CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — Construction on portions of the new College of Forestry building at Oregon State University has been halted after a large section of subflooring made of cross-laminated timber gave way between the second and third stories.

University spokesman Steve Clark said no one was injured in the March 14 incident at Peavy Hall, the Corvallis Gazette-Times reported . He said the university plans to hire an engineering firm to determine a cause and to evaluate whether any other cross-laminated structural elements in the building are at risk.

He said the placement of cross-laminated timber panels will resume when the evaluation is completed, and there are no plans to switch to more conventional materials. The building technique involves using solid wood panels to frame a structure’s walls, floors and roof. It has been used for years in Europe, but is relatively new in the United States.

The panels are lighter and much faster to assemble on-site than regular timber. Because the grain in each layer is at a right angle to the one below and above it, there’s a counter-tension built into the panels that supporters say makes them strong enough to build skyscrapers.

There is hope that CLT will infuse struggling forest communities with new economic growth, while reducing the carbon footprint of urban construction with a renewable building material.

The three-story Peavy Hall will eventually become the new home of the OSU College of Forestry and is intended to be a showcase for the Oregon timber industry.

The project, however, has been unpopular with some students and faculty, who say the original Peavy Hall, demolished two years ago, could have been renovated for much less than $79.5 million.

Anthony Davis, the college’s acting dean, said he did not expect the failure of the CLT panel to increase the project’s cost or significantly delay its completion, which is scheduled for early next year.

He said he still believes the completed Peavy Hall will serve as a compelling showcase for Oregon’s wood products industry.

“I know the capacity we have, I know the strength of Douglas fir and I am confident in our ability to continue to lead in the development of this material for use in midrise or high-rise buildings,” Davis said.

The failure involved a cross-laminated timber panel manufactured by a firm in Riddle, Oregon.

ADEL, Ore. — A first-ever competitive bid adoption for professionally gentled feral, or wild, horses could help shape future management plans on the nation’s public lands.

A two-day competitive adoption is scheduled April 13 and 14 in the small rural southeastern Oregon community of Adel. The event includes training demonstrations at the Beaty Butte Wild Horse Training Facility in Adel, where mustangs captured from the Beaty Butte area have received training. Bidding for 10 horses will begin 2 p.m. April 14.

“It’s the first sustainable wild horse program in the West and if it works it will change the whole notion of how the horses are managed in the West,” said Mary Bradbury, who hopes the inaugural event will be successful. “We have no idea what will happen. Adel is pretty far out.”

Bradbury and her husband, Dick, are Adel area ranchers involved with the Beaty Butte Working Group, a coalition of ranchers, horse groups, environmentalists — including the Oregon Natural Desert Association — and others. They began meeting and working with the Bureau of Land Management in 2015 to find solutions to prevent resource damage at the Beatys Butte Herd Management Area. About 65 miles east of Lakeview, Ore., the area spans more than 437,120 acres of federal and privately owned land.

“A few years back Beaty Butte became so over-populated with wild horses, as much of the rangelands in the West are, that grazing was being threatened as well as other wildlife habitat,” said Anna Kerr of the Intermountain West Joint Venture. “This truly is an amazing program that is receiving national attention. The program produces a win-win situation in the wild horse arena that doesn’t happen in most cases.”

The upcoming competitive adoption, and horse demonstration and training sessions, will be held at the training facility, which was built by the BLM for the locally run, private, nonprofit horse training program.

Although the BLM, which manages most of the Beaty Butte management area and has extensive lands throughout the American West, has developed other agreements on managing wild horses, “This one is unique because it provides a holistic approach,” said James Price, the wild horse and burro specialist for BLM’s Lakeview District.

If successful, Price said the program could result in significant savings. It’s estimated the lifetime cost for keeping unadopted wild/feral horses in a holding facility is $47,000 per animal — “It’s pretty substantial,” he said.

In addition, Price said overpopulations of horses result in extensive resource damage. Along with causing reductions in cattle grazing, damage to riparian areas adversely impact sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, mule deer, bighorn sheep and other animals, birds and raptors.

The program to capture, train and sell wild horses is part of a possible new management plan. BLM wild horse captures at Beaty Butte, as elsewhere, have typically been done about every five years when populations are extreme. During the last Beaty Butte capture, Price said more than 1,000 horses were gathered. The “appropriate management levels” for Beaty Butte is 100 to 250 horses.

Because the Beaty Butte mustang population is now more than 200, plans now envision yearly captures of 20 to 30 horses and then having them trained for adoptive bidding at annual sales at the Beaty Butte Training Facility, which is overseen by facility manager Jim Hiatt and head trainer Catlin Martin.

The upcoming adoption event will have 10 mustangs — including Flash Gordon, Chuck Wagon, Napoleon, Lefty, and six others — up for sale following two horse handling demonstrations. Other activities will include cowboy and western arts vendors and an auction to benefit the training facility along with an April 13 no-host dinner at the Adel Store.

“It’s new and there’s a lot of excitement about it,” Price said of the event and sale.

“I think being part of the solution is a good thing,” agreed Bradbury. “I’m thrilled to be part of a solution that keeps horses out there.”

For more information visit http://beatybuttewildhorses.com or contact facility manager Jim Hiatt at 541-219-0155, or Larisa Bogardus, Lakeview District BLM public affairs officer at 541-947-6237. Information is also available at www.beatybuttewildhorses.com and on Facebook at Beatybuttewildhorses.

Beatys Butte Mustang Adoption

Location: Beatys Butte Wild Horse Training Facility, Adel, Ore.. On 20 Mile Road, south of the Adel Store. Follow signs.

When:

April 13 at 3 p.m.: Horse preview and training demonstration. At 5 p.m.: No-host dinner at the Adel Store.

April 14 at 10 a.m.: Horse preview and training demonstration. 2 p.m.: Competitive bid adoption.

