Capital Press

PINGREE, Idaho — Top chefs from throughout the world vow they’ll return home with a new appreciation for U.S. potatoes and several creative menu ideas featuring the vegetable following a comprehensive tour of the Idaho and Oregon potato industries.

The group, led by Potatoes USA, included about 30 chefs, culinary research and development officials and organizational staff members from the U.S., China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Mexico, Philippines, Central America, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The group started the tour May 16 with stops at the Wada Farms fresh potato packing facility in Pingree and the Basic American Foods dehydrated potato facility in Blackfoot. Their Idaho itinerary also included visits to Miles Willard Technologies in Idaho Falls for a demonstration in preparing dehydrated potatoes, a look at frozen potato processing at the J.R. Simplot and Lamb Weston plants in Treasure Valley and time with the Idaho Potato Commission.

In Portland, they were scheduled to head to Le Cordon Bleu cooking school for potato cooking demonstrations and hands-on experimentation. Most of the group members planned to finish the tour at the National Restaurant Association’s annual trade show May 21 in Chicago.

“They’ll go back with a much stronger understanding of the U.S. potato industry from field, to storage, to shed and dehydration and frozen processing,” said John Toaspern, Potatoes USA chief marketing officer. “In Portland, they’ll get to experience Le Cordon Bleu and really get to experience using potatoes in ways they haven’t in the past, and I’m sure that will result in increased sales.”

Federico Michieletto, an Italian chef working in the Malaysian fine dining industry, said chefs and consumers in his country noticed a “big-time” difference when they were forced to buy European or South American spuds last summer due to a labor dispute at West Coast U.S. ports.

“To see the quality of the products is amazing,” Michieletto said. “After the upset of a few months ago, I guess this is the proof that these are the best products.”

Eugene Chew, an official with Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse in Malaysia, said it’s been tough for him to find potatoes with consistent quality, as some suppliers have stopped importing U.S. spuds due to the strong dollar.

In China, Potatoes USA staff member Nicole Chen explained, the government recently declared spuds to be the “fourth staple food,” which has led to new export possibilities.

“Many companies have begun to develop new usage of potatoes to produce potato noodles and potato dumplings,” Chen said.

Shin Chung, a staff member in Korea, brought chefs representing California Pizza Kitchen and the major food service company, Ashley’s. Chung said frozen potato wedges are among the most popular pizza toppings in Korea.

“The potato is not considered as a carb; it is considered as a vegetable, so we eat bread and rice with potatoes,” Chung said.

Toaspern said foreign potato exports started the year strong and should finish the year 5 to 7 percent above last year, despite having softened in recent months. Toaspern said he’s pleased by progress toward opening fresh access to China, where he made a recent trip, Korea and Indonesia.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Oregon’s scenic Columbia River Gorge is the stage for one of the hottest disputes in Oregon’s Tuesday primary — a proposal by Nestle to build a bottled water plant in Cascade Locks, using water from a mountain spring.

Town leaders and many of the residents support the idea because it would create badly needed jobs and generate annual revenue of hundreds of thousands of dollars. But Nestle’s plan has drawn opposition from orchard owners, Native American tribes, some residents and others.

Farm and orchard owners have noted Hood River County experienced drought in 2015. Water bottlers would compete with their orchards and farms for the growing population of the town of Hood River and its shrinking water supply, they said.

But City Manager Gordon Zimmerman says Cascade Locks has water to spare.

Nestle hopes to use 118 million gallons of water per year by 2020.

The company would pay Cascade Locks an undetermined amount for the water. But the town must first swap well water for spring water with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The department, which uses the spring-fed Little Herman Creek for its Oxbow Hatchery, has already agreed to trade.

The city would sell its new share of spring water to Nestle for its Arrowhead bottled water, branded as sourced from mountain springs.

Studies by the fish and wildlife department and one commissioned by Nestle say hatchery fish and wild salmon won’t be affected.

Many folks aren’t buying it. Opponents also object to trucks making 200 trips a day to and from the plant. And Native Americans have cited global warming, salmon die-offs and water conservation as reasons to reject the bottling plant.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Conservation and fishing groups and an Indian tribe announced Monday they have filed protests against a draft federal proposal to manage 2.5 million acres in Western Oregon — a plan that would allow logging to increase by more than a third and for trees to be felled closer to streams.

Earthjustice and the Western Environmental Law Center, which filed a formal protest on Monday on behalf of 22 conservation and fishing groups, charged that the plan would increase clearcutting and harm streamside forests.

In its four-volume, 2,010-page proposal, the Bureau of Land Management said a revised plan is needed because of changes in timber management.

