PORTLAND — The U.S. Forest Service’s oversight of stray cattle in national forests on the Oregon-California border drew sharp questions from federal appellate judges at a Nov. 2 hearing.

Environmental groups filed a lawsuit in 2011 claiming that cattle wander away from their approved allotments, damaging sensitive native plants in the remote Siskiyou Crest area, where fencing isn’t an economically feasible option.

Their complaint was dismissed in 2013 by a federal judge who found that the “cattle drift” problem was sufficiently analyzed and mitigated by the Forest Service.

“There is little evidence of quantitative, objectively verifiable damage” caused by wayward cattle despite drift occurring in the area since the 1800s, which is “not particularly surprising given the relatively low grazing rates” across a vast area, U.S. District Judge Morrison England said in the ruling.

The Klamath Siskiyou Wildlands Center and the Klamath Forest Alliance have challenged that decision before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which held oral arguments in the case before a three-judge panel in Portland.

An attorney for the Forest Service, Evelyn Ying, said the agency considered the frequency and duration of drift in concluding that it caused minimal impacts because ranchers monitor the area regularly.

“The permittees have been compliant in getting them back when they do drift,” she said. “There is no information to show adverse environmental effects.”

Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon repeatedly questioned Ying about whether the lack of evidence was simply due to the U.S. Forest Service not studying the damage.

Berzon said it bothered her that nobody seems to have looked for quantitative data about damage, asking whose burden it should be to gather such information.

Ying responded that Klamath National Forest managers monitored for drift and concluded it wasn’t a serious problem, she said.

Managers of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, which is mostly in Oregon, did not object to grazing even though cattle were drifting in from the Klamath National Forest in California, she said.

Circuit Judge Paul Watford asked why the Forest Service didn’t consider evidence of damage submitted by environmentalists when considering the effects of grazing.

Ying replied that these reports were largely anecdotal.

“They are not based on scientific protocol,” she said.

Watford said that notes from a meeting among Forest Service managers seem to indicate they weren’t sure what to do about cattle drift or how to present the issue in their environmental assessment of grazing.

“We really don’t have the information, so we have to say something,” Watford said, characterizing their statements.

Ying said the Forest Service officials did not want to downplay the drift issue but wanted to be careful in how they explained it.

David Becker, attorney for the environmental groups, said that Siskiyou Crest is home to fragile soils and wetlands, so cattle can harm the environment simply by wandering from one pasture to another.

The Forest Service did not take the required “hard look” at the issue, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act, and failed to adequately explain why it didn’t conduct a more comprehensive study of drift, he said.

“Even 15 cows, even 10 cows, getting into a riparian area can cause damage, can have it not recover,” Becker said.

The judges did not issue a ruling at the hearing.

MOLALLA, Ore. — On a modest farm southeast of Portland, volunteers nurture thousands of cuttings taken from a world class collection of obscure apple varieties.

Their goal is to copy the eclectic collection and sustain its genetic diversity before its aging owner retires, sells or the collection falls into disarray.

The volunteers, roused through such groups as the Home Orchard Society, have found unexpected allies: Hipster hard cider makers, whose booming industry seeks the bitter-sweet or even bitter-tart flavors of old heirloom apples, not the Honeycrisp, Fuji or the half-dozen other fresh-eating varieties most commonly sold in grocery stores.

“The cider makers have found the older varieties produce the complex, multi-layered flavors they need,” said Joanie Cooper, who owns the Molalla farm where the orchard collection is being established. “The new ones are just sweet and don’t add character to cider.”

“All of this makes sense,” said Pete Mulligan, a key project supporter and partner in Bull Run Cider outside of Portland. “This is the fastest growing adult beverage in the country.”

At the root of this collaboration is the renowned Botner Collection in Yoncalla, Ore., which was established by amateur horticulturist Nick Botner and his wife, Carla. Trading and exchanging with other private and public collectors over several decades, Nick Botner gathered an estimated 4,000 apple varieties from around the world, including from old pioneer homesteads in the U.S. He grows them on his farm.

But the farm is for sale. Cooper, who’s long been active in the Home Orchard Society, said Botner, near 90, told her, “You need to buy my farm. Move down here and save my trees.”

That wasn’t feasible. In addition, Cooper said the farm is not commercially viable, because in many cases Botner has only one tree per variety.

In 2011, intending to preserve the genetic diversity represented in the Botners’ orchard, Cooper and others set out to duplicate it.

In 2012, Cooper formed a non-profit, the Temperate Orchard Conservancy, and began the effort to plant the copied varieties on Almaty Farm, her 40-acre property outside of Molalla. Cooper said the farm will distribute cuttings to other orchardists.

“We have big and broad plans,” she said. “This isn’t going to be a static collection.”