Unwanted invasive grasses and desirable native grasses both benefit from toppled junipers, which complicates treatment of the problematic trees, according to a recent study.

Junipers dominate parts of the West, replacing habitat for the Greater sage grouse — a bird species whose fate has serious implications for livestock grazing in the region.

Several researchers from Oregon State University have found that chopping down and leaving junipers on the range doesn’t go far enough to restore beneficial plant species.

“Cutting up juniper freed up resources that allowed whatever was in the understory to grow,” said Lisa Ellsworth, an OSU range ecologist and study co-author.

All types of grasses and forbs got a boost in areas where junipers were cut down, which means healthy habitats improved while struggling ones were more overrun with invasives.

Twice as many juniper seedlings were found growing beneath downed trees compared to areas where junipers weren’t felled.

The ground beneath downed junipers stays cooler and retains moisture, enhancing germination of their seeds, said Jake Dittel, a postgraduate researcher at OSU and study co-author.

Fallen trees also create habitat for birds and rodents that disperse juniper seeds, he said. Junipers primarily released seeds after they were cut, but the rangeland contains plenty of seeds regardless.

The lesson is that successfully restoring rangeland habitat will require suppression of invasive grasses with herbicides and seeding with native grass seeds after junipers are cut.

“If you have a big invasive grass component, you’re not done,” said Ellsworth.

Preventing an area from getting re-occupied with junipers will also require returning to lop off the seedlings that spring up.

“It definitely indicates re-treatment is going to be necessary,” she said. “It’s definitely intensive.”

Leaving fallen junipers is a common practice, but some of the trees can be removed and turned into lumber. The impediment is that many junipers are too crooked for milling, making removal uneconomical.

“Most of the trees are probably not going to generate that kind of wood,” Ellsworth said.

Piling and burning the downed trees also has drawbacks, since fire tends to encourage invasive grass species.

“All the management options come with a trade-off,” she said.

The effects of grazing were also analyzed as part of the study, which was published in the Rangeland Ecology & Management scientific journal.

The research found grazing as managed by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in the area made no difference on the prevalence of beneficial and undesirable plants.

Ocean Spray is asking the Food and Drug Administration to let it claim that cranberries may help prevent reoccurring episodes of urinary tract infections in women.

Cranberries have long been a folk remedy for such afflictions. The Massachusetts-based grower cooperative hopes to move the claim from “old wives’ tale” to one that the government recognizes has a scientific basis, Ocean Spray spokeswoman Kellyanne Dignan said Tuesday.

“We really want to have a clear message to consumers,” she said.

Ocean Spray petitioned the FDA in September to use the claim in its advertising. The FDA has indicated it will make a decision by Oct. 5 and recently put the request out for public review. As of Tuesday, the FDA had not received any comments. The comment period ends May 7.

Ocean Spray, whose members include growers in Washington and Oregon, seeks to make a “qualified health claim.” Scientific evidence must support the statement, though it doesn’t have to meet a more rigorous standard to make an “authorized health claim.”

The cranberry industry has been searching for ways to reduce a huge surplus that’s suppressing farmer income. The USDA is considering a petition by the Cranberry Marketing Committee to order that 5 percent of the 2017 crop be diverted from the market. The industry also has tried to brand itself as “America’s original superfruit.”

Dignan declined to say how much Ocean Spray spent preparing the petition to the FDA. Ocean Spray last fall announced it will spend $10 million over the next five years on researching the antibacterial properties of cranberries.

“Both Ocean Spray and the cranberry industry have talked about the health benefits for decades,” Dignan said. “This really is a continuation of that.”

The FDA does not have the authority to review claims by dietary supplements. Numerous products are marketed as containing cranberry concentrate and able to cleanse urinary tracts.

Ocean Spray is asking the FDA to use its authority under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act to permit a narrow claim. The claim is that the daily consumption of cranberries, cranberry juice, dried cranberries and powdered cranberry may help prevent ­— though not treat — recurring urinary tract infections in healthy women.

To back the claim, Ocean Spray stresses three studies that concluded women who received a daily dose of cranberry juice or capsules were 20 percent to 58 percent less likely to suffer a new infection than women who took a placebo.

Ocean Spray funded the most recent and largest of the three studies. Some 185 women with a history of recent infections drank cranberry juice, while 188 women were served a placebo. After 24 weeks, 39 of the women who drank cranberry juice suffered new infections, compared to 67 women who drank the placebo, according to an abstract of an article published in 2016 in the American Society for Nutrition.

The study’s authors were associated with Ocean Spray, Boston University School of Medicine and Biofortis Clinical Research, a research organization based in Illinois. They concluded that drinking cranberry juice lowered the number of new infections in healthy women.

Ocean Spray’s petition acknowledged two studies that failed to find that connection.

In one of the studies, conducted at the University of Michigan, Ocean Spray served the cranberry juice. It also formulated the placebo that had the flavor and color of cranberry juice but no cranberry content, according to a 2011 article in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The other study that failed to find that cranberries prevented infections was led by a University of Washington researcher and was published in 2012 in the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

BANDON - Growing up in a small Latino community in California, Dawn Churchill started at about age 10 helping her neighborhood grandmothers put tamales together for local fundraisers. That sense of camaraderie formed the way Churchill still looks at the…

MADRAS, Ore. (AP) — An animal-rights group says it’s buying billboard space along U.S. Highway 26 to memorialize 14 calves that died last week when the truck they were riding in rolled onto its side outside Madras.

The billboard will feature a cow next to the words “I’m ME, Not MEAT. See the individual. Go Vegan.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals spokeswoman Amber Canavan tells The Bulletin newspaper that the billboard space will be rented for one month, and the organization hopes the advertisement gets at least one person to consider going vegan.

She says the nonprofit bought similar billboards following recent cattle truck crashes in Tennessee and Louisiana.

Oregon’s current water supply outlook doesn’t evoke optimism but early spring conditions were even worse before the severe drought of 2015, experts say.

