PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A memorial service has been scheduled for a farmer who died while fighting the Substation fire in July.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports the service for 64-year-old John Ruby is at 11:30 a.m. Saturday in Dufur.

Wasco County Commissioner Scott Hege says county buildings will fly flags at half-staff that day to honor Ruby, his sacrifice and his family.

Ruby lived in Mosier but died while working on a farm near Dufur, 15 miles south of The Dalles. He was cutting a fire line for a neighbor’s property when the fire overtook him.

Since 125 square miles burned in the Substation fire, The Long Hollow fire and the South Valley fire have raged near Dufur.

Hege says it’s a difficult time for people around the north-central Oregon county along the Columbia River.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Conservation groups sued the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission on Thursday for failing to strengthen protections for the marbled murrelet, tiny seabirds that venture inland to raise their young and depend on old-growth forests for nesting.

The groups petitioned the commission in 2016 to reclassify the bird’s status from threatened to endangered under the state Endangered Species Act. A listing as endangered would require the state to develop a management plan and survival guidelines for the birds that are about 9 inches long and weigh 7 to 8 ounces.

The commission denied the petition in June by a 4-2 vote, after hearing testimony from officials in timber-rich coastal counties who worried about the economic impact of restricting logging to save the birds. Commissioners opposed to reclassification said researchers from Oregon State University are in the early stages of a 10-year study about the seabird, and they wanted to wait for results.

The defeat was tough for conservationists because the commission in February had accepted a recommendation to grant the petition.

The marbled murrelet was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act in 1992 and the Oregon Endangered Species Act in 1995. The species is state-endangered in Washington and California.

In 2015, there were believed to be about 11,000 marbled murrelets in Oregon, but survey numbers are uncertain because the birds have only been counted at sea and are extremely elusive in the forest. Experts believe the population has declined by more than 50 percent from historic highs.

Though the population has been stable since 2000, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife strategy species coordinator Christina Donehower told the board in February the bird has about an 80 percent chance of going extinct by the 22nd Century.

Among its claims, the lawsuit asserts the commission failed to base its decision on verifiable science and didn’t adequately explain its decision to reverse course.

The Department of Fish and Wildlife did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The commission will meet Friday to consider survival guidelines that encourage — but not require — certain actions from timber companies to protect the seabird on state-owned or leased lands. Such guidelines could include additional survey work ahead of logging to determine where the birds are nesting and restrictions on when during the year timber companies would cut.

But since those moves would be non-binding, “they wouldn’t have any teeth,” said Jared Margolis, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the five groups that filed the lawsuit.

Rep. Greg Walden is the latest among several high-ranking Oregon politicians to request federal aid for farmers and ranchers suffering through a particularly intense wildfire season across the state.

Walden’s district includes Wasco and Sherman counties, where yet another large blaze ignited Wednesday, torching 20,000 acres and counting of prime wheat and cattle country near the Deschutes River.

The South Valley fire started near Dufur, Ore., and was likely human-caused. It is the region’s third large grass fire in as many weeks, coming on the heels of the Substation and Long Hollow fires, which burned a combined 111,875 acres, or 175 square miles.

On Thursday, Walden — Oregon’s only Republican congressman — wrote to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, asking for assistance to help producers who lost some or all of their crops and rangeland. The Substation fire alone has affected an estimated 31,000 acres of cropland over 86 farms in Wasco and Sherman counties, including 18,500 acres of standing wheat.

“Oregon’s farmers, ranchers and foresters are facing significant challenges during this fire season,” Walden wrote. “I appreciate your prompt attention to these important issues so that Oregon’s rural communities can better navigate through the disasters they have faced.”

Perdue is no stranger to the area, having previously joined Walden at Martin Farms in Rufus, Ore., on July 3 as part of a four-day, four-state tour visiting with local farmers.

“Sadly, the very wheat farm we visited in Sherman County, and many of their neighbors, recently lost some or all of their crops to fire,” Walden wrote. “Many of the wheat farms in the area affected by fire are also livestock producers and have lost pasture to the fire.”

