SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Now that his stint at the Oregon State Fair is over, a prize-winning steer will soon be feeding the needy.

The Salem Statesman-Journal reports that Cascade High School students have been raising the steer, named Red Box, with the intention to donate his beef to the Marion-Polk Food Share, where it will head to a food bank so they can give back to their neighbors.

Red Box weighs 1,070 pounds, and students say they expect him to be larger when he’s butchered Sept. 23. They are fundraising for another $200 to offset the cost of getting his beef U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected.

Red Box was crowned grand champion feeder calf at the Marion County Fair. He took third place in the market steer class against other student groups showing at the Oregon State Fair.

SALEM — Ag youth at its best was on display opening day at the 150th annual Oregon State Fair.

While 4-H Club and FFA exhibitors worked with their animals in the stalls, pens and show rings, the 2015 FFA officers positioned themselves up front in an information booth and orchestrated much of the action.

They arrived before the fair started to help exhibitors move into the barns and they will stay after it’s over to help exhibitors move out.

They were there to answer questions from the public and sent runners to the nearby FFA staff trailer if they didn’t have the answer.

“Our focus this year is to help educate the public about FFA and its youth in the future of agriculture,” Luis Mendoza, state FFA president, said. “We are doing a lot of that here in our information booth here in the barn. We are also getting some new chapters started like reopening one at McKay High School in Salem and a new one in Portland that is excited about developing a rooftop garden project.”

Mendoza said about 330 exhibitors from the 35 to 40 FFA chapters are involved in the fair this year who are showing an average of two to three animals each. In addition, 20 members are competing in tractor driving, 20 in livestock judging and another 10 in horse judging.

“These exhibitors are proud to show off their hard work on their projects and they love earning and taking home the champion ribbons to prove it,” Emily Krazberger, associate director of Oregon FFA programs, said. “We’re all really proud of our state FFA officers for doing a great job of coordinating everything. They are extremely passionate about the future of agriculture and it shows in everything they do. They are doing a great job representing agriculture.”

The National FFA Organization is dedicated to making a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success through agricultural education.

For more information

Call 541-737-2395 or email Emily@oregonffa.com.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Crews fighting a large, home-wrecking wildfire south of John Day, Oregon, caught a break as cooler weather, lighter winds and even a bit of rain helped them get ahead of the flames.

John Kennedy is the planning operations section chief on the Canyon Creek Complex, which has destroyed more than 40 homes and burned 158 square miles since Aug. 12.

Strong winds got the weekend off to a difficult start, but Kennedy says Sunday’s change in the weather gave firefighters a chance to “close doors on the fire.”

The forecast calls for mild temperatures all week, with highs in the low-to-mid 80s Monday and Tuesday and then no more than 70 degrees through Saturday.

Firefighters were able to connect control lines on the southeast corner of the fire, and Kennedy says the western and southern portions of the massive blaze are now mostly in a monitor and patrol status.

Overall, the wildfire was about 50 contained Monday morning. Nearly 1,000 people are battling it.

Despite the fact wheat yields were down substantially in the Willamette Valley and in areas of Eastern Oregon, for the most part, Oregon wheat growers weathered this summer’s drought in reasonable fashion, according to the state’s top cereal agronomist.

“I think overall things turned out OK, even given the dry weather that we had,” said Oregon State University Extension Cereals Specialist Mike Flowers. “For many people, we had more average yields and better test weight than what we had feared going into harvest.”

Looking across the state, Flowers said growers in Wasco and Sherman counties and in the Pendleton area were able to pull in average crops.

“Then, going up into the Walla Walla Valley, they caught some really timely rains,” Flowers said. “So even though they had a lower than average rainfall, when they did get the rain, it came at the right time. I would say they also cut close to an average crop.”

Then there were the down areas.

In the Willamette Valley, which accounted for about 100,000 of the state’s 900,000 wheat acres in 2015, yields were down about 20 percent, Flowers said.

“For winter wheat, most of the guys in the valley are looking for somewhere in that 120 to 130 (bushel-an-acre) range. I would say on average that this year we were probably closer to somewhere between 100 and 110,” Flowers said.

Yields in the drier areas of the east side apparently took even bigger hits.

“And as you get into the drier areas — Morrow, the western side of Umatilla — those guys are the ones that really got hurt,” Flowers said. He estimated that their yields were down between 40 and 50 percent and, in some cases, even more.

“When you only get 10 inches (of rain a year) and you knock 3 inches off of that, it makes a big difference,” he said.

Protein levels also fluctuated across the state, Flowers said, but, in general, stayed low.

“While yes, we do have areas that had high protein, we had large areas that had normal protein levels,” Flowers said. “I don’t think we are in that bad of shape as far as protein goes, compared to where we worried we would be.”