The average snowpack level is now at about 64 percent of average statewide, compared to about 17 percent of average three years ago, said Scott Oviatt, Oregon snow survey supervisor for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We really had no snow, especially in the northwestern part of the state,” he said.

Oregon got off to an excellent start last autumn — with snowpack levels at 236 percent of average statewide before Thanksgiving — but the situation has since deteriorated, Oviatt said during the March 15 meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

Precipitation is at 90 percent of average, which is similar to 2015, he said.

The water supply outlook would have been gloomier this year if not for below-average temperatures in February, which allowed snow levels to build up somewhat, said Andy Bryant, hydrologist with the National Weather Service.

Snow accumulation is much better in the northern Columbia River basin of Washington and British Columbia, Bryant said. “We’ve been kind of left out of the storm activity for most of winter.”

Looking to future weather conditions, there’s “not a lot to hang your hat on” in Oregon’s long-range forecast, Bryant said.

There’s an equal likelihood that temperatures and precipitation will be above average, average or below average in April, May and June, he said. In July, August and September, though, the projection is for rainfall to be below average and temperatures to be above average.

Fortunately, major water storage reservoirs across Oregon are in respectable shape — from about 81 percent of average in the Willamette basin to 131 percent of average in the Owyhee basin, said Ken Stahr, OWRD’s surface water and hydrology manager.

“Through wise management, we had a decent amount of carryover,” Stahr said.

Diminishing snowpacks are a long-term trend in the West, said Kathie Dello, associate director of the Oregon Climate Change Research Institute at Oregon State University.

Since 1955, the region’s snowpack level on April 1 has fallen by the equivalent of Lake Mead — a major storage reservoir on the Colorado River — as measured in water content, she said.

“Our cold winters aren’t as cold as they used to be, and our warm winters are warmer,” Dello said.

Wednesdays

Laws governing dam safety in Oregon have become outdated, prompting state regulators to seek upgraded authority to inspect and order repairs to the structures.

In the next legislative session, the Oregon Water Resources Department plans to ask lawmakers to revise dam safety statutes that were originally written nearly 90 years ago.

The ability to enter property without a warrant to conduct dam inspections is one request the agency is considering, said Racquel Rancier, senior policy coordinator for OWRD.

Currently about a dozen dams in Oregon haven’t been inspected by OWRD in recent years because the landowners denied entry to their property, said Keith Mills, the department’s dam safety engineer.

Oregon has jurisdiction over dams that are at least 10 feet high and store more than 9.2 acre-feet of water, he said. The state inspects 969 such structures, while the federal government inspects 285 dams.

More than 25 percent of state- and federally-inspected dams in Oregon are rated as high or significant hazards, which is based on their potential to cause lost life and property damage, rather than physical condition.

Following are other dam safety laws under consideration:

• Landowners may be required to obtain OWRD’s permission to modify or remove dams under the supervision of an engineer, to ensure such changes are done safely.

• The agency may impose a requirement for people building lagoons — such as those storing manure or wastewater — to submit their final designs to OWRD before starting construction. The department now lacks authority for structures that don’t involve water rights.

Currently, OWRD must automatically schedule an administrative hearing when dam repairs are needed, which the agency considers a time-consuming process that could endanger public safety.

The agency may instead require the dam owner to get an “engineering analysis” of the structure without scheduling a hearing, or to hold a hearing only if the owner objects to the repair plans.

Under another proposal, the agency may order the immediate correction of unsafe conditions at potentially hazardous dams by reducing water levels, opening valves or taking similar actions.

“That is something we can’t currently do if we know it needs to be done,” Rancier said.

Imposing civil penalties for dam safety problems would provide an “intermediary” approach to induce needed repairs, rather than the only current option of imposing an order, she said.

“They really only provide a hammer,” Rancier said of current laws.

At this point, these ideas are only in draft form and will be refined based on feedback, she said.

Oregon’s water regulators are rapidly spending the $835,000 they have available for litigation and may go nearly $1.3 million over budget in the 2017-2019 biennium.

A request for more litigation funds was recently turned down by Oregon lawmakers, which means the Oregon Water Resources Department will probably ask the Legislature’s Emergency Board for money later this year.

If OWRD can’t get additional litigation funds, the agency will have to delay replacing employees who have left, though it has yet to determine how many positions would remain unfilled, said Racquel Rancier, the department’s senior policy coordinator.

About $600,000 was spent on litigation within the first seven months of the biennium, which was roughly two-thirds of the money allocated for two full years of legal battles, Rancier said March 15 during a meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees the agency.

Litigation costs have averaged about $86,000 a month, so funds are expected to run out soon — particularly since several cases may go to trial, increasing the expense, she said.

At the current rate, OWRD is projected to spend about $2.1 million on litigation in the current biennium.

The agency has a legislatively adopted budget of $98.6 million for 2017-2019, down from $107.4 million for the previous biennium.

Litigation over water has increased mostly due to more regulatory calls cutting off water to junior irrigators in the Klamath Basin, where an “adjudication” over the validity of water rights was completed in 2013, Rancier said.

Since the lawsuits are generally initiated against OWRD, the agency doesn’t have control over the costs. The problem is also growing worse: 25 new cases were filed against OWRD in 2015-2017, up from 13 new cases in 2013-2015 and 5 new cases in 2011-2013.

OWRD plans to continue discussing the issue with lawmakers to convey what services the agency can’t perform as a result of delayed hiring, Rancier said.

The agency plays a key role in Oregon irrigation by administering the state’s water rights system, such as approving wells, diversions, leases and transfers.

When the agency issues a water call, a junior irrigator can stay enforcement of that regulation by filing a lawsuit, said Tom Byler, OWRD’s director.

OWRD can lift such an enforcement stay — as it did last year — but the process can take several weeks, during which a senior water user’s rights are infringed, he said.