In his letter, Walden urged Perdue to approve Oregon’s request for a USDA disaster designation, and also requested additional flexibility from the Risk Management Agency allowing farmers hurt by fires to prevent soil erosion by planting cover crops.

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service has already offered assistance to plant cover crops through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP. But since dryland wheat farmers in Eastern Oregon plant in a summer fallow rotation, Walden said they are worried that adding cover crops will put them in a “continuous production” category under their crop insurance.

Clinton Whitten, the acting district conservationist for the NRCS in Wasco County, recently acknowledged that concern, and said they are working on a waiver for growers affected by fires.

In addition, Walden said ranchers who lost rangeland should have access to emergency grazing on grasslands enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program. The 100,000-acre Boxcar fire near Maupin and 15,000-acre Jack Knife fire near Grass Valley took an especially heavy toll on rangeland in June.

Walden is not the only political figure to request federal fire aid in Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown and U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, all Democrats, wrote Perdue on July 27 asking for a cut of the $12 billion in emergency aid for farmers hit by tariffs in the Trump administration’s trade war with China and other countries.

Regardless of the president’s trade strategy, they said the USDA must act to assist farmers enduring disaster now.

The Oregon Department of State Lands erred when it sold a portion of the Elliott State Forest to a private timber company four years ago, according to a ruling Aug. 1 by the Oregon Court of Appeals.

The court’s decision overturns the sale of the 788-acre East Hakki Ridge tract to Seneca Jones Timber Company in 2014, after environmental groups sued to keep the land in public ownership.

Josh Laughlin, executive director of Cascadia Wildlands based in Eugene, Ore., cheered the ruling as a victory for public lands.

“There’s a growing movement afoot in our country to privatize public lands,” Laughlin said. “We really want to buck that movement to keep our public lands public, for the incredible values they offer us.”

The Elliott State Forest in southwest Oregon was created in 1930, with revenue generated from timber sales to support the Common School Fund. In 2012, environmentalists successfully sued to prevent logging old-growth trees that provide nesting habitat for the marbled murrelet, a threatened species of seabird found along the Oregon Coast.

Instead, the State Land Board — composed of the governor, secretary of state and treasurer — opted to sell several parcels of the state forest to private timber companies, including the East Hakki Ridge tract, located just south of the lower Umpqua River.

Cascadia Wildlands, along with the Audubon Society of Portland and the Center for Biological Diversity, sued again to block the sale, citing a law from 1957 that prohibits selling any portion of the Elliott that used to be part of the Siuslaw National Forest.

A circuit court in Eugene initially dismissed the case, though the Court of Appeals has now ruled the sale was, in fact, illegal.

“Privatizing public land would have been a disaster for imperiled salmon and wildlife that rely on clean water and old forests to survive,” said Laughlin, who was also an individual plaintiff in the case.

A spokeswoman for the Department of State Lands said the agency is reviewing the ruling. The State Land Board voted unanimously in May 2017 to scuttle a planned sale of the entire 93,000-acre Elliott State Forest to Lone Rock Resources, of Roseburg, Ore., and the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. The 2017 Legislature approved $100 million in state bonds to compensate the Common School Fund.

Todd Payne, CEO of Seneca Jones Timber, said he was disappointed in the court’s ruling, adding the Elliott State Forest was set up to be managed for sustainable timber harvest and provide funding for schools into perpetuity.

“The Elliott has gone from a revenue generating asset worth hundreds of millions of dollars to a liability for the state,” Payne said. “It’s unfortunate, as the financial benefits would have accrued to students of this state. A state that currently ranks 48th in graduation rates.”

Nick Smith, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, said the state is failing in its responsibility to manage the Elliott, provide for schools and economic development in rural Oregon.

“With wildfires devastating our forests, and with toxic smoke threatening the health of our citizens, it would be a grave mistake for the state to continue to replicate the federal government’s failed approach to ‘hands-off’ forest management,” Smith said.

About 58,689 acres of crops planted in Wasco and Sherman Counties were within the perimeter of the Substation Fire. 

While its unclear how much of those crops were harvested before the land east of The Dalles was engulfed in flames, the numbers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture represent the first itemized estimate of the potential loss to Oregon’s wheat country.