In soft white wheat, growers like protein levels of between 8.5 to 10 percent, Flowers said. Anything over 10 generally will need to be blended.

Looking forward, Flowers said the biggest need now for Oregon wheat is rain.

“Let’s just hope that we get some of this rain they are calling for,” he said on Aug. 26. “This is the second year that we are going into a dry fall, so rain is important.”

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — One of Oregon’s first hemp farmers says a lack of seed is making it tough to get going.

Josephine County Commissioner Cheryl Walker says that fertile seed is expensive and hard to come by, because the federal government prohibits imports. Harvesting machinery is expensive, and there is no plant in Oregon to process the plants into fiber, seed and oil.

“We are at the beginning stages of an industry,” she said. “It will probably be years before you see significant production. It might take five to seven years from that before we have an operating industry.”

This is the first year Oregon farmers can grow hemp, following the Legislature’s approval in 2009. Growing hemp without a federal permit was banned in 1970 due to its classification as a controlled substance and relation to marijuana. Hemp that is grown must contain less that 3 percent THC, the compound found in marijuana that makes you high.

Oregon is among 26 states that have removed barriers to hemp production, according to Vote Hemp, a group that advocates for the plant’s legal cultivation. The other states include Colorado, Washington, California, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, Vermont and West Virginia, it says.

National legislation is in the works to exclude industrial hemp from the Controlled Substances Act.

Walker figures it will take three years to save up enough homegrown seed on her farm south of Grants Pass to produce a crop big enough for traditional products — fiber, oil and seed.

Until then, she will send the flowers from her 500 plants to a local facility used by medical marijuana growers to extract compounds known as CBDs, which are also found in marijuana, but don’t get you high, and are believed to have medicinal qualities.

There are no hemp processing facilities in Oregon, and no one has applied for a permit, said Lindsay Eng, who oversees the hemp program for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Oregon’s hemp law was written to regulate it as an agricultural crop, with large fields of densely planted hemp grown for fiber, seed and oil, said Eng. Instead, the nine operations inspected by the department this year seem more interested in producing CBDs. Only a few met the minimum acreage of 2.5 acres laid out in the law.

Eng says the current law does not work well to regulate growers, who are growing small plots, sometimes in greenhouses, with the emphasis on flowers that contain the CBDs. So the department will get together with growers and policymakers to make recommendations to the Legislature for changes.

So far, Walker says she has been growing hemp seedlings in a greenhouse, and transplanting them to a field. The 700 plants she started with were barely enough to cover the state-mandated minimum of 2.5 acres. About 200 of them died as she experimented with irrigation methods. She expects to harvest the flowers in October, and chop the plants and turn them into compost.

“There’s a lot of money now in CBDs,” Walker said. “But if you want an industry that is long-term, a lot of us want to grow for fiber, which has huge potential. The problem is getting the seed.”

The new federal Clean Water Rule went into effect Friday in Washington, Oregon and California with agricultural groups still uncertain about whether the law will put farmers, ranchers and irrigation projects under more federal control.

Washington State Dairy Federation director of government relations Jay Gordon said he met in the morning with representatives from other farm groups and didn’t hear answers to questions he’s posed for months, including in meetings with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

“There was a lot of speculation and not a lot of clarity,” said Gordon, a Western Washington dairyman. “Until they arrest me, I guess I won’t worry about.”

The uncertainty about the rule extends to whether it’s actually in effect. North Dakota U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Erickson granted an injunction Thursday sought by 13 states, including Idaho, to delay the rule’s implementation. North Dakota’s attorney general, Wayne Stenehjem, said he believes the injunction applied to all 50 states.

The EPA asserts the injunction only applies to the 13 states and that the new rule went into effect in the other 37 states as scheduled, 60 days after it was published.

Gordon blasted the EPA for forging ahead rather than waiting for clarification from the judge and a ruling on the underlying issue — whether EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Water Act.

“It was immature behavior by the EPA,” he said. “They should have said, ‘We’ve got split decisions in the court. You know what? We’re not going to implement the rule today.’”

In response to an inquiry from the Capital Press, the EPA issued a statement saying it was evaluating the order and considering its next legal steps. EPA noted that U.S. District Courts in Georgia and West Virginia denied requests for injunctions.

All together, attorneys general in 28 states have sought to delay implementation. Washington, Oregon and California — all with Democratic attorney generals and governors — were not among the states.

“EPA is moving forward with implementation because the Clean Water Rule is fundamental to protecting and restoring the nation’s water resources that are vital for our health, environment and economy,” according to the agency’s statement.

The California Cattlemen’s Association director of government relations Kirk Wilbur said Friday the group is advising ranchers to be cautious about undertaking projects near water or places that are occasionally wet.