The ability to postpone water rights enforcement through litigation has long been “on the books,” but has only recently been used this way, Byler said.

“It’s troubling for us because it really undermines the prior appropriations doctrine,” he said, referring to the “first in time, first in right” system of Western water law.

LEBANON, Ore. — After four years of plowing through USDA and EU protocols, Martin and Joy Dally have welcomed the births of the first Valais Blacknose cross lambs at their farm.

The first to import the genetics into the U.S., the Dallys say they are eager to see them flourish in he U.S.

Martin Dally operates Super Sire Ltd., which offers genetics for the sheep industry, and Joy Dally operates Shepherd’s Lane, which deals in fiber, fleece and pelts from their farm.

The Valais Blacknose sheep, a heritage breed native to the Swiss Alps, is small and cute enough to look at home in any toy store. As is most Swiss livestock, the people-friendly Valais graze in the mountains all summer and are brought down to the valleys in traditional sheep drives and kept housed through the winter.

“It was 2014 when we first saw a photo of a Valais, and it was love at first sight,” Joy Dally said. “We knew we had to have them. Knowing that the sheep had recently been imported into the (United Kingdom), we began our search for breeders there.

“Our knowledge of importing genetics was put to work and after countless phone calls, international flights and filling out reams of paperwork, the semen arrived on U.S. soil,” she said. “We now are the first in the country to have lambs on the ground.”

Before he retired and moved to Oregon, Martin Dally spent most of his 25-year career at University of California-Davis directing the sheep research programs at the Hopland Research and Extension Center.

As one of the first people in the U.S. to use laparoscopic insemination as a means of improving reproduction and genetics in sheep — in 1986 — his main love is breed preservation and the development of fiber sheep.

“It is important to pick a foundation breed that has traits similar to the breed you are introducing,” Martin said. “A likely choice would be the Scottish Blackface as they also have the black face, coarse wool and both the rams and ewes are horned. Our Scotties weren’t ready yet so we used the Teeswater and Gotland ewes for this project.”

The Teeswater has similar face coloration and fiber, though the breed is a little flightier in nature than the calm Valais, he said.

“The Gotlands, which have great mothering instincts and milk well, share the Valais’ calm temperament,” he said. “It is going to be interesting to see how the breed develops over the years.”

He is also lending his knowledge and experience to others who have a similar desire to establish high-quality sheep in the U.S.

“I classify myself as a steward of these new breeds and establishing sound upgrading programs is part of introducing a new breed,” Martin said. “Good guidelines are very important as every deviation leads breeders farther away from the breed’s desired characteristics. Creating a sound gene pool ensures the breeds health and success in the coming years.”

Joy is spearheading a group effort to organize a Valais Blacknose Sheep Society and website with the idea of bringing potential breeders together as the new breed gets a foothold in the U.S.

“This isn’t a breed that commercial breeders in the United States are likely to run three to four hundred head of, but because of its visual appeal and calm nature, I do believe it will be one that may be added to the small farm flocks for its fiber and appearance,” she said. “We expect the fiber, which is a little course but has a bright luster, to take dye well and will be well-suited to outerwear, weaving or felt design. I will also caution to add that as good as the fleece is, if you are going to wear Valais Blacknose underwear, you are a real man.”

Online

For more information on Valais Blacknose sheep or Martin’s services visit www.valaisblacknosesheepsociety.org, Super Sire Ltd at www.toprams.com or Valais Blacknose Sheep Oregon on Facebook.

Oregon State University Extension is adding several crop-specific pest management plans to its repertoire, working in collaboration with farmers, researchers, agribusiness and industry representatives.

The latest report on Treasure Valley onions in southeast Oregon and southwest Idaho was published last month in the OSU Extension Catalog. It identifies management priorities and critical needs for major pests including onion maggots, thrips, bulb mites and cutworms.

A 24-member work group met in February 2017 to discuss the issues they are facing at every stage of the crop’s development. Farmers grow 20,000 acres of dry bulb onions in the Treasure Valley, which accounts for 30 percent of U.S. production and up to $140 million in annual farm gate value.

Katie Murray, program leader for the Integrated Plant Protection Center at OSU, said the management plan is not a how-to guide, but a road map for the university and industry to learn what growers need to do a better job.

“We’re trying to open their toolbox,” Murray said. “It kind of helps to show where the gaps are.”

Among the top-priority critical needs were developing a pest management risk index to minimize crop damage, increasing resistance management education for growers and developing more pest-resistant onion varieties.

“Part of what they were wanting was a more holistic view of whole-season management,” Murray said.

Integrated pest management planning is typically funded by the USDA. In 2016, Murray applied for additional funding from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s Crop Protection and Pest Management Program to develop plans that she said takes a different tack on the conversation using the “PAMS” approach — which stands for “Prevention, Avoidance, Monitoring and Suppression.”

“Basically, we’ve changed the way we talk about current management,” she said.

Murray was awarded $215,000 in 2016 to develop pest management plans for onions, as well as cranberries, cherries and hazelnuts. The cranberry plan was completed last summer, Murray said, while workshops for the cherry and hazelnut groups were held in January and February, respectively.

Like the onion plan, the other three crop reports will be published through the OSU Extension Service, Murray said, to maximize their outreach.

“I think it’s very clear the value,” she said. “Not only are we identifying (grower) needs, but getting those met by building a system that can respond to those.”

Murray said they have already received additional funding to continue the work, with plans slated for grass seed, mint, potatoes and pears.

Reports can be found online at www.catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu.

THE DALLES, Ore. — A grower, former fieldman and promoter of dwarfing cherry trees for more than two decades says more growers should adopt an Australian tree system to cut labor costs in half and grow large, top-quality cherries.

John Morton, 70, is bullish on the KGB. No, he’s not talking about Russians, but a goblet-style cherry tree developed in 1993 by Australian grower Kym Green. It is a takeoff of the Spanish Bush cherry tree — hence the Kym Green Bush, or KGB. It’s pedestrian, meaning it is harvested from the ground without ladders.