It is tedious work. Volunteers take cuttings, called scions, and graft them to root stock. They’re grown out in pots under shade cloth before being planted at Cooper’s farm. The non-profit eventually will take over the property, Cooper said. Down the road, the conservancy may be able to help support itself by selling trees.

Each tree wears a metal tag with identification drawn from Botner’s eclectic records: Common name, planting block and row number.

The varieties range from Muscaset de Lense, a French cider apple, to Huvitus, which originated in Finland. Others are identified as Glass King, Lyman Prolific, Kensei, Harlamowski, Joy’s Delight and Marlin Stephens.

“Most of these, you wouldn’t know what they are,” Cooper said.

So far, volunteers have copied about 3,000 of the estimated 4,000 varieties in the collection.

The USDA maintains an apple variety collection in Geneva, N.Y., but the Botner collection holds some that aren’t found there. Cooper said the conservancy has a different mission.

“They have a collection, but their goal is not to save every heirloom variety,” Cooper said. “Ours is.”

The work wins cheers from Joseph Postman, who curates the USDA’s pear collection outside of Corvallis, Ore.

Grocery chains primarily sell four or five apple varieties, and lack of diversity is a genetic vulnerability, Postman said. Having access to hundreds opens the market to local products, he said.

The alcoholic fruit drink industry is pushing the renewed interest in varieties that aren’t widely grown commercially, Postman said. Over the past dozen years, most of the requests Postman’s received for pear cuttings come from “perry” makers. Perry is to pears as cider is to apples.

At Bull Run Cider in Forest Grove out side of Portland, Mulligan and partner Galen Williams make hard cider, maintain their own orchard and sell trees to other orchardists.

It’s critical the industry grow its own cider varieties as soon as possible, Mulligan said. Some cideries now make do with juiced dessert apples, he said.

Cooper, the non-profit Temperate Orchard Conservancy founder and owner of Almaty Farm, said her interest began when she realized the rural property she owned years ago near Amity, Ore., had remnants of an orchard planted in the late 1880s. She sought identification and was entranced by the long-forgotten varieties.

She’s transplanted that fervor to her new farm, Amaty. The farm name comes from a city in Kazakhstan and reportedly means “full of apples.” The region is often described as the birthplace of modern apples, and so the name appeals to Cooper.

“That’s what I call it,” she said.

SEATTLE (AP) — Health officials expect the number of people sickened by an E. coli outbreak linked to Chipotle restaurants in Washington state and Oregon to grow while they investigate the cause of the infection.

As of Friday, three people in the Portland area and 19 people in Western Washington had become sick from E. coli. Seventeen of them had eaten at a Chipotle restaurant during the past few weeks.

Eight people have been hospitalized but no deaths have been reported.

After people started hearing about the outbreak, more people will probably go to the doctor and join the list of potential cases, said Marisa D’Angeli, medical epidemiologist with the Washington State Department of Health.

“We actually would expect there might be a jump in cases on Monday,” she said.

D’Angeli encouraged anyone who has been sick with intestinal symptoms and has eaten at Chipotle since mid-October, to go see their doctor and get tested. She also said anyone with bloody diarrhea should go to the doctor whether they have eaten at Chipotle or not.

“We’re very early in the investigation,” D’Angeli said. It’s possible their investigation will find that the E. coli came from a fresh food product delivered to Chipotle restaurants and other places.

Everyone who comes forward helps in providing extra clues that could help identify the source of the infection, she said.

The investigation started with talking to everyone diagnosed with E. coli and finding out what they ate and where. Test samples from those individuals will go to state labs in Washington and Oregon.

Then samples of food from the restaurants will be tested at a U.S. Food and Drug Administration laboratory to see if bacteria from the food matches the human cases.

The source of the E. coli was most likely a fresh food product, D’Angeli said, because it probably could not be traced to one sick individual or one instance of cross-contamination of food since the cases are connected with so many restaurants.

D’Angeli noted that Chipotle has been cooperative and voluntarily shut down all its restaurants in the two states.

The reopening of the 43 Chipotle restaurants in Oregon and Washington will be dictated by the investigation, said company spokesman Chris Arnold. “Right now, that is the priority,” he said.

The company has not made plans to close any other restaurants in other states as there is no evidence of a link to other restaurants, Arnold added.

Before U.S. markets opened Monday, shares of Chipotle tumbled more than 5 percent to levels not seen in about three months.

People have reported symptoms of infection in Clackamas and Washington counties in Oregon, and Clark, King, Skagit and Cowlitz counties in Washington.

There are hundreds of E. coli and similar bacteria strains in the intestines of humans. Most are harmless, but a few can cause serious problems.

Symptoms of E. coli infection include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, nausea and vomiting. Health officials say the best defense against the bacterial illness is to thoroughly wash hands with soap and water.

