GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — For the third consecutive year, gypsy moths have turned up near Grants Pass. In fact, half of the state total of 14 detections this year came from one single trap in the Azalea Drive area a few miles west of town.

The leaf-eating moths don’t pose an immediate threat at this level, but their presence makes foresters nervous.

“We’re catching these before they have populations high enough to damage trees,” said Clint Burfitt, manager of Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Insect Pest Prevention and Management Program.

In large numbers the moths, which were imported to Massachusetts from Europe in 1869, are among the worst tree defoliators around. In their caterpillar stage, they can eat as much as a square foot of leaves per day.

Of the 14 caught in Oregon this year, 12 are the European variety, while two of the more destructive Asian gypsy moths were caught in the Portland area.

That’s not exactly an infestation — more than 19,000 were trapped in Lane County alone in the mid-1980s — but it is cause for concern.

“This is an exceptionally destructive insect that would change the health of our forests, making them far more vulnerable to other invasive plant issues, causing a loss of foliage on trees as well as damaging agricultural-related industries that would face quarantines should the gypsy moth get established,” Burfitt said in a news release from the Department of Agriculture.

The Department of Agriculture put out 15,000 traps statewide in the spring. In addition to the moths found in Portland and Grants Pass, there were three others in the Portland area, one in Forest Grove and one in West Linn.

According to the agency, Asian gypsy moth females can fly, unlike the European strain, which could lead to more rapid infestation and spread. The Asian strain also has a larger appetite for what grows in Oregon, including conifers.

Only three Asian gypsy moths had been detected in Oregon before this year — a single catch in Portland in 1991, one in Portland’s Forest Park in 2000, and one in St. Helens in 2006.

The European strain most often arrives when people move from the Midwest and East where the moth populations are far higher.

The seven moths caught here indicate a breeding population exists, Burfitt said.

In 2013 only two moths were caught, and last year it was three, in the same area. Burfitt said it’s possible to find the “epicenter” where females are laying eggs.

As of now, there are no plans to spray, but there is the possibility of moth eradication projects next year in Josephine County and Portland, the ODA said.

For many years spraying for the gypsy moth was done annually in Oregon, but the most recent eradication occurred in 2009. Prior to this year’s 14 detections, there were only seven detected in the state from 2012 through 2014.

“We put a lot of resources into mitigating this statewide, and we’ve had a pretty successful track record for 30 years,” Burfitt said.

GOLD BEACH — Southwestern Oregon Community College is offering new fitness classes in Curry County to meet the demand for community members who want to stay active and healthy. All classes are taught by qualified instructors and offer a safe,…

GOLD BEACH — Southwestern Oregon Community College is offering new fitness classes in Curry County to meet the demand for community members who want to stay active and healthy. All classes are…

The annual Pre Run for Kids was another big success, with 113 runners from Coos Bay, North Bend, Langlois, Eugene and Coquille competing.

The annual Pre Run for Kids was another big success, with 113 runners from Coos Bay, North Bend, Langlois, Eugene and Coquille competing.

Charleston Oregon Artist, Betsy Lewis, Presents “Shipyard Fragments” Art Exhibition at South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve

SOUTH COAST — The South Coast Education Service District's Board of Directors announces an opening on its board for Position #4 Zone 1A, which includes all of the precincts within the legal boundaries of the school districts in Curry County…

SOUTH COAST — The South Coast Education Service District's Board of Directors announces an opening on its board for Position #4 Zone 1A, which includes all of the precincts within the legal bo…

BANDON — If you think you know your neighborhood community health center, you may want to take a fresh look.

BANDON — If you think you know your neighborhood community health center, you may want to take a fresh look.

Thank You all for participating in our Bandon Swimming Pool fundraiser extravaganza at the Langlois Cheese Factory! It was fun!

Thank You all for participating in our Bandon Swimming Pool fundraiser extravaganza at the Langlois Cheese Factory! It was fun!