Crops make up more than half of the area engulfed in the Substation fire, which burned 78,425 acres. Initial estimates from the Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services calculated that nearly half of the crop of Wasco County may be lost as a result of the fire. The new numbers, which represent crops planted in both Wasco and Sherman counties, mean the loss could be even greater.

Still, it’s too soon to say whether all planted crops were lost to the fire; the USDA doesn’t know how much of those crops were saved before the area erupted in flames. 

“Unfortunately, we do not know how many acres were harvested,” said Kent Willett, Oregon state specialist with the USDA’s Farm Service Agency.

The numbers, calculated using geographic information system (GIS) analysis of the fire area, are based on farmers’ reports to the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, which maintains records of what was planted. They paint a clearer picture of what was at stake in the fire. Wheat, grass and fallow made up the vast majority of crops. About 23,551 acres of grazing grass were within the fire’s perimeter.

The fire hit wheat farmers hard. Roughly 100 farms grow wheat in Wasco County, where wheat made up more than 12,000 acres of planted crops within the Substation Fire perimeter. Wheat makes up more than 90 percent of farmland in the area and harvest season was just beginning when the fire erupted.

“Every single neighbor lost something in this fire,” Cynthia Kortge, a Wasco County resident, told OPB. “Every single one.”

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A new blaze in a wildfire-plagued area of Oregon nearly tripled in size overnight.

The fire near the town of Dufur in north-central Oregon spread to more than 23 square miles by Thursday morning.

The Oregon State Fire Marshal’s Office says dozens of structures are threatened — some have burned — and at least 400 people have been told to evacuate.

The fire caused by humans rather than lightning began Wednesday afternoon. By nightfall, Gov. Kate Brown declared it a conflagration, which authorizes the Oregon fire marshal to mobilize resources from around the state to protect homes.

It’s the third major wildfire to the hit the area this summer. One scorched 125 square miles and killed a tractor operator.

After an unusually warm July, firefighters caught a break with cooler temperatures Thursday.

VANCOUVER, Wash. (AP) — A bill that would make it easier to kill sea lions that gobble endangered salmon in the Columbia River has cleared a key committee in the U.S. Senate.

The measure allows the federal government to issue permits to Washington, Idaho and Oregon, and several Pacific Northwest tribes, allowing up to 100 sea lions to be killed a year.

Supporters including the governors of those three states, fishing groups and tribes. They say the bill is needed to protect declining runs of salmon and steelhead.

Critics say it’s won’t solve the problem of declining salmon.

The measure is co-sponsored by Sens. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, and James Risch, an Idaho Republican. It awaits a vote by the full Senate.

It’s similar to legislation the House passed last month. That was sponsored by Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Washington Republican, and Kurt Schrader, an Oregon Democrat.

Fridays

Nov. 15, 1919 – July 22, 2018

Nov. 15, 1919 – July 22, 2018

Farmers and ranchers in north-central Oregon are already dealing with lost crops and forage following a rash of wildfires that charred hundreds of thousands of acres this summer across Wasco and Sherman counties.

Now, an environmental crisis may also be looming on the scorched, barren landscape.

Clinton Whitten, acting district conservationist for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in The Dalles, said high winds are eroding soil in burnt fields and rangeland, robbing the ground of vital plant nutrients and water-holding capacity.

On Monday, the NRCS announced funding for conservation projects in the wake of the Substation, Boxcar and Jack Knife fires, which combined to burn roughly 300 square miles in prime wheat and cattle country.

Financial assistance is available through the NRCS Environmental Quality Incentives Program, or EQIP, to control soil erosion by planting cover crops and range grasses, while stopping the spread of invasive species like cheatgrass and medusahead.

The top priority, Whitten said, is in fields where standing wheat went up in flames, since they will be entering fallow next season.

“If (farmers) don’t do anything, it would be left bare until next fall when they plant,” Whitten said.

According to NRCS estimates, the Substation fire, which started July 17, affected roughly 31,000 acres of cropland over 86 farms in both Wasco and Sherman counties, including 18,500 acres of standing wheat. Up to a quarter of the region’s crop went up in flames, and one farmer — 64-year-old John Ruby — died trying to fight the blaze as he dug a firebreak to protect his neighbor’s property.

