t have 100 degree days at the end of May and the first of June.”

A ruling that faulted the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for not permitting sufficient logging in Western Oregon was overturned by a federal appeals court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has dismissed the earlier decision on jurisdictional grounds, finding that timber companies lacked legal standing to file their lawsuit.

The ruling held that the sawmills and industry groups who sued BLM had not proven they were directly harmed by the agency’s failure to fulfill legally-required harvest levels in BLM’s Medford and Roseburg districts.

The American Forest Resource Council, one of the plaintiffs, is disappointed by the outcome because the BLM must clearly allow a larger volume of harvest under a federal statute that governs the land, said Ann Forest Burns, the group’s vice president.

“Selling a quarter of what they’re growing is not sustainable,” she said.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon found that BLM hadn’t lived up to its obligations under the Oregon and California Lands Act of 1937, which requires a “sustained yield” of annual timber production in the region.

As a remedy, the judge ordered BLM to sell the full volume of timber available in future years.

The ruling’s impact was discernable the following year, when the agency increased timber sales by 90 percent, to 47.1 million board feet, in the Medford district and by 30 percent, to 41.5 million board feet, in the Roseburg district, Forest Burns said.

It’s unclear whether the BLM will now decrease logging levels due to the D.C. Circuit’s dismissal of the lawsuit, since the ruling wasn’t overturned based on the merits of their case, she said. “The court never got there.”

The plaintiffs haven’t given up the fight yet, however.

Timber companies are pursuing a similar lawsuit against BLM over logging in the Salem, Eugene, Coos Bay and Lakeview districts, and may decide to amend their complaint to encompass the Medford and Roseburg districts, Forest Burns said.

Capital Press was unable to reach a representative of BLM for comment as of press time.

The D.C. Circuit’s ruling also means that timber industry lawyers must figure out how to establish legal standing in that jurisdiction, effectively convincing the court they’re “starving to death near a refrigerator of food,” Forest Burns said.

The question of standing had seemed pretty clear, given that one of the plaintiffs — Rough & Ready Lumber — actually closed for a year due to the dearth of timber coming from federal lands, she said.

Environmental groups that intervened in the case based their objections on the legal arguments made by timber interests, rather than legal standing, but they’re not surprised by the D.C. Circuit’s decision, said Susan Jane McKibben Brown, an attorney for the groups.

Brown said she’s not convinced the previous ruling prompted BLM to increase logging, since planning for harvest usually takes several years.

“I don’t think you can attribute increasing numbers to the lawsuit,” she said.

By the same token, the reversal of Leon’s ruling doesn’t mean that logging will now decrease, since the BLM seems inclined to increase harvest levels under resource management plans currently being considered, Brown said.

Whether any increase in logging passes muster with other federal regulators — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association — is another matter, she said.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will present its plan to restore and preserve fresh water wetlands for salmon and waterfowl at a public meeting Thursday.

The plan would protect, enhance and restore wildlife habitats, according to ODFW. The department would also build and maintain facilities on the land.

Stuart Love, a biologist with ODFW and manager of the Coquille Wildlife area, said the plan would help juvenile coho salmon make their way to sea.

“There’s a time period when they aren’t ready to go into the ocean yet,” Love said. “And they need to be able to find places where they can get out of the heavy currents and spend the winter.”

He said the proposed area would be open to the public and would provide education and recreation activities. The site would have bird watching, hunting and fishing. Love said that schools would be able to tour the property and learn about wetland enhancement and development.

Wetland restoration on the property has been an ongoing discussion in the county. In 2012, the Coos-Curry Farm Bureau presented their concerns about having agriculture land taken away for restoration. Farmers in the area wanted to keep the land in agricultural production, rather than using it as protected wetlands.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Coquille. The plan will be submitted to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission in August.

Love described the proposed area as  “very important for the overall well being of fish and wildlife resources in the valley.”

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — After weeks of stalemate, a state legislative committee has advanced a bill setting up Oregon’s legal marijuana system.

The approval of the joint House-Senate committee on Monday sends the bill to the full House, which can take it up as soon as this week.