Under the plan, timber that can be harvested will be increased by about 75 million more board feet to 278 million board feet, BLM spokesman Jim Whittington told Jefferson Public Radio, a station based in the Southern Oregon town of Ashland. Whittington emphasized that the acreage available for timber harvest would not increase.

The protesting groups said the 37 percent increase in logging levels “will boost carbon emissions and make the forest less resilient to climate change and other disturbances.”

Whittington said trees could be cut closer to streams under the plan, with the buffer shortening from double the height of an average tree in the area to the height of a single tree.

A fishermen’s group blasted that aspect of the plan.

“The last, best salmon habitat in Oregon is within these BLM-managed forests,” Glen Spain of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, among the 22 groups, said in a statement. “Productive salmon streams are far more valuable for the salmon-related jobs they create than for the market value of the lumber you could generate from logging them.”

The BLM said the new plan will provide a sustained yield of timber while protecting threatened and endangered species.

For its part, the Coquille tribe said it fears the plan threatens its ability to manage its own forest, linked under federal law to BLM lands.

“We are very proud of how we manage our lands,” tribal chairman Brenda Meade said in a telephone interview. She said her tribe, of just over 1,000 members, was the only one in the United States that is required to manage its lands by the same standards as adjacent federal lands, a situation the tribe hopes will end under a bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year and is before the Senate.

BANDON -- The Southern Coos Health Foundation and Southern Coos Hospital & Health Center's seventh annual Men's Health Evening will feature Fred Tedeschi, former head athletic trainer of the Chicago Bulls basketball team, as the main speaker.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Despite killing four wolves from the Imnaha Pack earlier this year for repeatedly attacking livestock, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife reiterated the value of non-lethal deterrents during a workshop here May 13.

Eastern Oregon ranchers and county officials gathered at Blue Mountain Community College to hear presentations on the science and economics of dealing with wolves. The workshop featured speakers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services. ODFW also provided an update on the state’s Wolf Conservation and Management Plan, which is now up for review.

Roblyn Brown, the department’s acting wolf program coordinator, said the wolf population is growing rapidly in Oregon — there were at least 110 wolves counted by the end of last year, compared to just 14 in 2009. Yet the number of confirmed attacks on livestock has stayed relatively flat, which Brown said is due in part to the use and effectiveness of non-lethal tools.

“We’re figuring things out,” Brown said. “Non-lethals can absolutely work in certain situations.”

The most important thing, Brown said, is for ranchers to make sure they clean up their bone piles to avoid attracting wolves onto their property in the first place. Things like fladry fencing, range riders, guard dogs and alarm boxes can be effective deterrents, at least temporarily, if they’re used correctly.

Ranchers are doing a much better job now than they were when the plan was first implemented, Brown said. The number of confirmed wolf depredations was even down slightly in 2015, compared to 2014. But non-lethals don’t work every time, which is why Phase II of the wolf plan allows wildlife officials to selectively kill problem wolves.

In the case of the four Imnaha wolves, Brown said there were a number of factors that prompted ODFW to use lethal control. First, the wolves had apparently changed their behavior and started moving outside of their usual territory. Second, the group’s alpha female had a back leg injury, which could have prompted the group to target easier meals. Finally, non-lethal deterrents had proven ineffective in keeping wolves away from sheep and cattle.

Brown compared that to another series of attacks last year by the Mount Emily Pack on sheep in the Umatilla National Forest. All five of those incidents came against a single band of sheep, and by the time the producer asked for lethal control, Brown said non-lethal tools had started to work.

“ODFW will evaluate each situation when they’re making a determination about when to go to lethal control,” Brown said.

The agency’s focus, however, continues to be on non-lethals first. With the evidence suggesting deterrents are effective, the workshop shifted to community-wide models for rural areas where wolves are re-established.

Suzanne Asha Stone, senior Northwest representative for the conservation group Defenders of Wildlife, pointed to a few successful programs across the West — most notably the Wood River Wolf Project in central Idaho, where there’s the largest concentration of domestic sheep in the region.

Stone said the program pulls together ideas and funding from ranchers, agencies and wolf advocates alike to implement non-lethal solutions. More groups are starting to take this approach, she said, because it makes more resources more broadly available.

“The challenge is that it really requires a lot of good communication,” Stone said.

Between 2008 and 2015, Stone said they’ve had anywhere from 10,000 to 23,000 sheep on the land, yet they’ve only lost 30 of the animals to wolves over that period.

“Some of our best solutions have come from that mix of people that don’t usually talk to each other,” she said.