Nik Wiman, an entomologist with extensive experience in integrated pest management, is Oregon State University’s new orchard crops extension specialist, a position designed to focus on hazelnuts.

Wiman, 38, started in his new position Sept. 16. He is based out of the North Willamette Valley Research and Extension Center in Aurora, Ore.

Wiman replaces Jeff Olsen as the lead hazelnut extension specialist in Oregon. Olsen served the hazelnut industry for nearly 30 years as a Yamhill County Extension agent before he died unexpectedly in January of 2014.

Wiman, however, will have more research responsibility than did Olsen, according to Mike Bondi, regional administrator of the Clackamas County Extension Office and director of the North Willamette Valley Research and Extension Center.

“Nik has more of a research expertise background (than Olsen did) and will be able to fill a role that more fully integrates the applied research as well as the extension and outreach piece,” Bondi said. “And because he has worked in the research realm as much as he has, we believe he will be in good position to bring in significant grant-contract funding, which will allow him to expand or to grow his program with faculty research assistance and or other program assistance.

“We ultimately decided, in conjunction with the hazelnut industry, to realign the position and relocate it at North Willamette, so the person would have more of a research community to work with and the facility to do the research,” Bondi said.

The college conducted a national search to fill the position, Bondi said, reviewing what he characterized as a small but relatively strong pool of candidates.

“We really felt that Nik was by far the strongest candidate,” Bondi said. “And we are very, very fortunate to get someone who has been working some with hazelnuts, because, obviously, it is hard to find people with a background with that crop.”

Bondi said Wiman is expected to invest about 80 percent of his time on hazelnuts, with the remaining 20 percent focused on tree fruits and other orchard nut crops.

Wiman holds a doctorate in entomology from Washington State University, where he worked extensively in tree fruits, and holds a master’s and a bachelor’s degree from Montana State University.

Wiman, who spent the past three years working as a post doctorate in Oregon’s brown marmorated stink bug project, said he already has started working with hazelnut growers to identify and prioritize research projects.

“I plan to be involved in issues like irrigation, weed management and cover crops. There are so many different interesting experiments to be done,” Wiman said.

“But the biggest thing I think is needed is effective communication to growers, particularly new growers coming on. There is really good information out there that OSU has put together. And also the hazelnut commission has good information, but there is not a one-stop place people can go and find out everything they need to know,” he said.

“I’m real excited,” he said. “You couldn’t pick a more exciting industry.”

Funding for the position was allocated in 2014, Bondi said, and is not part of the $14 million in additional funds lawmakers provided OSU’s statewide public services in the 2015 Oregon Legislature.

BOARDMAN, Ore.— The Oregon Department of Agriculture plans to create about 26 new positions with an increase in funding from lawmakers.

The agency fared well during the 2015 legislative session, with total funds growing to nearly $106 million over the next two years. That’s up from $97 million during the previous biennium, ODA Director Katy Coba said.

ODA will hire five new regulatory laboratory employees and upgrade its testing equipment, which is long overdue, she said at the Sept. 23 meeting of the Oregon Board of Agriculture in Boardman.

Three new people will also be hired to implement the agricultural water quality program, Coba said. Under that program, the agency uses aerial photography to identify problems in selected watersheds known as strategic implementation areas.

Landowners are encouraged to seek help from local soil and water conservation districts to correct problems on their properties, but ODA does have enforcement authority to issue fines.

Seven new strategic implementation areas were established this year, and ODA will identify six more next year, Coba said.

Concerns about pesticides led the legislature to devote more than $1.7 million in additional money to the agency’s pesticide program.

Those funds will be dedicated to four new pesticide investigators, a customer service representative and a case reviewer, she said.

As the federal government rolls out its new food safety rules, ODA will fund three full-time natural resource specialists.

To fully implement the Food Safety Modernization Act, which was signed into law in 2011, Congress will need to appropriate substantially more money to help states with outreach to farmers, Coba said.