The measure includes a compromise on local control, an issue that has stymied previous attempts to pass marijuana bills. The compromise would allow local governments to ban recreational and medical marijuana businesses in counties that voted overwhelmingly against Measure 91 in last year’s election. Elsewhere, voters would have to approve a ban on marijuana sales.

Lawmakers did not take up a separate bill that would create a sales tax on pot in place of the harvest tax in Measure 91.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Hop fields in Washington, Oregon and Idaho will increase 16 percent this year to 43,987 acres, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Hop acreage has been growing for a number of years, driven by demand from growth in small, craft breweries.

The NASS forecast, released June 10, shows Washington at 32,205 acres up 3,347 from last year. Oregon is 6,807 up 1,397 from last year and Idaho is 4,975 up 1,232.

Those are acres strung for harvest. If those numbers are realized it will be the third-highest total harvested acreage on record, NASS said.

Washington accounts for 73 percent of the national crop, Oregon 16 percent and Idaho 11 percent.

The 2015 crop is reportedly very good with normal pest and disease pressure, NASS said.

In Washington’s Yakima Valley growers are using efficient drip irrigation to conserve water and are supplementing normal irrigation supplies with groundwater, NASS said. Oregon and Idaho have adequate water in hop growing areas, the agency said.

The forecast is very close to the 5,600-acre-increase for the three states predicted by growers two months ago.

Researchers are now certain that kochia weeds found growing in two sugar beet fields in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho last year were resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup.

The kochia weed is widespread in the region. Researchers are determining how widespread the resistant weeds are and developing ways to help sugar beet growers in the region deal with them.

That includes field trials designed to show growers the benefit of using multiple herbicides, in addition to Roundup, to prevent or control the development of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Virtually all of the 180,000 acres of sugar beets grown in Eastern Oregon and Idaho are genetically modified by Monsanto Co. to resist glyphosate.

A field trial at Oregon State University’s Ontario research station set up to determine the best treatment method to control resistant kochia weeds is being coordinated by OSU weed scientist Joel Felix and University of Idaho weed scientist Don Morishita.

It was Morishita and Felix who first alerted sugar beet growers last year they had found kochia weeds that could be resistant to glyphosate. Lab tests have since confirmed that they are.

Both said weeds don’t mutate to develop resistance to a herbicide such as glyphosate. Rather, the product allows a very small population of the weeds that are naturally resistant to thrive because it kills off their competition.

That’s why it’s important for growers to use other herbicides, in addition to Roundup, Felix said.

Roundup might not control a very small number of resistant weeds, he said, but the use of multiple chemistries will. Crop rotation is an important part of that approach because it allows farmers to use different chemistries, he added.

“People who are using (Roundup Ready crops) need to manage that technology by rotating their chemistries,” said Greg Dean, manager of agricultural services for Amalgamated Sugar Co., which purchases the sugar beets grown by farmers in the region

Some farmers in the area are still relying on glyphosate alone to control weeds, Morishita said.

“Any farmer who is just relying on glyphosate is really setting themselves and their neighbors up for some problems in the future,” he said.

The decision on what herbicides to use is an economic one and it comes down to the grower’s call, Felix said.

But, he added, “We are stressing ... both crop rotation and the use of chemistries other than just glyphosate. As you rotate, you use different modes of action and you control weeds in all crops. By the time you get into sugar beets, you may be free of kochia if you do a good job.”

Felix and Morishita are collecting weeds from different areas and will spray them with Roundup to try to determine how widespread glyphosate-resistant kochia weeds are in the region.

“It’s really important for ... sugar beet growers to know if they have glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm,” Morishita said. “I think we’ll have a better idea of the level of resistance later this year.”

Fire officials in Bend warned that some residents should be ready to evacuate as the Shevlin Fire quickly spread Thursday.

The brush fire near Shevlin Park started as a small blaze in the Tumalo Creek canyon, but grew to about 10 acres in about an hour before firefighters started to gain the upper hand.

“We threw a lot of resources at it all at once,” said Dave Howe, battalion chief with Bend Fire and Rescue. “We were able to shut down the highway, notify the neighbors, get water on the fire and hold the extent of the fire to about 8 to 10 acres.”   He estimates 50 to 60 firefighters responded, along with bulldozers, a helicopter to dump water, and air tankers to drop retardant.

