IMBLER, Ore. — The spark from a cutting machine that ignited a blaze at Barenbrug USA’s seed-cleaning facility near Imbler earlier this year did more than damage the facility. It also served as the catalyst behind the purchase of the facility by Blue Mountain Seeds.

After the March 31 fire, Barenbrug decided to stop cleaning seed at the facility, creating an opportunity for Blue Mountain to expand.

“We needed room to expand,” said Bill Merrigan, manager of Blue Mountain Seeds. “We were right at capacity, both cleaning capacity and storage, and we were out of land to build on. We viewed this as a good opportunity.

“If growers choose to increase grass seed acres in Union County, we’ll have the facilities to handle it,” he said.

The purchase includes the plant’s 4-acre lot and 5 acres connecting an existing Blue Mountain seed-cleaning facility and the former Barenbrug plant.

The purchase also includes a slightly damaged seed-cleaning line, which Blue Mountain plans to refurbish and use for cleaning fine-leaf fescue and bluegrass seed. A second line was destroyed in the fire.

Blue Mountain has already begun storing seed in the west end of the Imbler facility, which was not damaged in the fire, Merrigan said. That section alone adds about 2.5 million pounds of seed storage capacity to Blue Mountain’s current capacity of 12 million pounds, he said.

Depending on how much of the facility Blue Mountain rebuilds, it could increase its storage capacity by another 2.5 million pounds, he said.

“We may not rebuild that facility the way it was,” Merrigan said. “We may put up a new building, or we may try and change the design of that building. That is something we are discussing right now.”

After the fire, Barenbrug USA decided to reinvest in a seed cleaning facility it operates in Boardman, Ore., rather than rebuild the Imbler plant, said company CEO and President James Schneider.

The Tangent, Ore.-based company has since added square footage to its Boardman plant and installed a third seed cleaning line, which is dedicated to cleaning bluegrass seed.

“Overall, it increases our capacity because it makes it more centralized,” Schneider said. “We will actually be able to clean more product.”

Adding to the incentive to sell the facility was its age, Schneider said. “It was an old facility, and because of our strategic plans, we felt it better to reinvest in our Boardman facility.”

He added: “We are thankful that good came out of such an unfortunate event. Blue Mountain Seeds has always been a great neighbor, and we can’t think of a better outcome than for the sale to allow both our companies to continue to invest in future growth.”

Barenbrug plans to continue contracting with growers to produce seed in the Grande Ronde Valley, Schneider said.

“We’re not abandoning the Grande Ronde Valley,” he said. “We still have a field man based there and we are contracting directly with growers there. But we are now cleaning that seed in Boardman.”

Among its plans for the facility, Blue Mountain is considering redesigning the plant’s seed storage facility with modern specs, improving the company’s capacity to handle modern seed production.

“Most of our warehouses were designed in the ’60s and ’70s,” Merrigan said. “They were set up for small trucks, smaller combines and smaller fields. And back then, harvest used to last a month.

“Today it is big combines and big trucks and harvest lasts about two weeks, and these warehouses aren’t designed for that,” he said. “We have small bins and a lot of labor involved in filling those bins.”

The sale leaves Blue Mountain Seeds as the only commercial grass seed cleaner operating in the Grande Ronde Valley.

AURORA, Ore. — In considering the ideal vegetable, a farmer will often desire different attributes than a chef.

Yields and disease resistance are generally top of mind for the farmer, while the chef may focus on flavor and appearance.

The Culinary Breeding Network, managed by Oregon State University, aims to help plant breeders bridge this divide by getting farmers and chefs to communicate what they’re looking for in a vegetable.

“There’s a lot of power in bringing these people into the same room together,” said Lane Selman, an OSU agricultural researcher who helped start the network.

The network organizes events such as the upcoming vegetable variety showcase, scheduled for Sept. 28 in Portland, where the participants from various sectors of the food industry can compare notes on new cultivars.

“A lot of it is focused on flavor and culinary applications,” said Timothy Wastell, a chef who consults for the network.

The network was spawned in 2009, after breeder Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed released open-pollinated new pepper varieties to replace a popular hybrid cultivar that was discontinued.

Seed companies frequently drop hybrid vegetable varieties if they don’t generate enough sales, even if the cultivars are important to some growers, said Selman.

Open pollination allows farmers to save seed, as they’re not dependent on the two parent cultivars used to produce hybrids.

When Morton developed several new pepper varieties, chefs tended to prefer those without a sunken stem, as it eases cutting in a busy kitchen environment.

“These are things plant breeders don’t necessarily think about,” said Wastell.

The episode convinced breeders and OSU that chefs and retailers should be involved in the variety development in an organized manner.

“We started realizing, ‘Wow, this is something missing,’” Selman said. “We know what farmers want, but we don’t know what end users want.”

Breeders often focus on developing cultivars that are “true to type” — that fit the vegetables traditional characteristics — but these traits may not necessarily be important to buyers, she said.

By getting input from chefs and other end users, the breeders can incorporate information that wouldn’t otherwise be on their radar, Selman said.