“The brine industry was the bulk of the cherry industry in Oregon in the early 1990s and prices were collapsing. We had a lot of old Bing and Royal Anns,” says Morton, an Oregon Cherry Growers fieldman from 1992 to 2009 and a grower since 2000.

Part of the problem was a labor shortage. The Dalles has a harder time attracting and keeping pickers since there were few pears and apples to extend picking after cherries, he said.

Looking for answers, the industry helped send Lynn Long, an Oregon State University Extension agent in The Dalles, to Europe in 1994.

“Europe was having the same problems of labor shortages and Lynn came back and reported on dwarfing cherry rootstocks that we didn’t know existed,” Morton said.

The next year, Morton headed a tour of 25 Cherry Growers members to Europe and saw smaller trees were easier to pick and resulted in higher picker production. They met Tobias Vogel, a German grower and extension agent, who developed the Vogel Spindle, a central leader dwarfing tree.

In 1997, Morton met Green at an international cherry symposium in Norway and learned about the KGB.

“John got it. He understood the principles I was teaching because I talked grower language and so did John,” said Green, 62, who spoke with Capital Press on Feb. 15 while visiting Morton in The Dalles.

Morton found Regina and Kordia cherries did well on the Vogel Spindle. Bing, Skeena and Lapin did not, but do well on the KGB.

Morton and Long became Oregon promoters of the two dwarfing systems, enlisting several visits from Green and Vogel. Several smaller growers in The Dalles turned to those systems and the manager of 3,000 acres of orchards for investment companies adopted a version of the KGB, Morton said.

Using the dwarfing systems in his orchards, Morton said by 2003 he was able to pick the same amount of fruit with 35 pickers that previously had required 75.

Morton believes more growers should consider the KGB and Vogel systems for labor savings and fruit quality. A legitimate question, he said, is whether Bing is becoming the Red Delicious of the cherry industry. There’s just too many on the market after the Fourth of July, he said.

“I left 240 tons of Bing on the trees last season because I couldn’t afford to pick them,” he said.

The KGB’s 25 leaders coming off the main trunk a couple feet above the ground in goblet fashion transfer the tree’s vigor from vegetation to fruit, Green said.

Cherries grow in clusters on the vertical leaders instead of horizontal limbs. The leaders have more sap flow, nutrients and water than lateral limbs and thus grow larger, firmer and better cherries, Green said. Summer topping at eight feet de-vigorates the tops and allows more light lower on the leaders, making stronger buds, he said.

It’s about six feet across open space from leaders on one side of the goblet to the other. Double planting rows and 600 trees per acre keeps volume up, he said.

“Some modern systems have 30,000 lineal yards of fruiting wood per hector whereas the KGB has 50,000 to 60,000, so double. It’s a lot more fruiting wood and less structural wood,” Green said. A hectare equals about 2.47 acres.

Growers in Chile also use it, he said.

The UFO (Upright Fruiting Offshoot) developed by Matthew Whiting, a Washington State University plant physiologist, is based on the KGB but is 10 leaders on a single stem in the same plane to form a fruiting wall for mechanical harvesting, Green said.

The UFO has too much vegetative vigor, about 10 percent per limb versus 4 percent for the KGB and 20 percent for a normal tree, he said.

“UFOs are monsters. To get volume you have to go higher and then you’re fighting the tree the whole time. It’s not a pedestrian orchard,” Green said. “Mechanical harvesting is way overrated. It’s like pissing in the wind. It won’t happen in our lifetime.”

Whiting disagrees. He said the UFO was not developed from the KGB, is not too vigorous, does not yield “monster” trees and that mechanical harvesting is a proven possibility.

“Industry adoption is inevitable,” Whiting said of mechanical harvesting, adding the UFO is designed for production efficiency, not just mechanized harvest.

“We have data to show better hand harvest efficiency in UFO compared to KGB,” he said. “I am against any pedestrian system for sweet cherries because it will unnecessarily limit yield and profit.”

He said his observations do not support Green’s per limb vigor percentages.

“The biggest challenge is achieving relatively uniform vigor among uprights and knowing the right balance of uprights per tree to be neither excessively vigorous nor weak in annual growth,” Whiting said.

“The KGB is certainly not better in general. I do not think growers should be turning to any system that does not form a compact fruiting wall,” he said.

Roughly 50 percent of Washington’s cherries come from low-density orchards of large old trees. New plantings are not mainly UFO, but many are V-trellised, Whiting said. There is a great diversity in systems with a clear trend toward higher-density, size-controlling rootstocks and planar systems, he said.

Mark Hanrahan, husband of Ines Hanrahan, postharvest physiologist for the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission, is a proponent of the UFO system, which he began using 15 years ago in his orchard near Zillah, Wash. He uses it on 40 acres of Rainier, Santina, Tieton, Cowiche, Early Robin and Chelan cherries.

The UFO fruits on vertical leaders but people let it fruit on laterals as well, he said.

“I’ve seen a lot of train wrecks because of apical (central leader) dominance is so strong. You want the strong leader at the end,” he said.

The SSA (Super Spindle Axis) tree style also is good, and any planar system is better than the KGB because they can be mechanically harvested while the KGB can’t, he said. He also believes cherries will be mechanically harvested.

While there’s still debate over the KGB, UFO and other systems, Morton’s interest in innovation hasn’t stopped there.

He’s experimented with rain netting used in Europe but determined it’s too expensive. It works in Europe because governments pay half the costs, he said.

Morton has been testing new varieties owned by private nurseries but bred in university programs in East Germany, Czechoslovakia and Hungary before the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.

“A lot of good cherry breeding was done there before the fall of the Berlin Wall but it was never promoted,” he said. “So we’ve been sorting through and testing varieties from there for a number of years.”