ADRIAN, Ore. — Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., has asked Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell to formally outline where the federal government stands on a proposal to designate 2.5 million acres in Malheur County as a national monument or wilderness area.

The Owyhee Canyonlands Conservation Proposal, which would impact about 33 percent of the county’s total grazing land, is strongly opposed by the county’s ranchers and farmers.

Walden hopes to receive a response to that Oct. 28 request soon and will keep pushing until he gets one, said Andrew Malcolm, Walden’s communications director.

“We want them to make clear what their intentions are on this proposal,” he said.

In his letter to Jewell, Walden said locking up that much land, which is equal to 43 percent of the county, is “understandably concerning to local communities.”

“These hard-working local residents deserve to know where the federal government stands on the proposal that would affect their daily lives far beyond anyone else’s,” Walden stated.

He also said the proposal could harm agriculture, which “provides the economic base for Malheur County.”

Agriculture generates $370 million annually in farm-gate receipts in the county, and $134 million of that total comes from the livestock industry.

Because the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies manage 73 percent of the county’s lands, “public lands grazing (is) an integral part of most local family ranch operations,” Walden stated. “Greatly restricting use of that land through a monument designation could have disastrous economic impacts to the county and the surrounding region.”

Walden told Jewell that “it’s very important that you ... outline formally to Malheur County (residents) where the DOI stands on this proposal....”

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats, have also weighed in on the issue and, in a joint statement, said any proposal needs to protect ranching families as well as other existing rights in the area.

“Malheur County has been home to ranch families for generations,” their Oct. 29 letter states. “We want to ensure that agriculture, ranching and other uses of this landscape continue into Oregon’s future.”

Five other Eastern Oregon counties also support Malheur County in its opposition to the proposal.

A Harney County Court resolution opposing the plan said it could reduce ranching operations in Southeastern Oregon, “as the majority of ranches are tied to federal grazing.”

The proposal is being spearheaded by the Oregon Natural Desert Association and the group’s executive director, Brent Fenty, said the plan’s supporters would be happy to work with Malheur County residents to help craft a proposal palatable to both sides.

“We’re certainly ready and willing to have those conversations,” he said.

According to Fenty, 100 Oregon businesses have signed letters urging Wyden to support the proposal and more than 10,500 petition signatures favoring the plan have been collected.

Fenty said proposal proponents support congressional action to approve the plan but opponents say they anticipate supporters will ask President Barack Obama to use his powers under the Antiquities Act to designate the land as a national monument or wilderness area.

SATURDAY, OCT. 31

Capital Press

ADRIAN, Ore. — Ranchers, farmers and other Malheur County residents packed Adrian High School’s gymnasium Oct. 29 to oppose a proposal that would designate 2.5 million acres of the county as a national conservation or wilderness area.

The 500-person crowd was mostly against the Owyhee Canyonlands Conservation Proposal but included a contingent of people from other parts of the state who support it.

Loud applause and standing ovations greeted those who spoke against the proposal but mostly silence followed after people who support it spoke.

“We live here and pay taxes here and I’m hoping what we say has a little more weight than what somebody from across the state says,” said Adrian area farmer Brent Ishida.

Ranchers and farmers believe locking up that much land — it would equal 43 percent of the entire county — would devastate ranching, which is the county’s main agricultural commodity and brings in about $130 million in farm-gate receipts annually.

Most ranching operations in southeastern Oregon are tied to federal grazing permits and the proposal would negatively impact that industry, states a Harney County resolution opposing the proposal.

The resolution says the proposal would also cause a “loss of direct jobs and jobs within the supply chain of the agriculture and cattle industries.”

The proposal is backed by the Owyhee Coalition, which includes thousands of people and organizations across the state and country, said Brent Fenty, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association, which is spearheading the effort.

“We all care about the Owyhee and want to keep it the way it is today, we just may disagree on how we do that,” he said. “I sincerely hope the future of the Owyhee is not oil and gas drilling.”

Fenty said livestock grazing and mining activities would be grandfathered into any monument or wilderness designation and allowed to continue where it’s occurring now.

But opponents doubted that and Jordan Valley rancher Bob Skinner, who is leading the opposition effort, received a standing ovation when he told the crowd, “Don’t believe that stuff. The proponents of this (proposal) are professional litigators. Once this gets to court, all bets are off.”

Many proposal supporters said it would result in a lot of tourism dollars from the nation’s large outdoor industry but locals weren’t convinced. Opponents also expressed doubt that the federal government could care for the place better than their families have for generations.

The meeting, which was organized by Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, was videotaped and will be shown on the internet and presented to President Barack Obama, Bentz said.

He said opponents are concerned the president may act on the proposal without being aware of how much local opposition there is to it.

Commissioners and judges from five other Eastern Oregon counties and Owyhee County, Idaho, were at the meeting and spoke against the proposal.