Ranchers should be wary about assurances from the EPA that the new rule won’t hinder agriculture, he said.

“When an agency is attempting to regulate you, it’s not always the smartest thing in the world to take their word for it,” Wilbur said.

Judge Ericksen, in his written opinion, stated that states were likely to prevail in seeking to permanently block the rule. The EPA rule positioned the agency to regulate “intermittent and remote wetlands” that have no connection to navigable waterways, he stated.

Wilbur said California’s state water pollution law already imposes strict standards, but agreed with Ericksen’s observation about the potential scope of the new federal rule.

“We don’t know to what extent the law will be enforced,” he said. “There’s a lot of ambiguity in the rule. You’re adding another level of bureaucracy.”

Oregon and Washington state agencies enforce federal and state water pollution laws, and officials in both states said the new federal rule won’t change their enforcement practices because they already have broadly defined the waters that must be protected.

“We do not think it will have a significant effect on how the state implements its various programs,” said Jennifer Wigal, Oregon Department of Environmental Quality’s water quality manager.

Washington Department of Ecology’s water quality manager, Heather Bartlett, also said the new EPA rule won’t change how DOE polices water pollution.

“The Legislature defined state waters over two decades ago,” she said in an email. “Ecology has used this state definition for any enforcement act. In addition, ecology retains enforcement discretion that we will continue to exercise.”

Washington Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice President Jack Field said the new rule may not change DOE’s actions, but it’s uncertain how EPA will wield the authority.

The EPA could interfere with DOE’s recent efforts to work with ranchers on protecting water, he said.

“The biggest question is what the EPA will do with expanded authority, and that’s anybody’s guess right now,” Field said.

The Washington, California, and Oregon cattlemen’s association have all joined federal suits by private groups against the new rule.

In a written statement, the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association said Friday that EPA should rescind and rewrite the rule.

The rule “because of its broad language, has the potential to take water management on private property away from landowners and threatens locally driven initiatives that are proven to be effective,” according to the association.

Stan Wangberg, general manager of the Anderson-Cottonwood Irrigation District in Northern California, said Friday he was trying to learn whether the new rule will require the district to obtain federal permits to clean and line with concrete irrigation ditches.

“I’ve been thinking about it for the past couple of days, and I don’t know,” he said.

PORTLAND — Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden said freeing up federal natural disaster money to fight fires, rather than dipping into the U.S. Forest Service’s operating budget, is the primary thing he wants to accomplish when Congress reconvenes in September.

Speaking during a briefing at the Northwest Coordination Center, which coordinates the air and ground response to wildfires in Oregon and Washington, Wyden said there is bi-partisan support in the Senate for the idea.

“We can’t have business as usual any longer,” Wyden said. “The business as usual has been that fire prevention always gets shortchanged.

“I have no higher priority this fall than of getting this fixed,” Wyden said.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, attending the briefing with Wyden, said 52 percent of the Forest Service’s budget is eaten up by fire suppression work, compared to 16 percent in 1995. At this rate of increase, responding to wildfires will take two-thirds of the agency’s budget within a few years, he said.

The Forest Service has seen a 115 percent increase in personnel assigned to fight fires, and a 38 percent decrease in people assigned to do everything else, Vilsack said.

As Wyden and Vilsack spoke, forest and rangeland officials have counted 3,382 fires in Oregon and Washington since June 1, with 1.4 million acres burned. Three firefighters died in Washington, and dozens of homes and outbuildings have been destroyed in the two states. To date, the fires have cost an estimated $370 million to fight, with nearly 11,000 firefighters deployed. Fire managers have counted nearly 60,000 lightning strikes this summer.

Wyden said much of the West has “just been slammed” by what he called a “terrible trifecta” of drought, high temperatures and an enormous build-up of fuel on the forest floor.

The legislation he favors would treat the largest fires as natural disasters, on par with hurricanes and floods and eligible for response and recovery funding from such agencies as FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

That would free up Forest Service money for its intended purpose such as increased thinning and salvage logging, which would reduce the intensity of fires by eliminating fuel.

Wyden, a liberal Democrat, said one of the key supporters is Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi, a conservative Republican. The Obama administration strongly supports the proposal, Wyden said.

During the briefing, Wyden and Vilsack were told the fire season is projected to last through October. Heavy rain was predicted to hit western Oregon and Washington the weekend of Aug. 29-30, but it wasn’t expected to reach the eastern side of both states, where the fires are raging. Instead, the system was likely to kick up fierce windstorms east of the Cascades, which could cause “extreme” fire behavior, said John Saltenberger, fire weather program manager for the Northwest Coordination Center.