Wind erosion causes further damage, Whitten said, because it strips away soil and makes the ground less productive.

“The deeper your soils are, and the more silts and clays it has, the more water it will hold,” he said. “As you lose that with wind, it will lose more water, and that will affect crop yields.”

Yet another large fire ignited July 26 in the same area, sparked by farm equipment south of Dufur in Wasco County. The Long Hollow Fire was 33,451 acres and 95 percent contained as of Tuesday.

The Boxcar and Jack Knife fires were started by lightning in June, primarily affecting grazing pastures around Maupin and Grass Valley located farther south in the two counties.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, along with U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, have recently called upon the USDA to provide additional aid for local farmers affected by wildfires. In a statement, Merkley said this EQIP funding is a step toward recovery.

“While we need significant funding for recovery beyond the usual crop insurance or disaster assistance, conservation treatments will help restore land in the aftermath of this devastation,” Merkley said.

The initial deadline to apply for EQIP funding is Aug. 10. Whitten said they are still gathering information about how many producers are affected by the Long Hollow fire, and a second sign-up period will likely run through Aug. 24.

Producers may apply at the USDA service centers in The Dalles or Moro, or contact Whitten at 541-289-8559 ext. 112.

Capital Press

Idaho farmers recently hosted executives from South Korean flour-milling companies in an effort to cultivate continued growth in wheat demand from that country. U.S. wheat exports to South Korea increased 14.3 percent during the most recent marketing year.

Hantop Corp. Director Bong-tai Ryu, Daehan Flour Mills Co. Ltd. General Manager Boong-hee Han and C.J. Cheiljedang Corp. Senior Specialist Shin-hyong Park were among visitors to southeast Idaho July 23-25. They were part of a trade delegation sponsored by U.S. Wheat Associates, the Idaho Wheat Commission, Montana Wheat and Barley Committee and the Oregon Wheat Commission.

U.S. Wheat spokesman Steve Mercer said 1.6 million metric tons of U.S.-grown wheat went to South Korea in the marketing year spanning June 1, 2017, through May 31 of this year, up by nearly 14.3 percent from 1.4 million a year earlier.

“They do buy quite high quality,” Mercer said. An example is Western White Wheat, a blend of soft white and club wheats that can command some price premium depending on protein content. It is used in fine cakes and confections.

South Korea, consistently among the top five markets for U.S. wheat, challenges U.S. producers, the Idaho Wheat Commission said in a news release. The country’s wheat-foods market is developing to be similar to that of the U.S. market. End-product flour specifications in South Korea “are becoming more complicated because consumers demand quality and an increasingly wide range of products.”

The commission, which emphasizes market and trade development, provides visiting trade teams with harvest, quality and export-price information in relation to the country’s end-user preferences. For the recent team visit, this included demonstrating factors that help ensure South Korea buyers get the most value from U.S. wheat, the commission said.

The trade team visited Ririe Grain and Feed Co-op, Thresher Artisan Wheat in Blackfoot and the University of Idaho Research and Extension Center in Aberdeen. The team also toured the farms of Gordon Gallup and Idaho Wheat Commission member Clark Hamilton, both near Ririe, and met with representatives from Lansing Trade Group in American Falls.

The first picture I am sharing this week was probably taken sometime in the 1920s, and although I have seen several different views, I did not realize that the Bandon Library was in the building at the end of Alabama…

BEND, Ore. (AP) — On a rugged hillside south of Antelope, wildlife biologist J.D. McComas spent two nights last week waiting to shoot a feral pig that was destroying nearby farmland.

Each night, McComas drank coffee to stay awake as he used night-vision equipment to spot the pig in the darkness. But it never showed.

Hunting the last of the feral swine in Oregon takes patience.

McComas, a Madras-based wildlife biologist with the United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, was assigned to lead Oregon’s effort to eradicate the invasive feral swine species in January 2017.

About a decade ago, the feral swine population in the state grew to more than 3,000. The pigs are one of the most dangerous invasive species in Oregon and cause damage to agricultural crops and fish and wildlife habitat.