It’s a slow process, he said. Material comes in under quarantine to the WSU Clean Plant Center Northwest in Prosser.

John Morton

Age: 70

Origins: Born and raised in Sweet Home, Ore., and spent summers on his grandparents’ wheat ranch near Pendleton, Ore.

Family: Wife, Doriene, a retired nurse, four grown children, seven grandchildren.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in agricultural engineering, Oregon State University, 1971.

Work History: Western Farm Service (fertilizer), Athena, Ore., 1971 to 1982; managed center-pivot farms for insurance companies in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington, 1982 to 1988; spray manager Mt. Adams Orchards, White Salmon, Wash., 1988 to 1992; The Dalles fieldman for Oregon Cherry Growers, 1992 to 2009; cherry grower since 2000.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to time served and two years of supervised release for his role in the 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports Joseph O’Shaughnessy was sentenced Thursday.

O’Shaughnessy’s lawyer sought one year of supervised release, while prosecutors asked for two. O’Shaughnessy, who was part of the occupation security detail, previously agreed to pay $7,000 in restitution.

He pleaded guilty in the case in 2016 and then awaited trial in the 2014 standoff near Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s ranch.

O’Shaughnessy spent a total of 1 year and 9 months in custody for both cases.

He declined to make a statement in court but told the newspaper afterward that he was pleased with the outcome.

He said he won’t be doing any more protesting.

Ocean conditions off the Pacific Northwest seem to be returning to normal after a three-year spike in water temperature.

It’s promising long-term news for fishermen who are looking ahead in the short term to yet another year of low salmon returns.

A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) outlined the latest ocean observations for the organization that sets salmon catch limits off the West Coast. The Pacific Fishery Management Council will set those limits in early April.

The extended marine heatwave of the past few years has been nicknamed “the Blob.”

“The high pressure system over the North Pacific basically got stalled out and stuck there. And so the ocean warmed up about 6 degrees Fahrenheit,” NOAA’s Toby Garfield said.

Then a strong El Niño came through that reinforced these conditions.

“There have been a number of these events, these marine heat waves, that have occurred in the North Pacific. But the one we had in ‘13, ‘14, ‘15 was the by far the largest in the record going back 45 years,” Garfield said.

And the effect on sea life was serious. Whales, sea lions and seabirds starved because the warm water didn’t support tiny nutrition-rich plankton called copepods at the base of the food chain.

Within the past year, the El Niño effect has dissipated, and other longer-term climate cycles are shifting back toward a more average level.

“We finally saw some of those northern, fat copepods off the coast of Oregon, which was a very good signal,” said Jennifer Fisher, a researcher with NOAA and Oregon State University. “But the caveat to that is that we saw that transition for only a couple months.”

Fisher says they will test again this coming summer to see if the trend holds.

Fisher’s tempered optimism is not unique. Elsewhere scientists are still finding lingering effects of the Blob.

“If you look in the North Pacific, the deep water is still very warm,” Toby Garfield said. “Which means there’s still a lot of heat being stored.”

In addition, last summer, there was a major low-oxygen event that caused crab die-offs. Warm water species, like the gelatinous pyrosomes, continue to linger off the Northwest coast. And the number of reported cases of whales entangled in near-shore fishing gear remained high — an indication they are being forced to find food outside their normal hunting grounds.

Overall, the cooler water temperatures federal scientists began seeing in 2017 should mean some improvement in Northwest fisheries in the coming years — including salmon. But NOAA says it will take a few years for the salmon to respond to the decline of the Blob. 

The return to more normal conditions is promising, but the West Coast fishing industry is still cautious.

“The problem is that normal itself appears to be changing because of long-term climate change. We have a lot of problems in the ocean and a lot of changes in the ocean, and those are very worrisome,” said Glen Spain with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations.

The NOAA report flags Oregon’s Port Orford and Washington’s Tokeland as the Pacific Northwest’s most socially and economically vulnerable to downturns in the commercial fishing industry.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski and a bipartisan group of senators are pushing legislation that would allow legal marijuana businesses to use banks to store profits.

Murkowski and Democrat Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon have introduced a measure within the Secure and Fair Enforcement Banking Act that Merkley sponsored last year, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Thursday.

The measure would prevent federal officials from being able to punish banks simply “because the depository institution provides or has provided financial services to a cannabis-related legitimate business.”

Many banks refuse to do business with marijuana growers, processors and sellers because marijuana is still a controlled substance under federal law.

“While there are financial institutions which will bank marijuana-related businesses, many are uncertain about the state of the law,” Murkowski said. “The SAFE Banking Act is intended to resolve these uncertainties, not only for the benefit of the marijuana businesses but also for the states that regulate them.”

Murkowski said that allowing marijuana businesses to set up bank accounts could help states manage the businesses better.

“States that have moved to legalize marijuana did so with the understanding that markets would be well-regulated and transparent,” Murkowski said.

Murkowski said other officials have expressed similar views.

“That is why a number of attorneys general, including Alaska’s, believe that it is urgent for Congress to clarify that marijuana and marijuana-related businesses that operate legally under state law can deposit their receipts in the bank, just as other lawful businesses do,” Murkowski said.

In January, Murkowski spoke out in favor of state’s rights after U.S Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded the Cole Memorandum, put in place by former President Barack Obama to ease federal prosecutions of state-compliant cannabis businesses.

The legislation, currently being discussed by Senate committee, could prove to be a welcome change for Alaska’s cannabis industry.

“If that passes, it’s going to be a huge deal for us,” said Lenin Lau, bookkeeper at GOOD AK Cannabis in Fairbanks. “It’s going to lower a lot of expenses for us if we no longer have to hand-deliver cash to different locations.”

Locks at the Ice Harbor and Lower Monumental dams will return to service a week later than planned due to repairs, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

On March 3, all eight Corps navigation locks on the lower Columbia and lower Snake Rivers were closed to recreational and commercial river traffic for routine annual maintenance, inspection and repairs.