Saltenberger said the first six months of 2015 were the warmest six-month period on record in the West since 1895. Fire season began about a month early; there were even some fires in the Oregon Coast Range in January, when the coast is normally socked-in and drizzly.

SALEM — Oregon has yet to burn through its firefighting budget, despite ongoing catastrophic wildfires around the state.

In what now appears to have been a prudent decision, lawmakers and a committee of forest landowners agreed earlier this year to more than double the amount of money budgeted for the Oregon Department of Forestry to fight fires to a total of $50 million annually.

“I’m pleased we did it,” said Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, a member of the budget-writing Ways and Means Committee. “We had been warned that fires this summer, with the kind of moisture that was predicted, could be pretty high.”

The size of the Canyon Creek fire in Grant County and the Grizzly fire in northeastern Oregon “are well over 120,000 acres and growing,” he said. “And I think we’ve probably got another several weeks or so at least until we get some good rain.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the Canyon Creek Complex near John Day had burned nearly 85,000 acres and the Grizzly Bear Complex had burned more than 68,000 acres in the Umatilla National Forest and private land in Oregon and Washington state. An additional 17 large wildfires continued to burn in other areas of the state Thursday, according to an interagency fire tracking website.

Oregon relies on a unique system to pay wildfire fighting costs. Property owners with land classified as forest pay a state assessment to help cover firefighting costs in addition to money the Legislature appropriates from the general fund. The state has also purchased an insurance policy most years since 1973 to help cover firefighting costs.

After two severe fire seasons, however, the state’s insurance deductible more than doubled from $20 million to $50 million. When lawmakers and forest landowners decided to purchase the policy earlier this year, they had to prepare to spend up to $50 million before they could tap into the $25 million insurance policy.

Rod Nichols, a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Forestry, said this week that the agency estimated its net spending this year at $26 million, when expected reimbursements from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other sources are factored in. Oregon spent an estimated total of $63 million to fight the wildfires, and fire officials so far expect to receive approximately $15 million in reimbursement from FEMA and $22 million from other federal sources.

“The main thing everyone is focused on now is getting the fires out,” Nichols said. “We cannot not respond to fires, so we just have to do it. That said, we’re spending a lot of money obviously from those figures.”

The state has to pay contractors in a timely manner, for example, to ensure they remain in business and can continue to work on the fires, Nichols said.

At the start of fire season, the Oregon Department of Forestry had 500 seasonal firefighters, 220 fire engines, 15 bulldozers and 14 aircraft. The state also had access to three 188 private contract hand crews, inmate hand crews from state prisons, three incident management teams and National Guard helicopters.

Oregon has since pulled in resources including additional fire crews, aircraft and fire managers from other states and Canadian provinces to fight the wildfires.

“Basically, the cupboard is bare, though some of the large fires are winding down and resources are starting to return from them,” Nichols wrote in an email.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — State regulators will hold a public hearing on the proposed expansion of five dairies around Oregon after multiple requests from Salem vegan groups.

The Statesman Journal reports that this will be the first hearing in more than four years on changes to Oregon confined animal feeding operations. The hearing is expected in September or October.

After 17 requests from activists, advisory groups are now looking at how the state can restrict information about such farms from being released to the public. Officials say farmers fear releasing permits puts them at risk from people who want to videotape, trespass or vandalize property.

Environmental groups say the state is following a trend of restricting information about farms to the public.

Eola Hills Wine Cellars west of Salem began picking grapes Aug. 26, marking one of the earliest starts to the Willamette Valley harvest on record.

The very early outlook: Another big harvest in terms of yield, and quality appears good as well, vineyard Manager Jim Huggins.

Crews picked Chardonnay grapes to make sparkling wine, and may pick Pinor noir grapes for sparkling wine on Friday, Huggins said.

Like multiple other Oregon crops, wine grapes are coming on about two weeks early due to an unusually warm, dry summer.

If weather conditions hold, the wine made from this year’s crop may rival the 2014 vintage, which winery managers described as outstanding.

“Typically when we get a lot of heat, the wines are big and bright,” Huggins said. “It really depends on how we end up the season.

“If rain sets in, a fantastic crop can turn into an average crop in pretty short order.”

In response to the long string of hot days, vineyard managers kept more fruit on the vine so the grapes wouldn’t ripen too quickly, Huggins said. The grapes are healthy, with very little disease pressure, he said.

“We’re very optimistic it will be a real nice year,” he said. “Certainly a big year, because there’s a lot of fruit hanging out there.”

Farther north, at Stoller Family Estate vineyard in Yamhill County’s famed Dundee Hills, vineyard manager Rob Schultz reported a similar outlook. Stoller also began picking Wednesday, harvesting Pinot noir grapes for sparkling wine.