Through aerial hunting from helicopters and corral trapping, the population has been reduced to less than 200. The remaining swine are roaming in the vast wilderness of Central Oregon, from Madras to Shaniko, and in the open terrain along the California border.

Finding the stragglers takes long nights of hunting and corral trapping in the remote terrain, McComas said.

“For the most part, they inhabit some of the roughest country Central Oregon has to offer,” he said. “That High Desert country and canyons that have seen nothing but cattle for years. We had to cover a lot of ground just to find them.”

State officials started to address the feral swine problem nearly two decades ago. In 2001, a law was passed to reclassify the pigs from livestock to predatory animals, allowing them to be hunted without regulation.

In 2009, the Oregon Legislature passed a law requiring landowners to notify the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife if they see feral swine on their land. The law also made it illegal to sell swine hunts because those operations bring in pigs and if any escape, the population problem will worsen.

Feral swine spread in Oregon mostly through people bringing in exotic European and Russian boars for private hunts.

Some of the boars would escape and breed with escaped domestic pigs, said Rick Boatner, ODFW’s invasive species wildlife integrity coordinator.

“People were bringing in Russian boars, and they cross bred with domestic swine,” Boatner said. “Fairly often, we found hybrids.”

Feral swine can start breeding as early as 6 months old, and produce at least two litters per year with up to 12 in a litter.

They can grow to nearly 300 pounds, and as omnivores they eat almost anything in their paths. They can eat small birds and young deer but also dig up roots in farmland and protected riparian areas.

Most of the damage is done during the night because they are nocturnal animals.

“They can go in and damage acres of pasture land,” Boatner said. “Then you have weed patches instead of grass for your cattle.”

Besides the environmental damage, feral pigs also carry up to 40 separate diseases that are dangerous to humans and livestock.

Boatner said the Oregon population is relatively disease free, although one was found with swine flu, a respiratory disease in pigs that can spread to humans.

“Feral swine are a walking disease factory,” Boatner said.

About five years ago, U.S. Congress recognized the threat of feral pigs in each state and designated nearly $20 million to eradication efforts, according to David Williams, director of USDA wildlife services in Oregon.

The U.S. agriculture department was tasked with leading land managers and private landowners in each state to help eliminate feral swine.

Oregon initially received $165,000 in federal money per year, which helped rent a helicopter for aerial hunts.

About three or four times per year, Oregon wildlife officials would ride in a helicopter, flying at a low altitude to find large groups of feral pigs. As the helicopter pilot hovered above them, another person would use a 12-gauge shotgun to shoot the swine.

One flight could take down more than 100 swine.

Recovering the carcasses can be time consuming, so they are usually left behind on terrain that is often too rugged to safely land a helicopter, Williams said. And if landowners want to keep a carcass, they have to have it inspected for diseases before it can be prepared.

Overall, the use of helicopters in Central Oregon eliminated about 1,200 feral swine.

The aerial hunting was the most effective way to reduce the population, but it hasn’t been as necessary in recent years since the remaining pigs are hard to find from the sky, according to wildlife officials.

Helicopter flights were only done twice last year and once this year. Each flight only spotted about four swine.

Wildlife officials have entered the hardest part of the eradication effort — tracking and killing the few remaining pigs.

To assist the final push in Oregon, the annual federal funding was bumped up $245,000 last year, and McComas was brought in as the lead biologist.

“Now, we have our lead biologist and we have a helicopter we can use and from time to time we will also assign some of our staff to work with landowners to run a lot of corral traps and monitor trail cameras to try to get to the last hold-outs of feral swine,” Williams said.

Because of how quickly feral swine breed and how people are still bringing them in for illegal private hunts, wildlife officials worry the population could grow again.

McComas and his colleagues are working hard to eliminate the swine and monitor any new sightings.

If they start to back off now, they could find themselves back to where they were a decade ago, when thousands of swine damaged the landscape, McComas said.

“We are doing everything in our power to keep the foot on the pedal,” he said. “Eventually, we will catch up with them all.”

Eric Gallandt, a University of Maine weed ecologist, has unveiled several findings in recent years that could dramatically improve weed management in organic vegetable production.

As such, Gallandt has been a featured speaker at mechanical cultivation field days across the country.