Flavor and other attributes that are important to chefs don’t conflict with agronomic qualities because the Culinary Breeding Network doesn’t showcase varieties that would be unappealing to growers, she said. “I don’t bring the dogs in.”

Oregon State University is involved in other cooperative programs with seed producers.

The university is paid by several seed companies to grow out vegetable varieties at its North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora, Ore.

The plots serve as a “learning farm” for new growers while providing breeders with information about how the cultivars perform at that location, said Nick Andrews, small farms extension agent at OSU.

Unlike a farmer, OSU doesn’t harvest the vegetables, which allows seed companies to see how well plants hold up in the field past maturity, he said.

Seed companies can also bring their customers to the location to demonstrate new varieties, Andrews said. “It’s a public location.”

 

June 1, 1929 – Sept. 13, 2015

June 1, 1929 – Sept. 13, 2015

2015 Prefontaine Memorial Run

2015 Prefontaine Memorial Run

0-9 Female: 1. Analise Miller, Bandon, Ore., 58:33; 2. Millee Brick, Coos Bay, Ore., 1:31:41.

0-9 Female: 1. Analise Miller, Bandon, Ore., 58:33; 2. Millee Brick, Coos Bay, Ore., 1:31:41.

Marty Myers, the general manager of a diversified dairy and crop farm in Boardman, Ore., has been appointed to the Oregon Board of Agriculture.

The company he operates, Threemile Canyon Farms, has about 50,000 cows and also raises potatoes and organic produce on more than 90,000 acres in the Columbia River Basin.

“I’ve got a diverse background in agriculture,” said Myers, noting that he worked on farms through high school and college.

Myers said Oregon Gov. Kate Brown asked him to join the advisory board, which makes policy recommendations for the Oregon Department of Agriculture, due to his past experience with task forces on dairy air quality and biotechnology, as well as his involvement in international trade programs.

“I try to find solutions rather than take hard line positions,” he said.

The appointment is not without controversy, however.

Friends of Family Farmers, a group that advocates for environmentally responsible agriculture, criticized Brown’s choice as misguidedly bending to corporate farming.

“For us, it shows the governor wants to take agriculture in the direction of industrialization,” said Ivan Maluski, the group’s policy director.

Maluski said Threemile Canyon Farms isn’t representative of sustainable farming in Oregon because it’s a “mega-operator” that causes air pollution and generates large amounts of manure.

It’s also concerning that Myers will be able to guide ODA policies that affect his company, which could create a conflict of interest, said Maluski. “They don’t need special access.”

Myers said it was offensive to label his operation as a “factory farm,” as it’s run by two families.

“It’s a group of families that have come together and we’re farming,” he said.

The dairy has a digester that captures methane from manure and turns it into renewable energy, Myers said. “When you look at air quality, we’re very proud of what we do.”

The company employs 300 full-time employees and is regularly subject to customer audits to ensure animal welfare and other best practices, he said. “Large does not mean it’s bad. It gives the critical mass to do things the right way.”

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The power company PacifiCorp is asking Oregon to change green power rules so as to reduce contract lengths and lower the amount of renewable power it is required to accept.

The Bulletin in Bend reports that the company has asked the Oregon Public Utility Commission to lower contract terms for qualified renewable power generators from 15 years to three. It has also requested to lower the limit on renewable power projects that the utility must connect to its system from 10 megawatts to 100 kilowatts.

Critics of the request say it will stifle growth of renewable energy sources by making them difficult to finance.

PacifiCorp officials argue that the fixed-price, long-term contracts don’t work with the short-term nature of the energy market.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Forest Service is planning to cut down trees that are encroaching on meadowland at Marys Peak.

The Statesman Journal reports timber company Georgia Pacific is paying over $175,000 to harvest about 3,000 trees Tuesday in the popular recreation area east of Corvallis.

Retired Siuslaw National Forest ecologist Cindy McCain is a member of the Corvallis-based Marys Peak Alliance who says noble fir reduce meadowland by about a half meter each year. The tree growth has fractured what was a single meadow in 1948, impacting habitat and views.

Five years of studying the issue led the federal agency to collaborate with the Marys Peak Alliance to remove the trees.

Work will cause periodic closures of camps, trails and roads.

LANGLOIS — Around the country, old schools are closing as student populations decline or new structures are built. In many cases, the buildings could still be useful, but instead sit vacant until the elements take their toll.

Not every member of the military served directly, or even indirectly, in Vietnam. Some, like Mark Beecher, were hundreds of feet beneath the waves, defending the United States from other enemies.

Not every member of the military served directly, or even indirectly, in Vietnam. Some, like Mark Beecher, were hundreds of feet beneath the waves, defending the United States from other enemies.

LANGLOIS — Around the country, old schools are closing as student populations decline or new structures are built. In many cases, the buildings could still be useful, but instead sit vacant un…

SATURDAY, SEPT. 19

ONTARIO, Ore. — A free pesticide collection event for agricultural producers in Malheur County will be held Oct. 23.