Ice Harbor, near Burbank, Wash., at Snake River mile 10, and Lower Monumental, near Kahlotus, Wash., at Snake River mile 41, were previously scheduled to reopen their locks March 18 but will now reopen March 25.

Work on the lock drain-fill valves at Ice Harbor will require the additional week to complete, according to the Corps. Inspection of Lower Monumental’s upstream gate’s lower seal indicates it has sustained damage from floating river debris and needs to be replaced.

Other locks in the Walla Walla District remain on schedule to reopen as originally planned — McNary at 11:59 p.m. on March 18 and Lower Granite and Little Goose at 11:59 p.m. March 25.

“The additional days are necessary to perform non-routine work, which will require more time to complete than the typical two-week-long routine maintenance outage,” the Corps stated in a press release.

The Union County District Attorney’s Office in northeast Oregon has dismissed poaching charges against a 58-year-old wildlife trapper who shot and killed a juvenile female wolf caught in one of his traps last December.

David Sanders Jr., of Elgin, Ore., appeared Feb. 26 in Union County Circuit Court where the state agreed to dismiss one count of unlawfully killing a “special game status mammal” stemming from the incident. Sanders did plead guilty to one additional count of using unbranded traps, and was sentenced to 24 months bench probation, 100 hours of community service and a $7,500 fine.

Sanders will also have his hunting and trapping license suspended for 36 months, forfeit his firearm and all trapping-related items seized during the investigation, and pay $1,000 to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife.

Sanders declined to comment when contacted by the Capital Press.

According to Oregon State Police, a trooper first discovered the trapping site off of Highway 204 west of Elgin on Dec. 10 in the Umatilla National Forest. The trooper observed and identified Sanders as the individual who set the traps.

Eight days later, the trooper returned and found a dead wolf that appeared to have been shot not far from the traps. Sanders later admitted he shot the wolf after he found the animal in his trap, though he insisted he was only attempting to trap bobcats, not wolves.

Wolves were removed from the state endangered species list in Eastern Oregon, though it is still illegal to shoot them except in specific cases, such as if a rancher finds a wolf attacking livestock or in defense of human life.

Sanders was also using unbranded traps, for which he had a previous violation out of Baker County Justice Court in 2016.

Union County District Attorney Kelsie McDaniel said the state did not view the case as an instance of poaching, but rather illegal trapping. Based on the investigation, she said it was clear that Sanders was not out to illegally hunt wolves, but made a bad choice regarding his trapping activities. Sanders should have called ODFW right away, McDaniel said.

The incident further demonstrates the fact that the problem with wolves is not going away, McDaniel added. In October 2017, 38-year-old Brian Scott, of Clackamas, Ore., shot and killed a wolf in Union County during an elk hunting trip, which he told authorities was charging at him. No charges were filed in that case.

“We are seeing more and more incidents of wolf predation and human interaction in Union County,” McDaniel said in a statement. “This issue has long been a challenge for local ranchers, and with the number of wolves in the area more visible, people are engaging in recreation and having dangerous and accidental encounters as well.”

Rob Klavins, northeast Oregon field coordinator for Oregon Wild, said McDaniel’s comments were troubling, and appeared to frame poaching as a wolf problem rather than a human problem.

Klavins, who lives and works in neighboring Wallowa County, also questioned whether the punishment Sanders received was sufficient enough to act as a deterrent in future cases. He said the state needs to get more serious about tackling poaching, especially when it comes to wolves, which he said are often persecuted and misunderstood.

“We know poaching is a serious problem in Oregon,” Klavins said. “For far too long, poachers have been able to escape justice in Oregon.”

While poaching is widely seen as a reprehensible crime, he said the conversation tends to shift in some communities around native carnivores, with the prevailing attitude of “shoot, shovel and shut up.”

“It starts there,” Klavins said. “We see the problem then continue on through underfunded law enforcement, insufficient penalties and decisions left in the hands of local elected officials who see poaching as a wolf problem.”

PROSPECT, Ore. — Ted Birdseye admits he has been fascinated with wolves since he was a kid, but now as a rancher, he’s not interested in feeding them.

That was the case, however, in early January on his Mill-Mar Ranch, a cow-calf and hay operation that is located near the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on the west side of the Cascade Mountains and is several miles from the small communities of Prospect and Butte Falls, Ore.

Standing on the back deck of his home, Birdseye pointed north toward a couple of open pastures and then to the nearby forest. He said those were the sites of three confirmed wolf kills. They were just over a quarter mile from the deck.

On Jan. 3, a 550-pound calf was killed and when found, all of its internal organs had been eaten or dragged away. On Jan. 10, another calf was killed and on Jan. 11 a third calf was taken down. The latter two calves, both in the 300-pound range, were completely devoured, according to Birdseye.

John Stephenson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the primary wolf specialist for Oregon, confirmed that wolves were the predators in all three cases. These wolves are suspected to be the Rogue pack. Stephenson said there are seven to 12 wolves in that pack.

“What is the answer? There is none,” said the 65-year-old Birdseye, who studied animal and wolf behavior years ago while attending college.

“I’ve read historical trapping and ranching books and they all say the same thing … wolves are the scourge of stockmen,” the rancher said. “They kill. They are an apex predator. That is what they are programmed to do.”

Birdseye said he knew there were wolves in the area because back in November he heard a commotion outside his house at 4:30 in the morning. He stepped out his back door with a rifle and under a full moon, saw some of his cattle wedged in a corner of fencing and looking in the same direction. Through the scope of his rifle, Birdseye saw two wolves about 30 yards away.

“They were staring at the cattle, waiting for one to break away for the chase,” the rancher said.

Birdseye admitted he considered shooting at the wolves, which would have been an illegal act, but instead he shot over their heads. They instantly disappeared into the dark.