On Aug. 16, Gallandt will be in Corvallis, speaking to participants in an Oregon State University Mechanical Cultivation Field Day at the OSU Vegetable Research Farm, 34306 N.E. Electric Road, Corvallis. The field day, which also features equipment demonstrations, will be from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In a phone interview, Gallandt said he and a University of Maine graduate student, Bryan Brown, have been able to show that by stacking cultivation tools, weed control is dramatically improved in organic vegetable production systems.

“One of the more promising discoveries we’ve found in the last couple of years is that by using multiple tools in a single pass, or using multiple tools in sequence, is that you often get more than additive improvements in the percentage of weeds you kill. We have evidence of synergy,” Gallandt said.

“So, for example, if you take two different tools, one of which gives you 30 percent weed control, the other of which gives you 20 percent weed control, and you use them together, you don’t just get 50 percent weed control. You might get 75 percent weed control,” he said.

“And that holds true across challenging conditions, so across increasing soil moisture, across increasing size of weeds and other conditions,” he said.

In addition, Gallandt is researching the use of longer-term weed management strategies, including use of cover crops, in combination with stacking mechanical weed control.

“By combining some strategies to reduce the weed seed bank with improved physical weed control, we should be able to help farmers experience improving weed management circumstances over time,” he said.

In general, weed control in organic vegetable production systems has shown no improvement over time, he said, and in many cases, has worsened.

The strategies take more work than is employed in most organic vegetable production systems, he said, but can bring significant dividends.

“We’ve got some pretty decent evidence that this is the case,” he said. “For example, we did a nice experiment in onions that showed that longer-term seedbank management strategies that require more work can actually pay off, even in the short term, because of improved yields and improved quality.

“So, certainly if you look at it over the longer term, it is something that has the promise to increase profitability, and, in the case of using cover crops, for example, could be used for multiple benefits,” he said.

OSU Small Farms Extension agent Clare Sullivan, who along with fellow agent Nick Andrews, is putting together the field day, said the idea for the event came about because of interest among Oregon growers in a similar event held last year at Michigan State University, and because growers have struggled to use cultivation tools.

“There is a lot of interest in mechanical cultivation implements, especially from mid-sized organic growers, but we hear from a lot of them that they struggle to use the tools effectively,” Sullivan said. “We wanted to put on an educational event that shared the best practices to prepare your fields to use cultivation implements, and also have the equipment dealers show in-person how to adjust the tools to work effectively.

“The neat thing about this is it is targeted toward vegetable growers of all different sizes and, while it is primarily geared toward organic production, conventional growers can benefit from this as well,” Sullivan said.

Field Day

The OSU Small Farms Program’s Mechanical Cultivation Field Day is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Aug. 16 at the OSU Vegetable Research Farm, 34306 N.E. Electric Road, Corvallis.

The program includes live demonstrations of cultivation equipment and presentations by speakers, including keynote speaker Eric Gallandt, a weed ecology professor at the University of Maine.

The OSU Small Farms Program asks that participants register online by Aug. 10 at smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/mechanical-cultivation-field-day-corvallis.

Admission is $25 and includes lunch.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and the state’s two U.S. senators are asking the Trump administration to assist local farmers who lost some or all of their crops in one of several large wildfires burning in the state.

Specifically, Brown — along with Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley — want to carve out a portion of funds from the new $12 billion emergency relief package for farmers affected by the president’s mounting trade war with China and other countries.

In a letter sent July 27 to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue, the trio of Democrats said they are concerned that crop insurance and normal disaster relief programs will not be enough to cover losses sustained by Oregon producers.

Funding for the $12 billion package comes from the Commodity Credit Corporation, a Great Depression-era program created to protect farm income and prices. It did not require congressional approval.

“We respectfully request USDA use a portion of the newly announced aid to assist Oregon farmers whose crops have been lost due to fires,” wrote Brown, Wyden and Merkley.

They criticized President Trump’s trade policies, saying the president has made a bad situation even worse by instigating a trade war “without any apparent strategy or consideration of the consequences.”

“We agree with our colleagues in the Senate that farmers want trade, not aid,” they wrote. “But regardless of the president’s trade strategy, USDA must act to assist American farmers enduring disaster now.”