It’s currently unclear what role ODA employees will play in on-farm inspections of produce operations, she said.

It’s possible the agency may focus on education and leave enforcement to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she said.

With recreational marijuana now legal in Oregon, the agency will also hire a marijuana policy analyst, Coba said.

While the Oregon Liquor Control Commission has primary jurisdiction over recreational marijuana, ODA will likely be involved in the regulation of pesticides and edible products, she said.

Currently, no pesticides are registered for marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law, she said.

However, some pesticides have such general labels that they likely could be used on the psychoactive crop, Coba said.

The agency is considering developing a list of such products, she said.

The ODA is also facing an unusual situation with its regulation of industrial hemp, a related but non-psychoactive crop, Coba said.

Contrary to expectations, currently licensed growers are producing hemp for medicinal compounds rather than industrial products like fiber, she said.

“The things that have come at us are nothing we could have ever predicted,” Coba said of legalized marijuana and hemp.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Post Holdings plans to spend $90 million to buy an egg producer that serves the Northwest in a deal announced a few months after the cereal maker’s egg supply took a hit from a deadly bird flu outbreak.

St. Louis-based Post said Wednesday that Willamette Egg Farms LLC will be combined with its existing Michael Foods egg business after the deal is completed. The company expects that to happen early in its first fiscal quarter of 2016.

Willamette owns two egg production facilities in Oregon and Washington.

Post Holdings Inc. said in May that roughly 20 percent of its egg supply had been impacted by a deadly bird flu outbreak that hit the Midwest.

In June, Michael Foods sued an Iowa egg farm, accusing it of breaching its contract after bird flu disrupted the egg supply.

Michael Foods primarily supplies extended shelf-life liquid and precooked egg products and eggs used in food ingredients.

Shares of Post Holdings closed at $67.33 on Tuesday and have soared more than 60 percent so far this year.

IMBLER, Ore. — The spark from a cutting machine that ignited a blaze at Barenbrug USA’s seed-cleaning facility near Imbler earlier this year did more than damage the facility. It also served as the catalyst behind the purchase of the facility by Blue Mountain Seeds.

After the March 31 fire, Barenbrug decided to stop cleaning seed at the facility, creating an opportunity for Blue Mountain to expand.

“We needed room to expand,” said Bill Merrigan, manager of Blue Mountain Seeds. “We were right at capacity, both cleaning capacity and storage, and we were out of land to build on. We viewed this as a good opportunity.

“If growers choose to increase grass seed acres in Union County, we’ll have the facilities to handle it,” he said.

The purchase includes the plant’s 4-acre lot and 5 acres connecting an existing Blue Mountain seed-cleaning facility and the former Barenbrug plant.

The purchase also includes a slightly damaged seed-cleaning line, which Blue Mountain plans to refurbish and use for cleaning fine-leaf fescue and bluegrass seed. A second line was destroyed in the fire.

Blue Mountain has already begun storing seed in the west end of the Imbler facility, which was not damaged in the fire, Merrigan said. That section alone adds about 2.5 million pounds of seed storage capacity to Blue Mountain’s current capacity of 12 million pounds, he said.

Depending on how much of the facility Blue Mountain rebuilds, it could increase its storage capacity by another 2.5 million pounds, he said.

“We may not rebuild that facility the way it was,” Merrigan said. “We may put up a new building, or we may try and change the design of that building. That is something we are discussing right now.”

After the fire, Barenbrug USA decided to reinvest in a seed cleaning facility it operates in Boardman, Ore., rather than rebuild the Imbler plant, said company CEO and President James Schneider.

The Tangent, Ore.-based company has since added square footage to its Boardman plant and installed a third seed cleaning line, which is dedicated to cleaning bluegrass seed.

“Overall, it increases our capacity because it makes it more centralized,” Schneider said. “We will actually be able to clean more product.”