“We will continue to stand with each other in Eastern Oregon and protect our home,” said Grant County Court Judge Scott Myers.

BEND, Ore. (AP) — The GPS collar that allowed people around the world to track the movements of Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, has stopped working.

State officials say the battery has died, and efforts to put a new collar on OR-7 were unsuccessful.

The wolf became globally famous when he set off from his Northeast Oregon pack four years ago and wandered thousands of miles through Oregon and northern California in search of a mate.

He found a mate, settled in the Cascade Range in southern Oregon and has had five pups.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wolf coordinator John Stephenson tells the Bend Bulletin that OR-7 is now being monitored with trail cameras and sightings.

Despite the collar’s breakdown, officials say they know where OR-7 and his pack roam.

The wildlife biologists in charge of Oregon’s gray wolf recovery program believe wolves should be taken off the state endangered species list.

The recommendation goes to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife Commission, which will decide Nov. 9 whether to de-list wolves. Livestock producers, especially those represented by the Oregon Cattleman’s Association, favor de-listing.

Conservation groups oppose the idea. In a joint statement released Oct. 29, the Pacific Wolf Coalition said the staff recommendation is flawed and has not been peer reviewed as required by state law. The coalition includes Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Michael Paul Nelson, a College of Forestry professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at Oregon State University, called de-listing “logically indefensible” when wolves are present on only 12 percent of their potential range in the state.

“Dropping state protections for wolves right now would suggest that politics, rather than science and law, are guiding wildlife management decisions in Oregon,” Nelson said in a statement issued by Pacific Wolf Coalition.

If the ODFW commission agrees with the staff recommendation, it would mean wolves in the eastern third of the state are not protected under either state or federal endangered species laws. Federal ESA protection would still be in force in the rest of Oregon.

That wouldn’t mean open season on wolves, however. The state wolf plan would remain in force, and it allows ODFW-approved “controlled take,” or killing, of wolves in cases of chronic livestock attacks or if wolves cause a decline in prey populations, chiefly elk and deer. Ranchers, as they do now, would be able to shoot wolves caught in the act of attacking livestock or herd dogs. None have been killed in that manner.

Oregon’s wolf plan does not allow sport hunting of wolves in any phase of the recovery timeline, ODFW spokeswoman Michelle Dennehy said.

The ODFW staff recommendation was not a surprise. A biological status review completed earlier this fall said gray wolf recovery in Oregon has met the de-listing criteria in every instance.

Under the state plan, wolves can be de-listed if:

Wolves aren’t in danger of extinction in any portion of their range; their natural reproductive potential is not in danger of failing; there’s no imminent or active deterioration of their range or primary habitat; the species or its habitat won’t be “over-utilized” for scientific, recreational, commercial or educational reasons; and existing state or federal regulations are adequate to protect them.

State wildlife biologists, headed by ODFW’s Russ Morgan, believe the criteria have been met. Morgan describes Oregon’s wolf population as steadily increasing in number and geographic distribution.

The first wolves migrated to Oregon from Idaho, where they had been released as part of a national recovery program coordinated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The first Oregon pack was documented in 2008, and the confirmed wolf population stood at 85 as of July 2015. Since then, three wolves have died: The Sled Springs pair were found dead of unknown cause in Wallowa County in late August, and a Grant County man hunting coyotes on private property in early October reported shooting a wolf designated as OR-22. A district attorney is reviewing evidence in the case.

The Nov. 9 ODFW Commission meeting begins at 8 a.m. at the department headquarters, 4034 Fairview Industrial Drive SE, Salem. Wolf de-listing is the only topic on the agenda.

THURSDAY, OCT. 29

CORVALLIS, Ore. (AP) — Early in College Hill High School teacher Cherie Taylor’s horticulture class, she went to her car to retrieve the 11 half-grown chickens she had brought for students to care for during the class, only to find that the chickens had broken free from the cardboard box in which she transported them.

Further, the escaped chickens had made a prodigious mess on the outside of their box and in the car, so instead of having one student carry the box as she planned, Taylor had her students each individually carry the chickens to the school’s fenced garden area.

So lesson one for Tuesday: Chickens — bad for cars, but good for gardens.

Taylor’s horticulture class has been caring for the chickens since the start of the school year, when they were just 3 days old. Taylor said introducing the chickens is part of the course’s rotating topics, which allow students to take the school’s only science class over multiple years and not have to repeat content. In past years they’ve studied mycorrhizal fungi and bees.

Taylor said lessons with the chickens for the horticulture class, which has become so popular that this year she had to add a second section, have included how to care for the chickens and the benefits chickens have on a garden, such as fertilization and pest control.

Her construction math class, new this year at the school, is also building prototype coops that are designed to fit over the garden’s raised beds, so the chickens can be rotated between the beds, although right now Taylor keeps them at her house when they are not attending class. The construction math class is trying to get to a point where it can sell coops as a fundraiser.