“Things look good,” Schultz said. “We had no disease outbreak, no sunburn, no vine stress.

“I’m surprised,” he said. “With all the heat I anticipated more stress. But the vines are really happy, they like it warm and dry.”

Schultz agreed wine quality could be excellent, based on conditions now.

“I think if you liked 2014, you’ll love 2015 – very similar season,” he said.

Oregon’s hazelnut crop is projected to hit 39,000 tons this fall, an 8 percent increase over 2014, according to the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service in Portland.

The crop won’t be a record — the state produced 47,000 tons in 2009 and 45,000 tons in 2013 — but Oregon accounts for 99 percent of U.S. production and continues to add orchard acreage at a pace of 3,000 to 5,000 acres per year. The state has an estimated 40,000 acres of hazelnuts.

Whether the price for this year’s crop will approach the record set in 2014 is an open question. Last year, frost severely damaged the crop in Turkey, the world’s leading producer. Candy, nut spread and snack companies quickly sought other sources, and the price for Oregon nuts soared over $1.70 a pound as a result. At one point last fall, an Oregon grower estimated every nut on his trees was worth 1.3 cents.

Michael Klein, executive of Oregon Hazelnuts, an industry group, said Turkey’s crop this year appears to be average. Frost hit again, but not as badly as in 2014, he said.

Like many other crops this year, hazelnut harvest will likely happen two or three weeks earlier than normal, Klein said.

According to the NASS harvest projection, 87.2 percent of the Oregon nuts tested as “good” and the average dry weight was 3.17 grams, down from 3.23 grams recorded in 2014. About 43 percent of nuts tested by NASS were categorized as “large” and 36 percent as “jumbo.”

Hazelnuts are Oregon’s ninth leading crop, with a 2013 value of $120 million, according to NASS.

ONTARIO, Ore. — When it comes to assessing how well various onion varieties grow in the Treasure Valley area, Oregon State University’s annual onion variety trial field day is a top destination for growers, seed dealers and industry representatives.

The OSU onion variety field day is one of several held around the Pacific Northwest this week but it’s particularly popular because it provides an impartial look at how varieties fare against each other under the same growing conditions, said onion industry consultant Bob Komoto.

“The real key of the OSU trial is that it’s a third party and not a seed company,” said Komoto, the retired manager of an onion shipper-packer operation in Ontario. “They do all the varieties for all the seed companies so you get an unbiased view of what’s happening. Anybody that wants to sell an onion here in the valley is going to have their onion in this trial.”

OSU’s Malheur County experiment station each year plants about four dozen of the main onion varieties grown in the Treasure Valley of Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho, the nation’s top onion producing region by volume.

“They do a very good job of trialing all the varieties that ... are available for the Treasure Valley,” said Jon Watson, special projects manager for JC Watson Packing Co. “We’re looking for an onion that does well in the Treasure Valley and this trial gives us a good idea of how the different varieties grow on the ground here compared with each other.”

The field trial includes yellow, red and white varieties, which are grown under both furrow and drip irrigation. Each variety has a 23-foot-long plot and there are five replicates of each one.

Some of the onions are lifted from the field while others are still growing.

Researchers plant at a high seeding rate and thin the stand by hand so all the varieties have about the same plant population, said Erik Feibert, one of the project’s lead researchers.

“It costs a lot of money to do it that way but you get really good data,” he said. “All of the onions are grown under the same conditions in the same location in an unbiased way so industry can compare them.”

Bill Johnson said his farming operation plants one or two new onion varieties each year and the field trial helps him figure out what those varieties will be.

“There are a couple of varieties we haven’t grown before that I liked, some that had some really good consistency,” he said about this year’s trial.

How well the varieties store is also an important factor, he said, and the industry will be watching closely for the results when OSU researchers grade them for storability in January.

When Mike Britton answers the phone at his North Unit Irrigation District office in Central Oregon these days, the conversations take a quick turn.

“The first three words are, ‘I heard a rumor,...’” Britton said.

And so it goes. Environmental groups have warned they intend to file suit over Oregon spotted frog habitat, and patrons of multiple Deschutes River Basin irrigation districts worry the outcome will leave their land with less water and more restrictions.

Britton, the North Unit manager, scheduled a town hall meeting Wednesday, Aug. 26 in Madras, Ore., to talk things out, share information and get everyone on the same page. The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Madras Performing Arts Center on Southeast Buff Street.

Here’s the background: The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in August 2014 listed the Oregon spotted frog as “threatened” under the federal Endangered Species Act. The listing wasn’t a surprise; the frog has disappeared from an estimated 78 percent of its historic range, from Southwest British Columbia to Northern California.