The first-ever such event for farmers and commercial applicators in Eastern Oregon was last year.

Oregon State University Cropping Systems Extension Agent Bill Buhrig, who is helping coordinate the event, said, “It’s a pleasant surprise” that another free collection is being held so soon. “We’re trying to get the word out to everybody to take advantage of it.”

A total of 10,506 pounds of unusable pesticides were collected during the 2014 event and organizers are expecting a similar amount this year, said Kevin Masterson, toxics coordinator for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.

The collection event is being funded by ODEQ and the Oregon Department of Agriculture and the work has been contracted out to Clean Harbors Environmental Services.

Masterson said a household hazardous waste collection is being held the day before and because Clean Harbors is the waste collector for both events, it made sense to hold another pesticide collection.

“It allows us to stretch our dollars further by pairing those two events,” he said.

The pesticide collection event will occur from noon to 4 p.m. at Ontario Sanitary Service, 540 SE Ninth Ave. in Ontario.

Growers must fill out an application and pre-register with Clean Harbors. The pre-registration requirement is only for logistics purposes so the company can schedule drop-off times and not be overwhelmed, said Graham Gadzia of Clean Harbors.

People can use only their first names if they wish, he said.

“The only reason I ask them for a name at all is so I can contact them and make an appointment,” he said.

Buhrig said the sole purpose of the event is to get rid of unwanted pesticides and the registration information is for internal use only and won’t be shared with any government agency or third party.

After an application is submitted, Clean Harbors will call the grower and schedule a drop-off time.

“You can register under a fake name as long as you remember that fake name when they call,” Buhrig said.

If growers are unsure what a product is, they can just describe the quantity and physical state of the waste as best they can on the form, he said.

Empty containers will also be accepted.

Applications must be returned to Clean Harbors by Oct. 9. For more information, contact Gadzia at (503) 953-6397 or by e-mail at gadzia.graham@cleanharbors.com, or call Buhrig at (541) 881-1417.

Registration forms can be downloaded at http://extension.oregonstate.edu/malheur

SALEM — Oregon’s minimum wage won’t rise in 2016, which is expected to save money for farms and other businesses but also invigorate advocates of a higher rate.

Due to stagnant inflation, as measured by the federal “consumer price index” for urban areas, the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries will keep the minimum wage at $9.25 per hour next year.

Both supporters and opponents of a higher wage floor believe that the flat rate will be used as an argument in favor of a substantial increase.

“It’s a mixed blessing, politically,” said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

While it should be good news for low-income workers that prices aren’t rising sharply, the unchanged minimum wage will likely spur political action, said Steve Buckstein, senior policy analyst for the Cascade Policy Institute, a free market think tank.

“It probably will increase pressure in the legislature, or through a ballot initiative, to raise the minimum wage next year,” he said. “Both efforts will be bolstered politically by the fact the minimum wage is staying flat.”

Proponents say the unchanged rate is based on a nationwide measurement of inflation and doesn’t reflect unique factors, such as increased housing costs, seen in Portland and elsewhere in Oregon.

“To bring people out of poverty, we need at least $15 and in places like Portland, more than that,” said Jamie Patridge, chief petitioner for a 2016 ballot initiative to raise the minimum wage.

Patridge said he was disappointed by the flat rate but acknowledged that it will likely convince people that the current inflation-based system is inadequate and persuade them to take action at the ballot box.

“It’s probably positive for our campaign but negative for low-wage workers,” he said. “Workers should not be living in poverty. Every worker should be paid a living wage.”

The Oregon Center for Public Policy, a non-profit that supports increasing the minimum wage, said the rate would be $19 per hour if it had tracked worker productivity for the past half-century.

“We’re seeing growing support for some action,” Tyler Mac Innis, policy analyst for OCPP.

To achieve economic security in Oregon, a single adult with a child needs to earn roughly $45,000-$51,000 per year, depending on the region, according to the group. With the current minimum wage, a worker earns $19,240 per year.

“It’s certainly not good news that it’s staying flat. It highlights the fact minimum wage workers need a significant increase in the minimum wage,” said Mac Innis.

Dresler, of the Oregon Farm Bureau, counters that farmers in the state compete against others in the U.S. and internationally, so a higher minimum wage puts them at a disadvantage.

Oregon already has the second highest minimum wage in the nation behind Washington, she said.

“That keeps us less competitive than it does our neighbors” in the Midwest and South, Dresler said.

Farms in Oregon are currently highly diverse, but a major hike in the minimum wage would likely convince growers to transition to crops that are less labor intensive, she said. “That would be one of the reactions to that sort of increase.”

Other types of companies will have to raise prices, lay off workers or reduce benefits to cope with a higher minimum wage — or they’ll simply go out of business, said Buckstein of the Cascade Policy Institute.

“There are always unintended consequences,” he said. “There’s no magic pot of money that businesses have to pay more wages.”

COOS BAY — Oregon students' Smarter Balanced test results came in higher than expected — and overall, around half are meeting the bar in English and 30 percent are meeting the math standard.