Stone said she was encouraged by how county wolf compensation committees were working together to ensure ranchers are made whole for dead or missing livestock due to wolves. Both Susan Roberts, of Wallowa County, and Jerry Baker, of Umatilla County, were on hand to discuss how their committees reach out to producers and submit applications for state grants.

Regardless of each individual’s opinion on wolves, Roberts said they have learned to check their attitudes and the door. Producers, meanwhile, are getting better at documenting everything, which means they stand a better chance of getting a slice of the funds.

Baker also emphasized the need for ranchers to provide as much documentation as possible to the committee. He said the county has developed a positive relationship with ODFW, especially when it comes to implementing non-lethal deterrents.

“I know the range riders have helped a lot, if they’re in the right place at the right time,” said Baker, who himself is a livestock producer. “I think we’re learning as we go.”

TURNER, Ore. — Cascade High School’s Agriculture Department moved into the final stage of their greenhouse restoration project recently, thanks to a $2,000 Northwest Farm Credit Services Rural Community Grant.

The money will be used to buy and install a new irrigation system.

A presentation was held in the greenhouse just before the FFA chapter’s annual Mother’s Day weekend plant sale.

Once the system is installed, the students will be able to incorporate new projects and grow plants they have not been able to grow before.

“The greenhouse was basically unusable when I came here 10 years ago,” FFA adviser Becky Bates said. “We did a complete renovation including leveling the floor and buying new tables. Now with separate irrigation systems including mister nozzles above all of the tables, we can grow plants by zone locations.”

The Cascade School District, Cascade FFA alumni, the Mid-Willamette Education Consortium and the Oregon Department of Education have also helped fund the greenhouse.

After touring the facility, Bob Boyle, Northwest Farm Credit Services senior vice president overseeing lending and grants, and Andrea Krahmer, young beginning-small farmer ag vision manager, presented the check.

Farm Credit has awarded 527 rural grants totaling more than $1 million since 2007.

“We so appreciate the NFCS grant,” Bates said. “It is exciting to know we can have a learning environment for my students that more closely matches current industry facilities.”

Once the greenhouse is fully functioning, the students will have hands-on skills that will be relevant in jobs they may have in the greenhouse and nursery industry.

“Everything for sale in the greenhouse is grown by the students,” Bates said of the Mothers Day sale. “Teachers, students and townspeople already line up just outside the door every year waiting to get in and buy them. Now we will be able to improve our quality and even grow more.”

For more information about the Cascade greenhouse program call Cascade High School at 503-749-8488 or email rbates@cascade.k12.or.us. For more information on the next Farm Credit rural grant, visit northwestfcs.com/Stewardship/Rural-Communities.

The deadline is June 1.

NAMPA, Idaho — Persistent winds for more than a month have created headaches for Treasure Valley growers in Idaho and Oregon, making it a struggle for them to spray their crops and keep the ground wet.

“The stinking wind blows every day,” said Nyssa, Ore., grower Paul Skeen, who said the winds have resulted in poor onion stands in some fields.

The wind also takes the wax off onions, which can be injured if they are sprayed before the wax builds back up, he said.

The wind is also creating problems in other crops, including sugar beets, corn and alfalfa, because farmers are struggling to find windows to spray.

“We always have wind in the spring but this year it just seems like it’s been non-stop for a month,” said Nampa farmer Kevin Tuckness. “We haven’t been able to spray very much because the wind’s been blowing non-stop.”

Richard Durrant, owner of Big D Ranch, which grows 1,100 acres of sugar beets, corn, wheat, beans and alfalfa near Meridian, Idaho, said he had to re-plant some sugar beets this year because the wind dried the soil out before there was water in the canals.

Trying to keep the ground wet has been a real challenge this year because of the wind, said Neil Durrant, Richard Durrant’s son.

“You couldn’t keep the ground wet enough,” he said. “It seemed like every time you would get it wet, the wind came and dried it all out again.”

The Big D operation wasn’t able to get its alfalfa sprayed this year and that crop has a lot of bug damage as a result, Richard Durrant said.

The farm’s biggest concern right now is trying to get its sugar beets and corn sprayed.

“I think we’ll suffer some on yields if we can’t get in and spray soon,” said Neil Durrant. “This year has been a lot worse than any year I can recount. You can’t spray when the wind is blowing 15 to 20 mph.”

Tuckness said the wind has made a lot of sugar beet fields in the area uneven.

“You have stuff that’s 4 inches and stuff that’s just coming up,” he said. “It dried out portions of the field so you have stuff that germinated and came up and other spots of the field where it’s dry (and) we had to water everything up.”