Taylor said hands-on activities, like raising chickens, are more engaging to students.

“I could lecture from a textbook and kids would be looking at the clock,” she said.

But in horticulture, students like Isaac Smartt said they enjoy the class so much that they come in during their free time to work on the garden.

Smartt, a senior at the alternative school, said he saw what other students were doing in the class last year so he wanted to join it.

“I’ve learned way more with hands-on (lessons) than I have with books,” he said.

Smartt, who is also in the construction math class and has worked outside of class on building a coop for the chickens, said he helps out with his dad’s garden at home and he’d like to get his own chickens.

“It’s been great because I’ve watched these chickens grow since they could fit in my hand. Now I’m building them a home. It feels good,” he said.

Ethan Sauret, a junior in his second year in horticulture classes, said having the chickens added new depth to the class. During Tuesday’s class he spent his time looking after the chickens as they wandered the garden. He paid particular attention to what they were eating, so that the students can understand how to feed them as they transition off chicken feed.

“A lot of people would learn better if there were more classes like this in school. It lets you see how things work,” he said.

Cindy Preece, an administrative assistant at the school, recalled taking photos of the first days of class, when students were caring for the chicks.

“What I saw happening was this utter calm come over the room,” she said of the chicks coming into the class for the first time. She said the students were excited and engaged as they cared for the chickens.

“It was this incredible experience of watching kids blossom and feel confident right before my eyes,” she said.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An 8-year-old Yorkshire Terrier was carried away from its owner’s porch in Oregon by an animal believed to be a young cougar.

The Statesman Journal reports that Mark Jensen says he watched a large cat carry away his dog, Bub, at his house near Sublimity early Wednesday morning.

He told Marion County Sheriff’s deputies that the animal cornered the Yorkie on the porch before carrying it away.

Jensen describes the cat as weighing between 35 and 50 pounds with brown and white markings.

The Marion County Sheriff’s Office, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Oregon State Police are determining the appropriate response.

Tillamook, Ore. — The cows at the Averill family’s dairy seem unimpressed by the high-tech gadgetry surrounding them.

They calmly pass through an automated gate that sorts the cows based on how recently they’ve been milked, which is monitored using radio-frequency identification devices on their ears.

Those who have been milked too recently are returned to their stalls, while those who are ready to be milked are ushered toward one of six robotic milkers.

After waiting their turn in line, each cow steps into a pen and enjoys some grain while the giant robotic arm does its business.

To many, this scenario represents the future of farming. As labor costs increase and the labor pool shrinks, farmers such as the Averills are turning to robotics and other technology to provide better care for their animals and increase efficiency.

Adoption of robotic systems has been growing at about 25 percent a year, and has particularly “taken off” during past decade, said Larry Tranel, an extension dairy specialist at Iowa State University who has studied the economics of automation.

“We don’t see it slowing down,” he said.

At the Averills’ dairy, the robot first sprays the entire udder with an iodine formula, then washes and dries each teat before attaching suction cups to harvest the milk. Each robot can handle 60 cows.

Once the task is complete, the cow is again set loose among its peers, free to enjoy a comforting session with the robotic touch-activated spinning brushes that clean off manure and remove loose hair.

Occasionally, the cows indifferently step over the mechanical manure scraper that slowly and continuously cleans the barn alleys. They are fed by an automated feed pusher that maintains their rations in orderly rows.

“They adapt quite well to technology. Probably easier than people,” said Mark Brown, a general manager for DeLaval Dairy Service, which builds and installs the equipment.

The cows certainly seemed less intrigued by the automated dairy system than the farmers who visited the Averills’ dairy during a recent open house organized by DeLaval.

While DeLaval first patented the idea for robotic milkers in 1978 and made them commercially available in the late 1990s, the technology didn’t really hit its stride until the mid-2000s, said Brown.

Several other manufacturers also produce robotic systems, including Lely, GEA, BouMatic and Insentec.

With the growing strength of computer power and the increased familiarity of dairymen with the technology, such milkers are now catching on, Brown said.

“It’s become really reliable and accepted,” he said.

The robotic systems have gained in popularity even though they’re a more expensive option over the lowest-cost milking parlors, said Tranel of Iowa State University.

The lowest-cost milking parlor systems equate to 25 cents to $1 per hundredweight in milking costs, compared to $2 to $3 per hundredweight with robots, he said.

Maintenance and repairs can also be expensive for robotic systems, running about $7,000 to $9,000 per year, he estimated.

“It’s definitely not the cheapest way to milk a cow, but there are other factors encouraging producers to put in robots,” Tranel said. “The bottom line is cows like them and people like them.”

Aside from labor concerns, there are “quality of life factors,” since dairymen are less physically tied to the facility, he said. “Someone doesn’t always have to be there.”