After the blaze took off, fire officials quickly issued a Level 1 pre-evacuation notice, which asks residents in the area to leave if they need extra time for evacuation or have health conditions that could be worsened by the smoke, such as respiratory conditions. The evacuation warning covered the Three Pines and Shevlin subdivisions on both sides of Shevlin Park, west of McClain.

“Evacuations are voluntary, but residents are encouraged to leave if concerned,” said a release from Deschutes County spokesperson Anna Johnson.

Shevlin Commons resident Christina Pollard lives in one of the three neighborhoods in the pre-evacuation area. She turned on her sprinklers full blast, and watched the smoke rise from the canyon below her home.

“I think the whole neighborhood is pretty nervous,” said Pollard.

The cause of the fire is unknown, but the Oregon Department of Forestry is conducting an investigation.

Firefighters from 19 units worked quickly to contain the blaze, and by 5 p.m. fire managers said growth of the fire had stopped. 

Howe says he and his fire crews are gearing up for a busy summer. “This is just a preview of this season. If we don’t get much rain this summer we’re going to be doing this on a very continuous basis.”

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Forests Service is gearing up in anticipation of a major battle with a wildfire apparently ignited by lightning in a remote part of southwestern Oregon burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire.

Spokeswoman Virginia Gibbons said Friday that five hotshot crews, two heavy helicopters and one air tanker are assigned to the Buckskin fire, which so far has grown to about 100 acres on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, about 10 miles southwest of Cave Junction.

Gibbons says a Type II fire management team has been called in, due to expectations that drought conditions, rugged terrain and the remote location will make this a difficult fire to contain.

The Biscuit fire grew to half a million acres — 781 square miles — making it the nation’s biggest in 2002.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Two Josephine County commissioners who sent a letter to the Oregon Legislature opposing a bill that would restrict hemp production have revealed they are partners in a consortium that is growing hemp near Murphy.

The Daily Courier reports that following threats of an ethics investigation against Commissioner Cherryl Walker, Commissioner Simon Hare announced Wednesday that he also is an industrial hemp production.

Walker has been fending off claims by critics that she has a conflict of interest by advocating against House Bill 2668, which would place restrictions on hemp production and specifically would affect industrial hemp production in Josephine, Jackson and Douglas counties.

Marijuana growers have opposed hemp farms because they fear cross-pollination.

Oregon Ethics Commission officials say they have not received a formal complaint against Walker.

MORO, Ore. — The latest developments on soil problems, diseases and varietal options attracted about five dozen wheat growers and others to Oregon State University’s Sherman County field day.

Stephen Machado, a crop physiology and agronomy professor assigned to the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center in Pendleton, explained ways to increase soil pH and reduce acidity.

While lime application is the usual fix, biochar shows promise, Machado said. Biochar, a charcoal-like substance produced by heating woody biomass such as logging slash, carries a pH of about 10, Machado said. Trials have shown wheat yield increases ranging from 26 to 34 percent, and biochar may need to be applied only once, compared to every couple years with lime, he said.

“It’s still new, but it’s something we are considering,” Machado said. He acknowledged biochar production would have to be increased to establish a dependable supply and bring down the price.

Soil scientist Don Wysocki, also at OSU’s Pendleton station, delivered the news that black leg disease was found in Eastern Oregon canola. An outbreak in the Willamette Valley last year was a concern to specialty seed growers and became part of the unresolved argument about allowing canola in the valley.

After the discovery, Wysocki examined last year’s canola stubble and found it there, too.

“That tells me it was fairly wide spread in 2014,” he said.

He said growers shouldn’t panic.

“You manage it,” Wysocki said. “We have the disease. We just don’t know how severe it’s going to be or what the effect will be.”

Mike Flowers, an OSU wheat breeder, walked growers through the characteristics of multiple new varieties under development.

Richard Smiley, an OSU expert in soil-borne pathogens, held forth on root lesion nematodes and fusarium crown rot. All types of wheat are vulnerable to the pathogens, which interfere with plants’ ability to extract water and nutrients from the soil, he said.