Loss of its favored marsh habitat and introduction of predators such as bullfrogs are the primary reason for the frog’s decline. Fish & Wildlife proposed 22,600 acres in the Deschutes River Basin as “critical habitat.”

The Upper Deschutes in Central Oregon is one of the few places where the frogs can still be found, particularly in Crane Prairie and Wickiup Reservoirs and in the wetlands downstream from them and from Crescent Lake.

Irrigation districts, recognizing the potential impact of an Endangered Species Act listing, worked with Fish & Wildlife, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and other agencies and groups to develop a Habitat Conservation Plan for spotted frogs. Britton heads a group, the Deschutes Basin Board of Control, which represents eight irrigation districts in the process.

But this summer, the Center for Biological Diversity and WaterWatch of Oregon separately gave 60 days notice they would file suit against the Bureau of Reclamation, which built the Crane Prairie, Wickiup and Crescent Lake reservoirs, and against the North Unit, Central Oregon and Tumalo irrigation districts, which operate and manage the dams and reservoirs.

The lawsuits allege the bureau and districts have harmed spotted frogs. In a news release, WaterWatch said “managing the Deschutes more like an irrigation ditch than a river has caused significant damage to river health.”

WaterWatch said it is primarily concerned about the stretch of river from Wickiup downstream to Bend. The Center for Biological Diversity questions the operations of Wickiup and Crane Prairie, saying the frog lives upstream and downstream of both and is harmed when river levels rise and fall rapidly in response to irrigation needs.

In a prepared statement, the Center’s endangered species director, Noah Greenwald, said the problems “can likely be fixed with minimal impact to irrigation districts.”

He said the Oregon Spotted Frog is “one of the most imperiled amphibians in the world” and the Bureau of Reclamation needs to “step up” its oversight of the dams.

Britton, the North Unit manager, said he doesn’t want to speculate on what the lawsuits will specifically allege once they are filed. “I wish we knew, good or bad,” he said.

Britton said the Center for Biological Diversity’s involvement is puzzling, because it hasn’t been involved in development of the habitat conservation plan. Britton said WaterWatch’s threat of legal action is disappointing, because it was among the agencies, districts, tribal leaders and others involved in the planning.

“I thought we were working for a collaborative solution,” he said.

One of the projects that emerged from the spotted frog work is called Ryan Ranch Meadow, a 65-acre site. Fish & Wildlife, the Forest Service and the districts see it as possible spotted frog habitat that could mitigate habitat loss elsewhere, Britton said. District volunteers installed pipes and fish screens and plan to flood the meadow to determine if it can retain enough water to be used by the frogs.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Oregon taxpayers will get $402 million in “kicker” rebates when they file their taxes next year.

Economists said Wednesday that the median rebate will be $124. The top 1 percent of taxpayers will get $4,600, and the bottom 20 percent will get $10.

Oregon’s kicker law is triggered when the state collects more than anticipated during a two-year budget cycle. When that happens, the additional money is kicked back to taxpayers.

Tax increases from 2013 and the economic recovery helped Oregon generate about 3 percent more than anticipated in personal income taxes.

In the past, kicker rebates have arrived as a check shortly before the holidays. Because of a change made in 2011, the money will now come as a credit when Oregonians file their taxes next year.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A state agriculture official said Tuesday that Oregon’s hemp industry is not turning out the way lawmakers envisioned, so the department will recommend changes to the law regulating how it is grown.

The law authorizing industrial hemp production in Oregon was written to regulate it as an agricultural crop, with large fields of densely planted hemp grown for fiber, seed and oil, said Lindsay Eng, who oversees the hemp program for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Instead, the nine operations inspected by the department this year seem more interested in producing compounds known as CBDs, which don’t get people high, but are believed to have medical benefits. They are also found in marijuana.

As a result, Eng says the current law does not work well to regulate growers, who are growing small plots, sometimes in greenhouses, with the emphasis on producing buds that contain the CBDs.

“I imagine there will be some changes in the next year or two,” she said. “We definitely will have some recommendations to either shore up definitions or the intent. There is not a whole lot we can do through rulemaking.”

Hemp is related to marijuana, but it contains very low levels of the compound known as THC, which gets people high. It has a long history as an agricultural crop, but it was outlawed along with marijuana in 1937. The Legislature authorized hemp production in 2009, but the first permits were not issued until this year.

Meanwhile, the department suspended issuing new hemp permits on Monday. Eng said it was largely because of practical considerations. No one could start a crop this year, and the current three-year permits change to one-year permits starting Jan. 1.

The department has issued 13 permits for growing industrial hemp around the state, but only nine growers actually produced a crop. Tests have shown they all met the standards for low values of THC, but few approached the minimum acreage set out in the law of 2.5 acres, Eng said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Two portable smoke monitors have arrived in Eastern Oregon, giving officials a more accurate reading of air quality near the Canyon Creek complex of wildfires.