Don Averill, whose family owns the dairy, said he decided to invest in the robotic milkers and other machinery when undertaking an expansion of the operation.

The primary motivation was reducing the need for labor, which has grown more scarce in recent years, he said.

With automated equipment performing many of the duties in the dairy barns, management of the operation is easier for Averill, who can attend to other tasks.

Averill also sees the system as less stressful for the cows, as they’re able to set their own routine without frequent interactions with humans.

For example, the automated brushes provide the perk of entertaining the cows while they’re being cleaned, he said. “It gives them something to do. That’s cow TV.”

Apart from improving the health and longevity of his cows, the system is expected to increase their productivity, Averill said.

Before the system’s installation, the cows were only milked twice a day. Once their bodies are at full holding capacity, they stop producing milk. Now, the herd is milked three times a day, so they don’t hit that limit.

A major advantage of robotic milkers is information about the health and production of individual cows, since the systems provide “instantaneous data,” Tranel said.

Yield is measured on a per-cow and per quarter-udder basis, so a farmer can quickly notice if a cow may be getting sick or if there’s an infection on one of its teats.

If there are changes to the herd’s feed rations, the impact on production also quickly becomes evident, he said.

By informing farmers whether new techniques are helpful or detrimental, the system allows for “day by day management,” Tranel said. “They can gauge that pretty quickly.”

Each robotic milker costs roughly $200,000, but the total cost will depend on how much a dairy must be retrofitted to accommodate the units and which type of gate system the farmer prefers, Brown said.

Manure scrapers cost about $30,000 per unit, feed pushers cost about $20,000 and touch-activated brushes cost about $2,600 each, he said.

Robotic systems are best suited for dairies with about 260 or fewer cows, as larger operations can achieve greater profits with low-cost milking parlors, said Tranel. “For me, it’s more of a smaller-farmer technology.”

Robotic systems that involve a major upfront investment are often more difficult for dairies to manage than traditional milking parlors, in which the labor costs are more spread out, said Mathew Haan, a dairy educator at Pennsylvania State University who has studied the systems.

That challenge is mitigated by dealers who can lease the equipment or banks that agree to finance it, Haan said. “It makes it much more attractive from a financial standpoint.”

Pendleton Grain Growers, which has been hammered in recent years by financial problems and poor wheat harvests, will explore the option of detaching its grain division, General Manager Rick Jacobson announced Wednesday.

The co-op will consider selling, merging or entering into a joint venture with a third party before the next growing season, Jacobson said. An export company or neighboring co-op might be interested, he said, but there are no offers on the table.

The grain division will continue to buy and operate as usual until a transaction is completed, Jacobson said in a prepared statement. The decision was approved by PGG’s board of directors.

Board Chairman Tim Hawkins said it didn’t make economic sense for the co-op to continue operating the grain business itself.

“The grain business is one that requires scale to ensure competitiveness, and our grain division did not attract enough handle this year for us to effectively move forward,” Hawkins said in a prepared statement.

The board’s first choice is to have another co-op handle the grain division, but exporters are considering the investment as well, he said.

“The decision will come down to who offers the greatest value for our members,” Hawkins said in the statement released Wednesday morning.

“We had informed the growers in meetings that the future of the grain business would be evaluated based on the size of the handle this year,” Hawkins said in the statement. “PGG greatly appreciates the support of the producers that brought us their grain, but there simply were not enough of them.”

PGG does not have a deadline for striking a deal, other than before the next harvest season.

The co-op has been wobbling for several years. Since 2014 PGG has sold or closed several divisions, laid off employees, reduced excess inventory, restructured its debts into a new loan package and obtained a $20 million line of credit in response to the financial problems. Jacobson said in June that PGG was positioned to make a profit in 2015.

Earnings at the end of June were $4 million above the same time in 2014, the co-op reported.

But a lack of moisture and intense heat early in the season “pinched” dryland wheat crops for some PGG growers, resulting in yield reductions of 25 to 30 percent and protein levels higher than exporters prefer. Meanwhile, the price dropped and Gavilon, a grain handling company owned by the Japanese firm Marubeni Corp., opened a truck transfer station in Union County, giving growers another option for selling wheat.

PGG’s members include about 300 wheat growers, Jacobson said.

It may be close to Halloween before a district attorney decides whether to bring charges against a man who shot a protected gray wolf while hunting coyotes in Eastern Oregon.

Harney County District Attorney Tim Colahan said he’s waiting for evidence and reports from neighboring Grant County, where the shooting was reported Oct. 6. Colahan is handling the case as a courtesy because the Grant County prosecutor reportedly knows the hunter’s family and wanted to avoid an appearance of a conflict of interest.

The hunter, identified so far only as a Grant County resident, reported to Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife that he’d killed a wolf while hunting coyotes on private property south of Prairie City.