Adding to the incentive to sell the facility was its age, Schneider said. “It was an old facility, and because of our strategic plans, we felt it better to reinvest in our Boardman facility.”

He added: “We are thankful that good came out of such an unfortunate event. Blue Mountain Seeds has always been a great neighbor, and we can’t think of a better outcome than for the sale to allow both our companies to continue to invest in future growth.”

Barenbrug plans to continue contracting with growers to produce seed in the Grande Ronde Valley, Schneider said.

“We’re not abandoning the Grande Ronde Valley,” he said. “We still have a field man based there and we are contracting directly with growers there. But we are now cleaning that seed in Boardman.”

Among its plans for the facility, Blue Mountain is considering redesigning the plant’s seed storage facility with modern specs, improving the company’s capacity to handle modern seed production.

“Most of our warehouses were designed in the ’60s and ’70s,” Merrigan said. “They were set up for small trucks, smaller combines and smaller fields. And back then, harvest used to last a month.

“Today it is big combines and big trucks and harvest lasts about two weeks, and these warehouses aren’t designed for that,” he said. “We have small bins and a lot of labor involved in filling those bins.”

The sale leaves Blue Mountain Seeds as the only commercial grass seed cleaner operating in the Grande Ronde Valley.

AURORA, Ore. — In considering the ideal vegetable, a farmer will often desire different attributes than a chef.

Yields and disease resistance are generally top of mind for the farmer, while the chef may focus on flavor and appearance.

The Culinary Breeding Network, managed by Oregon State University, aims to help plant breeders bridge this divide by getting farmers and chefs to communicate what they’re looking for in a vegetable.

“There’s a lot of power in bringing these people into the same room together,” said Lane Selman, an OSU agricultural researcher who helped start the network.

The network organizes events such as the upcoming vegetable variety showcase, scheduled for Sept. 28 in Portland, where the participants from various sectors of the food industry can compare notes on new cultivars.

“A lot of it is focused on flavor and culinary applications,” said Timothy Wastell, a chef who consults for the network.

The network was spawned in 2009, after breeder Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed released open-pollinated new pepper varieties to replace a popular hybrid cultivar that was discontinued.

Seed companies frequently drop hybrid vegetable varieties if they don’t generate enough sales, even if the cultivars are important to some growers, said Selman.

Open pollination allows farmers to save seed, as they’re not dependent on the two parent cultivars used to produce hybrids.

When Morton developed several new pepper varieties, chefs tended to prefer those without a sunken stem, as it eases cutting in a busy kitchen environment.

“These are things plant breeders don’t necessarily think about,” said Wastell.

The episode convinced breeders and OSU that chefs and retailers should be involved in the variety development in an organized manner.

“We started realizing, ‘Wow, this is something missing,’” Selman said. “We know what farmers want, but we don’t know what end users want.”

Breeders often focus on developing cultivars that are “true to type” — that fit the vegetables traditional characteristics — but these traits may not necessarily be important to buyers, she said.

By getting input from chefs and other end users, the breeders can incorporate information that wouldn’t otherwise be on their radar, Selman said.

Flavor and other attributes that are important to chefs don’t conflict with agronomic qualities because the Culinary Breeding Network doesn’t showcase varieties that would be unappealing to growers, she said. “I don’t bring the dogs in.”

Oregon State University is involved in other cooperative programs with seed producers.

The university is paid by several seed companies to grow out vegetable varieties at its North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora, Ore.

The plots serve as a “learning farm” for new growers while providing breeders with information about how the cultivars perform at that location, said Nick Andrews, small farms extension agent at OSU.

Unlike a farmer, OSU doesn’t harvest the vegetables, which allows seed companies to see how well plants hold up in the field past maturity, he said.

Seed companies can also bring their customers to the location to demonstrate new varieties, Andrews said. “It’s a public location.”

 

June 1, 1929 – Sept. 13, 2015

June 1, 1929 – Sept. 13, 2015