One of the monitors was placed in Prairie City, which was very smoky Monday. The other will be put in Seneca.

Firefighters battling the blaze spent Monday patrolling, improving and holding control lines. Officials say crews are positioned to protect homes in the residential areas of Upper Pine Creek and Upper Dog Creek.

Along the southeastern portion of the fire, crews used existing roads and trails to strengthen lines in preparation for a burnout operation. That is expected to slow the progress of the blaze and corral it into the Strawberry Wilderness.

The wildfire has destroyed more than three dozen homes. It has scorched 114 square miles and is about 30 percent contained.

In 2009, Pennsylvania State University entomologist John Tooker said he “naively waded into the slug world” after slug problems were the topic of 50 percent of his extension calls that year.

Today Tooker is one of the few U.S. researchers actively engaged in slug research.

Tooker will be a featured speaker at the Oregon State University seed crop and cereal production meetings in September.

Tooker also will speak at a seminar on the OSU campus, scheduled from 3 to 4 p.m. on Sept. 9 in room 4000 of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Building.

Sujayo Rao, field crop entomologist at Oregon State University, said that while Mid-Atlantic cropping patterns are different from Oregon’s, she believes Tooker can provide Oregon growers valuable insight on a problem that has beset them in recent years.

An industry study recently calculated the economic impact of slugs on Oregon grass seed crops at just under $100 million annually, or about 20 percent of the crops’ farm gate value.

“Clearly slugs are a big issue, and John Tooker is one of the few researchers nationwide who is doing research on slugs,” Rao said. “This seemed like a good opportunity to bring him to Oregon.”

In a Penn State University Department of Entomology research report, Tooker noted that a 2010 survey of Mid-Atlantic corn and soybean growers, showed that 82 percent of respondents identified slugs as their most challenging pest.

The report also included findings that cover crops, including cereal rye and clovers, helped limit slug damage by providing alternative feed sources for slugs. And it included information that minimal tillage — even light discing in the spring — helped reduce slug pressure.

Research in Oregon also has shown that tillage — even biennial tillage — provided significant benefits in slug control over continuous no till.

“Dr. Tooker’s visit provides an opportunity for us to learn about his slug management successes and challenges, while enlightening him about our challenges,” Rao said. “His awareness about our situation has potential for benefiting us at many levels.”

In addition to Tooker’s presentations, OSU Extension plant pathologist specialist Cindy Ocamb will provide presentations on the impacts of barley yellow dwarf virus in perennial ryegrass and tall fescue. OSU Extension weeds specialist Andy Hulting will look at Italian ryegrass, roughstalk bluegrass and annual bluegrass in wheat and seed crops. And OSU Extension cereals specialist Mike Flowers will provide a look at winter wheat varieties, grain protein, and diseases growers faced in 2015. Flowers also will provide information on seeding rate data.

Two meetings are scheduled on Sept. 10: One from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the Elks Lodge in Forest Grove, 2810 Pacific Ave.; and a second from 1:30 to 5 p.m. at Roth’s Hospitality Center in West Salem, 1130 Wallace Road.

The final meeting is scheduled on Sept. 11 from 8 to 11:30 a.m. at the Linn County Fair and Expo Center, 3700 Knox Butte Road, Albany.

A federal judge has ruled that it’s unlawful to use motorized vehicles to remove juniper from nearly 80,000 acres in the vicinity of Oregon’s Steens Mountain.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is cutting juniper from roughly 336,000 acres in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management Area because the trees are crowding out native vegetation.

Juniper removal is important to ranchers because it’s expected to prevent further population declines of the sage grouse, a candidate for Endangered Species Act protection.

If the bird is listed as threatened or endangered, ranchers fear further restrictions on cattle grazing in its habitat.

U.S. District Judge Garr King has now ruled that using motorized vehicles within “wilderness study areas” is prohibited by a federal law that governs management of the Steens Mountain area.

The BLM argued that there’s an exception to the vehicle ban for “administrative purposes” — including juniper removal — but King sided with the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which filed a lawsuit against the practice.

The judge said that BLM was interpreting the “administrative purposes” language too broadly.

“The BLM’s interpretation places no limit on what falls in the category of ‘administrative,’” he said. “BLM — as the agency charged with implementing Congress’ enactments — could call any activity ‘administrative’ since its job is to ‘administer’ the laws.

Supporters of juniper removal worry that the ruling will complicate activities within the 79,600 acres designated as “wilderness study areas” inside the project’s boundaries.

John O’Keefe, president-elect of the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said the task of removing juniper from enormous swaths of land is difficult enough without onerous restrictions on equipment.