The hunter met with ODFW and Oregon State Police personnel, who investigated and recovered the wolf’s carcass. Wolves are protected under state and federal Endangered Species Act laws, depending on the location, and it’s a crime to kill one except to defend human life.

Ranchers in Oregon’s Northeastern corner can shoot wolves caught in the act of attacking livestock or herd dogs, but there have been no cases reported of that happening.

As with all criminal investigations, Oregon district attorneys have the authority to file charges, present evidence and ask a grand jury to return an indictment, or decide not to prosecute.

ODFW identified the dead wolf as a male designated OR-22, which dispersed from the Imnaha Pack in February 2015. He had no mate or pups, according to ODFW.

OR-22 was the third Oregon wolf to die since late August. The Sled Springs pair, a male and female, were found dead of unknown cause in Wallowa County the week of Aug. 24.

Portland and neighboring cities won’t expand their urban growth boundaries any time soon, temporarily easing the development pressure on farmland in the tri-county metro area.

Neither the population growth forecast nor the job growth forecast supports adding new land for development, said Martha Bennett, chief operating officer of Metro, the regional land-use planning agency. Metro’s elected council will most likely adopt Bennett’s recommendation in November.

Metro coordinates land-use planning in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties, which include the cities of Portland, Hillsboro, Beaverton and Gresham and 1.5 million people.

But the counties, Washington and Clackamas in particular, also are strong agricultural production areas. Farmers grow nursery crops, Christmas trees, seed crops, vegetables, fruit and berries within short drives of city limits, which makes for contentious land-use decisions.

Oregon’s land-use planning system was intended to protect farmland from city sprawl. Cities are required to establish urban growth boundaries, and expanding beyond them requires a public process often accompanied by conflict.

Metro, which has an elected council, attempted to ease the repeated short-term arguments by establishing urban and rural reserves, designating which land will be developed and which land will remain farm or forest for the next 50 years.

Legal challenges have prevented full implementation of the reserves plan, however.

In the meantime, Clackamas County commissioners are pressing to redesignate some land south of Wilsonville from rural to urban reserves. They’re opposed by farm groups such as Friends of French Prairie.

Given the uncertainty and reduced population and job growth expectations, Bennett recommended Metro hold off on urban growth expansion. She said the council should revisit the question in 2017-18.

Mt. ANGEL, Ore. — Over the course of his four decades in farming, Leonard Heidt has found a half-dozen thornless “sport” canes growing from otherwise thorny Marionberries.

All of those turned out to have undesirable characteristics, such as low berry yields and deformed blooms that rendered the plants unsuitable for commercial farming.

For that reason, Heidt was cautiously optimistic when he came across a sport a decade ago that seemed to produce fruit as well as the thorny varieties of Marionberries.

Years of field testing convinced him that the cultivar would be viable and he applied for a plant patent for the variety in 2012, which is still pending.

The patent application has allowed Heidt to begin selling “Willamette Thornless Marion” variety to other growers and collect a royalty payment of 10 cents per plant.

Since then, Heidt estimates the thornless cultivar has been planted on about 200 acres as growers gain confidence in the variety.

“I do think it’s going to eventually replace the regular Marion, if it proves to have the same durability,” he said.

Thornless Marionberries provide farmers with the benefit of being easier to handle, but they also appear to preserve fruit quality during mechanical harvesting, Heidt said.

“They’re not getting hit with the stickers, so the berries’ cells aren’t as damaged,” he said.

For processors and end users of berries, the main concern is that pieces of thorny stems will be found in pies, jams and other products, Heidt said.

“The liability is the number one concern,” he said.

Because that worry is eliminated with his variety, Heidt has established a deal under which the Willamette Valley Fruit Co. of Salem, Ore., pays growers a premium of five cents per pound for thornless Marionberries.

“We live in an environment where food safety is really critical,” said Dave Dunn, general manager of the Willamette Valley Fruit Co.

Dunn said there’s a “delicate balance” involved in promoting the cultivar’s thornlessness without disparaging the regular thorny Marionberries that are still the predominant variety in the area.

The company processed 1 million pounds of the thornless variety last year and has found strong support for the cultivar among buyers, he said. “The market looks really good for them.”

Willamette Valley Fruit Co. wants to expand acreage of the crop but is doing so warily to ensure the brand isn’t misrepresented, Dunn said.

For example, the company wants to work with trusted growers and processors who won’t mix the cultivar with other thorny berries, but then market them all as thornless, he said.

Heidt hopes to forestall this possibility by certifying fields as thornless and estimating their expected production.

Farmers also need to be sure the new variety will perform well in the field — at this point, the plants have withstood low winter temperatures well, but those in the ground are still relatively young, Dunn said.

“So far, the data looks good,” he said.