Although not confirmed as wolf kills, Birdseye said he has lost several other animals since moving to the ranch two years ago. Those include six cows, two registered Limonsin bulls, two Doberman Australian shepherd cattle dogs and a McNab-red heeler cross dog. He found one of the bulls and one of the cows dead, but has no evidence regarding their deaths or the disappearance of the other animals.

“It’s a paranoid situation,” he said.

Birdseye said he would like to co-exist with the wolves. But he has 200 mother cows and their calves to protect.

With Stephenson and his agency providing the labor and materials, about 2.5 miles of electric wire with red flagging has been stretched around the ranch’s pastures, with more wire still to be installed.

The wolves have not been back in the pastures since the Jan. 11 kill and the installation of the hot wire.

“We feel like it (wire) has been working,” Stephenson said. “We’re trying to get a permanent electric fence around the ranch. We’ve applied for the funding.”

Because a wolf in the Rogue pack has a radio collar, the animals are being monitored.

“The wolves had been visiting the ranch every eight to 10 days in November, December and early January,” said Stephenson who has kept Birdseye informed of the pack’s movements when it is in the vicinity of the ranch.

The biologist said there is still plenty of wildlife in the woods for the wolves to dine on, “but our experience from other areas show when the pack gets larger it is more likely to prey on livestock because there are more mouths to feed.”

“And younger teenage wolves seem to have a tendency to get into trouble,” he added.

Stephenson said there has been a breeding pair of wolves in the southern Cascades since the spring of 2014. In the fall of 2016, there were a couple calves killed in the Wood River Valley north of Klamath Lake on the east side of the Cascades. Stephenson said it is believed wolves were the predators, but it couldn’t be confirmed.

A light system that randomly goes on during the night was used in the Wood River Valley pastures. Stephenson also spent a few nights in those pastures and he did the same in January on Birdseye’s Mill-Mar Ranch.

“We try to give the appearance of human presence in these places where wolves have come into,” the biologist said. “Wolves generally don’t come into pastures if there’s human activity around. They tend to avoid people.”

To co-exist with the wolves and to still make an income, Birdseye said he has considered transitioning to a hay operation only or to having only stocker calves that he would graze through the summer and then ship, limiting younger livestock on his ranch. But he has Forest Service permits that he doesn’t want to lose, and he would if he didn’t use them.

Birdseye also has two Tibetan Mastiff dogs that roam the property and are protective of it. There are also 15 horses, including a couple of mustangs, in the pastures and they also can be a deterrent to wolves.

Stephenson said Birdseye will be compensated for the three calves that the wolves killed. The biologist added that the Mill-Mar Ranch presents a challenge regarding wolves because of its mountainous location and because its livestock is closest to where the predators have been.

“We’ll probably see problems at other ranches over time,” Stephenson said.

Three environmental groups are suing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Marine Fisheries Service for failing to protect dwindling populations of wild Chinook salmon and winter steelhead in Oregon’s Upper Willamette River.

The complaint, filed March 13 in Portland by WildEarth Guardians, the Native Fish Society and Northwest Environmental Defense Center, accuses the agencies of “missed deadlines, postponed actions and poor communications” over the past decade in managing each of 13 Willamette Project dams for the benefit of fish.

The dams are the primary cause of salmon and steelhead declines in the Upper Willamette Basin, blocking hundreds of miles of spawning habitat and degrading water quality and habitat downstream, according to the lawsuit.

Research conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that, historically, around 325,000 Chinook salmon and 220,000 winter steelhead swamp up Willamette Falls to spawn in the upper river basin. Last year, the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife counted 822 steelhead at Willamette Falls — a startling decline of 99.7 percent.

ODFW also counted 36,628 spring Chinook and 3,462 fall Chinook in 2017. However, the groups contend that just 5,880 of the fish were wild born, with the rest raised in hatcheries.

Marlies Wierenga, Pacific Northwest conservation manager for WildEarth Guardians, said hatchery-born salmon are different from wild salmon at a genetic level. Hatchery fish are less disease-resistant, don’t reproduce as well and are less adaptable to the environment, she said.

“Basically, their entire resilience is diminished,” Wierenga said.

Both Upper Willamette steelhead and Chinook salmon were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999. In 2008, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion directing the Corps to make structural and operational changes at the dams to stem fish losses. However, the groups argue the Corps still has not fulfilled many obligations set forth in the BiOp.

“Nearly 10 years ago, NMFS determined the Corps’ operation of the Willamette dams was likely to jeopardize Chinook and steelhead unless significant changes to the Willamette dam operations were made,” said Mark Riskdahl, executive director of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center. “NMFS told the Corps that fish passage was a high priority, yet the Corps has dragged its feet in meeting this requirement and others set by NMFS.”

Spokesmen for the Corps and National Marine Fisheries Service declined to comment on pending litigation.

The Willamette Project also stores 80,431 acre-feet of irrigation water for 42,675 acres of farmland. Changes to the system could have a significant impact on downstream farmers, said Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

“ESA lawsuits around federal system management are very terrifying for farmers,” Cooper said. “We know how quickly they can change the status quo if we’re not careful.”

Cooper said the Farm Bureau is keeping a close eye on the litigation, which could have a ripple effect on water allocation. Marion County leads Oregon in total value of agricultural products as of the most recent 2012 Census of Agriculture, at more than $592 million.

While Cooper argues the system is already being managed largely for fish, the lawsuit claims the Corps has “routinely dodged actions, skipped deadlines and sidelined state and federal agencies to avoid improving fish passage at the dams on the Willamette.”

Wierenga, with WildEarth Guardians, said the dramatic declines in historical fish numbers represent a failure in action and the lawsuit is intended to spur meaningful action.

“It would be a heartbreaking loss if we Oregonians let these culturally important fish, which have adapted and thrived here for generations, slip away from existence on our watch,” Wierenga said.