Some pre-emergent chemicals that growers were able to spray aren’t having their normal effect because of how dry the soil is, Tuckness said.

Bill Buhrig, an Oregon State University cropping systems extension agent in Ontario, said the wind has made it a challenge to apply some critical timing sprays.

He said it’s been a struggle for many farmers in the area, including himself, to spray their alfalfa fields for weevils this year.

If weevil spraying is pushed back a week, “That’s one more week that they’ve had the opportunity to damage your crop,” he said.

The prohibition against genetically engineered crops in Oregon’s Josephine County has been struck down by a judge who ruled the ordinance is pre-empted by state law.

Voters in the county approved the ban on genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, in 2014 even though state lawmakers disallowed local governments from regulating the crops the prior year.

Proponents of the GMO ban claimed that the pre-emption state was unconstitutional, but Josephine County Circuit Court Judge Pat Wolke has rejected that argument and held the county ordinance to be invalid.

“The state law says that the localities may not legislate in this area; and the voters of Josephine County have attempted to legislate in the exact same area. It is impossible to read the two enactments in harmony; so that the local ordinance must give way,” Wolke said in the May 16 ruling.

Farmers Robert and Shelley Ann White challenged the legality of the GMO ordinance last year, arguing it had prevented them from planting biotech sugar beets on 100 acres of leased property.

During oral arguments in the lawsuit, held in April, much of the debate focused on whether the Whites had legal standing to file the case.

Supporters of the GMO ban called them “hobby farmers” who filed a “manufactured lawsuit” on behalf of agribusiness lobbyists and didn’t have a valid lease to the 100 acres or a contract to grow biotech sugar beets.

Oregonians for Safe Farms and Families, a nonprofit, and Siskiyou Seeds, an organic seed producer, had intervened to defend the ordinance after the county government took a neutral position in the litigation.

The intervenors claimed the Whites had a “purely hypothetical” interest in growing GMOs, which isn’t enough to establish standing.

“They need more than their general disdain for this ordinance to get into court,” said attorney Melissa Wischerath, who represented the intervenors.

The judge disagreed with that characterization, ruling that “the plaintiffs have demonstrated that their conflict with the ordinance is not academic or speculative and that the determination in this case will have a practical effect on them.”

Proponents of the GMO ban also claimed the ordinance should not be pre-empted by state law because Oregon has a “regulatory void” in regard to biotech crops.

Because lawmakers had barred local restrictions on GMOs without establishing a statewide system to protect organic and conventional farmers from cross-pollination, the pre-emption statute is unconstitutional, the invervenors argued.

Wolke found that Oregon law doesn’t require a “replacement regulatory scheme” for a statute to pre-empt local rules.

He also rejected the argument that the pre-emption statute only applies to packaged seeds and not plants, calling this an “absurd interpretation” of the law.

Oregon’s Jackson County was allowed to prohibit GMO crops in 2014 because the initiative was already on the ballot when lawmakers passed the pre-emption statute.

Supporters of Josephine County’s ordinance claimed the limit was arbitrary, but Wolke said it was a “legislative prerogative” to set the cut-off date.

Wolke likewise refused to disregard an Oregon Supreme Court precedent dealing with conflicts between state laws and county ordinances, saying he lacked the authority to do so.

PARMA, Idaho — Stripe rust in wheat has been detected from Eastern Idaho to Eastern Oregon and growers are being advised to check their fields closely for signs of the disease.

The disease, which can cause significant yield and quality losses, has arrived in the region early this year and likely over-wintered here, researchers said.

Stripe rust in wheat typically is blown into Idaho from other states, said Juliet Marshall, University of Idaho cereals extension specialist.

Its presence this early in the season, coupled with symptoms on the lower leaves, is a strong indication that it over-wintered here, she said.

In years with serious stripe rust outbreaks caused by the disease over-wintering, it usually doesn’t spread until after Memorial Day, Marshall said.

“We’re already seeing pretty good infections in both” dryland and irrigated wheat, she said.

Stripe rust has been found in susceptible spring and winter wheat varieties from Bannock County in Eastern Idaho to Malheur County in Eastern Oregon.

Marshall found stripe rust in two Southeast Idaho fields on April 4, one in a commercial field south of Aberdeen and the other in a field of volunteer wheat between Pocatello and American Falls where stripe rust was found in November.

Stripe rust was also reported in a wheat field east of Wendell in Southcentral Idaho in April and it was detected this week in winter wheat nursery plots at UI’s Parma research center in Southwestern Idaho, as well as in fields between Nyssa and Ontario in Oregon.