Back-to-back wildfires in Wasco and Sherman counties have especially put a dent in the region’s wheat production and overwhelmed rangeland where ranchers graze their livestock. The Substation fire started July 17 near The Dalles and burned nearly 80,000 acres, including 1 million to 2 million acres of standing wheat.

One farmer, 64-year-old John Ruby, died trying to fight the blaze, digging a firebreak to protect his neighbor’s property. The cause of the fire remains under investigation, though it was described by the Wasco County Sheriff’s Office as “incendiary in nature.”

A second large fire is now burning near the same area, this time south of Dufur, consuming 34,550 acres. The Long Hollow Fire was unintentionally started July 26 by farm equipment working on private property, and was 58 percent contained as of July 30.

The Oregon Farm Bureau and Oregon Cattlemen’s Association are working to raise money for victims of the fires. The cattlemen’s association is also collecting donated hay, equipment and supplies for ranchers who lost rangeland for their animals.

“The surviving cattle and ranching families are in desperate need of essentials like hay and fencing,” the OCA wrote in a press release. “We ask Oregon ranchers to come together and support their fellow ranching families in this time of need.”

Donations to OCA can be made online at www.orcattle.com/donate. Checks made out to the Oregon Farm Bureau Fire Relief Fund can also be mailed to the Farm Bureau offices, c/o Patty Kuester, 1320 Capitol St. N.E., Salem, OR 97301. The OFB and Wasco County Farm Bureau will decide where to best use the money received.

For those wanting to help the family of John Ruby, the farmer who died, Columbia Bank in The Dalles has set up a fund. Donations can be mailed to Columbia Bank, 316 E. Third St., The Dalles, OR 97058. Call 541-298-6647 for more information.

Small forestland owners want the Oregon Board of Forestry to endorse a proposal to allow new dwellings on forestland for relatives of aging operators.

Half the owners of Oregon’s family forests are 65 years or older, but unlike the aging population of the state’s farmers, they can’t build secondary homes on their property, said Bonnie Shumaker, a Washington County landowner.

“The upcoming issue of inter-generational change is huge,” she said during a July 24 board meeting in Salem, Ore.

Shumaker serves on the Committee for Family Forestlands that makes recommendations to the Oregon Board of Forestry, which oversees forest management policies and regulations.

The committee hopes to win the board’s support for a “legislative concept” in 2019 that would allow secondary dwellings to be built on the same parcel of forest resource land.

Oregon’s statewide land use law has successfully retained 98 percent of the state’s forests since being enacted 45 years ago but family forestland operators face difficulty maintaining their properties as they age, Shumaker said.

Allowing relatives to inhabit a secondary dwelling would provide forest operators with needed assistance, she said. Meanwhile, younger family members could learn about managing the property while still pursuing a career.

“Not having an option to live on the land remains an obstacle,” Shumaker said.

While the development of forests along the “wildland-urban interface” is a concern, the legislative proposal would address the issue by only allowing secondary dwellings on the same parcel, without subdividing the land.

The secondary dwelling would have to pass “fire safe” regulations and would only be allowed on property that already qualifies for a dwelling.

There’s also discussion of establishing a minimum lot size that would be eligible for secondary dwellings, most likely 80 to 160 acres, Shumaker said.

“I’m a proponent of land use. We need land use but we need it to be common sense,” she said.

Farmers have long been allowed to have secondary dwellings under Oregon land use law, likely due to their day-to-day involvement in agriculture, she said.

It’s possible family foresters didn’t push hard enough to overcome the perception that forest work is more sporadic, Shumaker said.

Having help with harvest, planting and fire suppression would actually ensure a smoother succession in areas that are prone to development, said Evan Barnes, the committee’s acting chair and a Douglas County landowner.

“It’s not meant as a development tool,” he said.

Peter Daugherty, the Oregon State Forester, encouraged the committee to approach the board for an endorsement again after refining the proposal.

“It is consistent with the goals of the Board of Forestry,” he said.

For a crop that’s been grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley for over a century, there’s still a lot to be learned about hazelnuts.