In one Iranian study, the combination of root and crown diseases reduced yield 68 percent, Smiley said.

A common weed in wheat fields, jointed goat grass, is a good host of nematodes, but spraying for the weed may cause the nematodes to migrate to moist wheat roots, Smiley said.

He said barley is much less sensitive, and wheat following barley in rotation does well.

“There’s something magical about barley’s resistance to these root lesion nematodes,” Smiley said.

Smiley, who is retiring, spoke briefly at a lunch following the field presentations. He thanked local growers “for the 30 years of a good ride I’ve had here at the Sherman station.”

The field day coincided with a visit from a Chinese trade team representing several grain and oil companies. Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said he’s hoping to convince Chinese companies to buy Oregon wheat instead of Australian and Canadian products.

LA GRANDE, Ore. (AP) — Investigators with the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division are trying to solve a poaching case outside of La Grande, and it wants the public’s help.

Sgt. Chris Hawkins says a buck in the Starkey Unit was shot twice in the head with a .17-caliber rifle. The shooting happened around June 3, a time when deer hunting is not in season.

Hawkins says a citizen found the buck only a couple miles off Interstate 84 in Union County.

A reward is being offered by the Oregon Hunters Association through the Turn-in-Poachers program for any information leading to a conviction.

The program number is 1-800-452-7888.

SALEM — The Oregon Senate rejected a last-ditch effort to exclude farms from a bill that requires employers to provide workers with paid sick leave.

Senate Bill 454 was approved by the Senate 17-13 on June 10 despite requests by several lawmakers to send the proposal back to committee for an amendment to exempt agricultural businesses.

“I don’t care what anybody else says in this room, you’re going to hurt ag,” said Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River, who raises pears.

The bill was approved largely along partisan lines, with all Democrats except Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, voting in favor and all Republicans voting against it.

Under the legislation, employers with more than 10 workers must provide them with 40 hours of paid sick time per year. Those with fewer workers must provide unpaid sick leave.

During a floor debate on SB 454, Thomsen argued that farmers should be exempted because many hire large numbers of workers to pick perishable crops, with prices dictated by global supply and demand.

“We don’t have the ability to recoup costs,” he said.

The bill could theoretically allow an entire picking crew to take paid sick leave at once, leaving the farmer with an unharvested crop while they go harvest for another grower, Thomsen said.

Agricultural employers say the bill is a “job killer and a business killer,” not only for fruit growers but also cattle and wheat producers who have year-round workers, said Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

Opponents of SB 454 claim that it amounts to an unfunded mandate that will cost Oregon companies about $1 billion a year.

“This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Ferrioli.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said the bill has undergone multiple changes to accommodate employers and he denied that agriculture’s unique needs were ignored.

“When someone came to us with a problem, we tried to solve it whenever possible,” he said.

Specifically, workers can only use their paid sick leave after completing a 90-day probation period, so many seasonal workers will never even qualify for the benefit, Dembrow said.

It’s also unlikely that workers will pretend to be sick and forgo picking fruit at piece rate wages, which are usually higher than the minimum wage they’d get under paid sick leave, he said.

The bill is necessary because higher-paid workers in Oregon generally get paid sick leave but most low-wage workers do not, Dembrow said.

Such workers risk getting fired or losing significant income by not showing up for work when ill, he said. “This is one of the most striking examples of economic inequity that we face.”

The 90-day probation period won’t actually stop many farm workers from qualifying for paid sick leave, since growers plant multiple varieties of crops, such as blueberries, to mature over a longer period of time, said Roger Beyer, lobbyist for the Oregon Blueberry Commission and other farm groups.

“Their picking season lasts 100 days or more,” he said.

Also, workers who return to a farm to prune or perform other duties within 180 days will continue to accrue time toward the 90 day probation period, said Jenny Dresler, government affairs associate at the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Growers will need to contend with a complicated formula to determine whether they average 10 workers per year, and track workers who leave and return to the farm, she said.

While SB 454 has yet to be approved by the House, it’s proponents likely don’t expect significant obstacles, Dresler said. “I doubt they would be moving forward if they didn’t think the votes were there.”