The fungus proliferates well in the cool, wet conditions prevalent in many areas across Southern Idaho and Eastern Oregon this spring, she added.

“Conditions are good for the fungus this year,” she said. “I’ve been worrying about having a really big outbreak this spring.”

People with susceptible wheat varieties should check their fields weekly and closely, Marshall said. “It’s really critical that people scout for the fungus.”

Stripe rust in wheat has been an intermittent problem in Eastern Oregon and the last two years it arrived late enough in the season that most growers decided not to treat for it, said Bill Buhrig, an Oregon State University Extension cropping systems agent.

But he said there’s concern that its early arrival this year may mean growers will have to spray for it, which costs about $20-25 an acre total.

Stripe rust in barley has also been detected in one field at low levels. Stripe rust in wheat does not cause stripe rust in barley and vice versa, but the detection of both is an indication that conditions are ripe for the fungus, Marshall said.

Marshall encouraged growers to report any occurrence of either wheat or barley stripe rust to her at jmarshall@uidaho.edu

She strongly recommended growers plant one of the many resistant wheat varieties available, a recommendation seconded by Filer grower Jerry Mai.

“We do grow resistant varieties as much as we can,” he said. “It’s really the only thing we can do. It’s kind of silly not to.”

SATURDAY, MAY 14

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A man who joined the security team during the takeover of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon has pleaded guilty to stealing government property.

Scott Willingham was with occupation spokesman Robert “LaVoy” Finicum on Jan. 15 when Finicum took down surveillance cameras at a substation near Burns.

Willingham’s the first refuge defendant to enter a guilty plea, but he’s not one of the 26 people scheduled to go to trial later this year in the larger conspiracy case stemming from the 41-day takeover.

Under a plea agreement, Willingham’s expected to face six months in prison. He’s agreed to undergo a mental health evaluation and spend up to several months at a residential re-entry program.

The Oregonian/Oregonlive reports that Willingham said “absolutely, without question” when a federal judge asked Thursday if entering the guilty plea was the right decision.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A recall petition has been filed against a Harney County official who did not support the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

Petitioners say they have gathered 566 signatures, more than enough to compel Judge Steve Grasty to resign or face a recall election.

Though his title is judge, Grasty’s position is essentially chairman of the county commission. He tells The Oregonian/Oregonlive he’s not going to resign.

Ammon Bundy and others occupied the refuge this winter to protest the imprisonment of Dwight and Steven Hammond, two ranchers sent to prison for starting fires. They blame Grasty for not offering to protect the Hammonds from the federal government.

The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office is working to verify the petition signatures.

A llama found dead and partially eaten May 9 was killed by one or more wolves, according to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The attack occurred on private land in the Buford Creek drainage of Wallowa County in northeast Oregon.

The stockowner found the llama with muscle tissue from the flank and abdominal area consumed, and most of its internal organs were on the ground next to the carcass.

An ODFW report indicated the attack probably occurred several hours before the carcass was discovered.

The location and size of bite marks indicated wolves were responsible, according to ODFW. Investigators also found fresh wolf tracks 200 yards and 10 yards away.

Tracking collar data showed OR-23 was 1.5 miles from the carcass site six days earlier.

The attack was attributed to the Shamrock Pack.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — One of the defendants involved in the armed takeover of an Oregon wildlife refuge has been allowed to represent himself in the case.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports U.S. District Judge Anna Brown allowed Jason Patrick to be his own lawyer Wednesday, but not without questioning his ability to act appropriately without legal counsel to guide him. She appointed Andrew Kohlmetz to be his standby attorney.

In previous court appearances, Patrick has been scolded for making outbursts and speaking out of turn.

The 44-year-old roofer from Georgia is now the third co-defendant in the case to represent himself. A request from a fourth defendant, Duane Ehmer, is pending.

Patrick has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and weapons charges related to the occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge earlier this year.

SOUTH COAST -- The South Coast Regional Early Learning Hub has allocated $180,238 to regional schools and programs through Kindergarten Partnership and Innovation grants. The grants will fund various projects that will support children in the community as they prepare…

LANGLOIS -- Due to the increased cases of Lyme disease and the disabling autoimmune disease associated with Lyme, Oregon Lyme Disease Network of Bend is coming to the South Coast to promote Lyme awareness in the general community and among…

THURSDAY, MAY 12

CHARLESTON — Alseny Yansane will be returning to the Southern Oregon coast to offer fabulous drum and dance workshops excellent for all levels on May 21-22. Yansane's workshops haven't been offered locally for several years. So take advantage of one…

Thursday, May 12