As hazelnut growers were preoccupied with defeating their mortal enemy — a fungal pathogen known as Eastern Filbert Blight — there wasn’t as much energy devoted to studying basic production.

“Everybody’s been chasing the Eastern Filbert Blight. We knew very little about the disease when it first came in,” said Nik Wiman, Oregon State University’s orchard specialist in Western Oregon.

Now that growers have developed ways to combat the pathogen and OSU has introduced several hazelnut cultivars resistant to the disease, Wiman can focus on the fundamentals: How to protect trees from insect invaders? What is the best mulch to use? How much water to apply?

“We’re trying to maximize growth,” he said.

While opinions on production methods are often based on anecdotes, Wiman is trying to develop recommendations grounded in data and science.

Much of OSU’s research on nutrients has grown outdated as farmers have replaced traditional varieties, such as Barcelona, with new ones that spring from other parts of the globe.

As it turns out, nutrient demands can vary significantly among cultivars. Growers also have more flexibility these days with fertilizers that are applied to leaves or through irrigation lines.

Traditionally, growers only fertilized during spring because it was thought hazelnuts didn’t take up nutrients in the summer. However, that’s only the case if they’re not irrigated.

Wiman is wrapping up a three-year study that aims to refine the timing of fertilizer applications and better understand their effects on tree and nut development.

The issue is complicated because the tree’s response to nutrients depends on the accumulation of heat over the season, so timing will vary from year to year.

“There is so much change, even in a small time frame like a month,” Wiman said.

Hazelnuts were historically grown as a dryland crop but the industry is increasingly turning to irrigation, especially to get young trees established.

Wiman has found that trees respond better to sprinklers than drip irrigation, since there’s better water penetration of the entire soil surface.

With drip irrigation, on the other hand, dry soil can pull water away from the tree’s root mass.

Even so, drip lines are likely to remain the standard in hazelnut orchards, simply because many farms don’t have access to ample irrigation water, Wiman said.

Over time, the industry will probably adopt automated irrigation controls that begin watering orchards as soon as soil moisture or tree sap sensors indicate it’s necessary, he said.

“We want to promote responsible water use,” he said.

Rows of hazelnut trees growing at Oregon State University’s North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora receive varying amounts of irrigation, with Wiman and his researchers carefully measuring the effects on each tree.

It’s likely that releasing smaller amounts of water over time is more beneficial than irrigating all at once, since the water stays closer to the surface rather than seeping too deep for roots to absorb, he said.

As an entomologist, Wiman also spends time on the pests that afflict hazelnut orchards.

Flathead borers, for example, are especially drawn to young trees, which is a problem for Oregon’s burgeoning industry — more than half the acreage is non-bearing, he said.

Farmers who found the borers in their orchards brought branches to Wiman, who sealed them in wax to preserve moisture and observed their development.

Such observation yielded biological information about the insect that wasn’t previously available. It also turns out the borers have a natural enemy: a wasp that lays eggs into their larvae, killing them.

Encouraging such beneficial predators is a matter of judicious pesticide use to avoid killing off these “biological controls,” Wiman said.

That’s a tough task with brown marmorated stink bugs, a recently introduced pest from Asia that difficult to treat without broad-spectrum chemicals that also kill helpful insects.

“They can actually feed right through the shell and damage the kernel inside,” Wiman said.

Fortunately, another wasp species preys on stink bugs, which is how their population is limited in Asia. The insects are being bred at OSU’s research center in Aurora and released at infested sites.

“It showed up on its own. It followed its host,” Wiman said. “We think it’s going to have a huge effect long term.”

Wiman said it’s an exciting time to work as a hazelnut researcher, since the industry is experiencing “incredible growth.” He also appreciates the “culture of sharing” among hazelnut farmers.

“These growers feel like family almost,” Wiman said. “There’s a lot of innovation by the growers themselves.”

Nik Wiman

Occupation: Orchard specialist at Oregon State University

Hometown: Corvallis, Ore.

Age: 42

Family: Wife, Michel, and two daughters

Education: Bachelor’s degree in biology from Montana State University, Master’s degree in entomology from Montana State University, Doctorate in entomology from Washington State University.

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