“We’ve got to use the most efficient means we can. These laws can be problematic from time to time,” he said.

It’s unfortunate ONDA wants to limit such tools, as juniper removal is beneficial to the ecosystem that the group wants protected, O’Keefe said.

“To do this effectively, we have to do this fairly large-scale,” he said.

Dan Morse, ONDA’s conservation director, said the group’s lawsuit was intended to enforce the intentions of Congress when it banned motorized vehicles in wilderness study areas.

The vehicle prohibition is meant to preserve the values of solitude and dispersed recreation, as well as prevent soil disturbances, he said.

Juniper treatments can continue with people on the ground, rather than heavy machinery and all-terrain vehicles, Morse said. “We don’t oppose the project’s basic purpose.”

Oregon’s agricultural exports, already the third leading sector among the $21 billion worth of products leaving the state annually, appear poised for continued expansion.

In particular, marketers and trade experts say Vietnam and the Philippines may approve imports of fresh blueberries, and fresh or processed potatoes may find greater acceptance in those countries, Japan, China, Taiwan and elsewhere.

Bryan Ostlund of the Oregon Blueberry Commission said fresh berry exports to South Korea, approved in 2011, reached 1.4 million pounds in 2014 and are on pace to top that in 2015. Korea had a strong retail system in place, which aided distribution after exports were approved, but Vietnam is developing the economic infrastructure and middle class that could make it a “really nice fit” for Oregon products as well, Ostlund said.

“The economy, you can feel it, is just ready to explode in a positive way,” he said. “The buying power is rapidly coming to the table.”

Pests and diseases that may arrive with imports are always a concern to be worked out, he said, as are food safety protocols.

“The Vietnamese and Philippine governments are very keen on broadening the scope of what comes in from the U.S.,” he said. “The growth potential seems huge to me.”

Processed and frozen products such as french fries are popular in Asian countries, as are “chipping” potatoes used for snacks, but grower groups are trying to expand the trade to include more fresh “table stock” potatoes, said Bill Brewer, director of the Oregon Potato Commission.

In Vietnam, for example, fresh potatoes are primarily used in soups, but Oregon representatives have demonstrated western cooking styles, which generated a “great deal of interest,” Brewer said.

The appearance of potatoes from Oregon, Washington and Idaho is totally different than potatoes, usually from China, that Vietnamese consumers are accustomed to, he said. Restaurants and hotels that cater to western tourists are good markets for Northwest potatoes, as are supermarkets whose customers include people who have lived in or visited the U.S.

“Whenever they’re exposed to our potatoes, they like them,” Brewer said.

Asia’s two biggest economies hold continued economic promise for Oregon. China now accepts only processed potato products and could be a great market for chipping and table stock potatoes, Brewer said. Japan is the number one market for processed potatoes and accepts fresh potatoes for chipping, but also could be good market for table stock potatoes, he said.

Because Oregon “faces” Asia, as exporters like to say, Asian trade is a natural, experts say. About 80 percent of what Oregon exports goes to 21 Pacific Rim nations, a category that includes the five largest markets: Canada, China, Japan, Korea and Malaysia. Those five alone receive 60 percent of what Oregon exports, according state economic analyst Josh Lehner.

Oregon’s largest export sector is electronics, followed by heavy manufacturing, with agricultural and food products third.

Barry Horowitz, an international trade consultant in Portland, said Oregon food and crop commissions previously operated on their own but now are beginning to cooperate in presentations to foreign buyers. Thinking of Oregon’s high-quality food products as a series of meals, complete with Oregon beer and wine, sharpens the focus, he said.

“That is a package that is unbeatable in the international marketplace,” he said.

Expanded trade with Vietnam is an example of the export potential that could benefit the state, he said.

“You have a country with almost 100 million people and a literacy rate over 95 percent,” Horowitiz said. “Western countries can’t get in there fast enough.”

Vietnamese distrust of Chinese food products works to the advantage of Oregon producers, who have “developed a highly visible reputation for high quality food,” he said.

“We’re not the most internationally minded place but we have enormous potential, because ag is a fundamental industry everywhere,” Horowitz said. “We can’t talk Intel to everyone, and not everyone in Vietnam can afford Nike shoes. But everyone in Vietnam can afford Oregon food products.”

Online

Read economic analyst Josh Lehner’s report at http://oregoneconomicanalysis.com/2015/08/12/oregon-exports-2015-industries/

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The state Department of Transportation says a portion of Highway 26 will remain closed until at least noon Monday because of a wildfire near Manning, Oregon.

ODOT spokesman Lou Torres says Highway 47 serves as a detour for eastbound and westbound traffic. Manning is about 30 miles west of Portland.