Some canes from the cultivar do occasionally revert to growing thorns, and these should be removed, Heidt said. Plants seem particularly prone to this problem if their roots are damaged, he said.

COQUILLE — Amy Flora has joined the ranks at Winter Lakes School as the new vice principal.

COQUILLE — Amy Flora has joined the ranks at Winter Lakes School as the new vice principal.

Confined animal feeding operations in Oregon can now work under state-issued water quality permits instead of the federal Clean Water Act permitting system.

As of Oct. 21, the Oregon Department of Agriculture has made available “water pollution control facilities” permits to livestock operations that don’t discharge runoff into surface waters.

These state permits won’t require CAFOs to file annual reports to farm regulators, thus reducing paperwork, and they won’t be subjected to public notice-and-comment requirements if they expand, said Wym Matthews, manager of ODA’s CAFO program.

“We don’t have to inform the public of changes on the farm,” he said.

Expansion plans at several Oregon dairies recently met with opposition from vegan and environmental groups, which used the public comment procedures to object to CAFOs as inhumane and unhealthy.

Livestock groups were concerned by the backlash because the public disclosures include maps and other data about CAFOs, which they fear will be exploited by animal rights activists.

State permits may be preferable for livestock operators who don’t want to be part of the federal Clean Water Act permitting system, but roughly 80 percent of the 522 CAFOs in Oregon are expected to remain federally permitted, Matthews said.

These CAFOs generally prefer to stick with the federal permits for legal reasons, he said.

Operating under a federal “national pollutant discharge elimination system” permit protects CAFOs from citizen lawsuits for alleged violations of the Clean Water Act, he said. “You can’t get that with a state permit.”

Oregon began requiring all CAFOs to operate under the federal system in 2002 due to regulatory changes at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he said.

Federal court decisions have since held that EPA can’t require NPDES permits for operations that don’t actually discharge, which is why Oregon is making the state permits available, Matthews said.

However, once a CAFO is found to discharge into surface water, it must switch over to the federal permit system, he said.

Another major change that will affect both state and federal CAFO permits is that operations will be required to test soil samples every year to ensure the ground isn’t being overloaded with nutrients, Matthews said. Previously, such tests were required once every five years.

“The sampling basically validates the nutrient management system,” he said.

Dairies and other CAFOs are allowed to broadcast manure on fields as long as nitrogen and other nutrients are applied at rates that are taken up by crops and don’t enter the water.

Under the new testing requirement, CAFO operators must test at least 20 percent of their fields a year, and they must test different fields each year, Matthews said.

The ODA also has the option of requiring annual tests of all their fields, if it’s seen as necessary, he said.

Strand Hall, the home of the Oregon State University’s College of Agricultural Sciences for the past century,

reopens Tuesday in Corvallis after a $25 million restoration project.

Portland architect Doug Reimer said it was the most enjoyable project he’s worked on in his 30-plus year career.

The work included extensive seismic stability and accessibility improvements. The latter included making bathrooms and four entrances accessible to people using wheelchairs, and adding an elevator that reaches the fourth floor. An older elevator reached only the third floor. The dean’s office was moved from the first floor to the fourth floor. The building’s wiring, sprinkler system, fire alarms and heating and cooling systems were renovated or updated throughout.

“It was pretty antiquated,” said one of the project leaders, Kevin Cady of Hoffman Construction in Portland.

The work may have accomplished something else: Restored the College of Ag to its central place on campus, as was intended in a 1909 master plan developed by famed landscape designer John Charles Olmsted. He was the nephew and adopted son of Frederick Nelson Olmsted, who designed New York’s Central Park.

The younger Olmsted’s campus design had Strand Hall facing east and west into both of OSU’s “quads,” the rectangular spaces criss-crossed by sidewalks, lined with graceful trees and bordering the Memorial Union, Kerr Library and other notable buildings.

Strand, designed by John Benes, was built in three phases in 1909, 1911, and 1913. Over time, however, the “double fronted” look and grandeur of Strand Hall diminished, said Reimer, the renovation project architect.

“As you can imagine, 100 years of remodeling has a tendency to mess up the original idea that the architect had,” Reimer said.

As administrators over the decades tried to squeeze in more offices, workers made such changes as narrowing the hallways and dropped ceilings.

“But it still had really good bones,” Reimer said. The characteristics uncovered and restored included high ceilings, generous corridors and tall windows, which let in a lot of natural daylight, he said.

The work reconnects with Olmsted’s campus vision, Reimer said.

“Dreamers and master planners, take heart,” he said, “because sometimes it takes 106 years to come true.”

In an OSU news release, ag college Dean Dan Arp said the work restored Strand “beyond its former glory.”

The two-year, $24.9 million project was paid for by a combination of state bonds and a state Energy Loan Program.

The reopening ceremony is at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, at the building’s West Portico entrance, looking out upon the Memorial Union quad.