LYONS, Ore. — Most of the 165 small-woodland owners who recently gathered at a McCully Mountain tree farm had wildfire season on their minds.

The wildfire forecast for Northwest forests is not good, said Joe Arbow, stewardship forester with the Santiam Unit of the Oregon Department of Forestry in Mehama. He brought an ODF tanker unit to the forest tour site in Lyons on June 19.

“The dry winter and spring and lack of snowpack in the mountains has set us up for a busy fire season,” Arbow said. “We can’t control the start of naturally occurring fires but we do prepare and train for all fires.”

The department monitors all ground-based operations looking for clearly identified unlocked tool boxes complete with firefighting tools, pumps with at least 250 feet of hose and nozzles ready to operate at all times and fire extinguishers for each internal combustion engine and chainsaw in operation.

“On inspections, we look at cable operations first because rubbing lines create sparks, and we look to see that spark arrester systems in good working order are in place,” he said.

Arbow is one of about 20 year-round and seasonal people in the Mehama ODF office responsible for fire protection on state, private and Bureau of Land Management lands in northern Linn and eastern Marion counties.

In addition to fire protection, he conducts forest practices inspections.

K.C. VanNatta, a tree farmer and logging operator from Columbia County, talked about his ongoing fire protection regimen.

“You can’t go out without shaking down all of your fire trucks to make sure you have everything you need,” VanNatta said. “You never know when something might have been stolen or used and not put back. Your fire extinguishers, gallons of water and working spark arresters and exhaust system. You can’t go out without making sure they are operational.”

The Oregon Small Woodlands Association and American Tree Farm Systems sponsored the event, which also celebrated Linda Butts as the 2014 Tree Farmer of the Year.

Online

For detailed information on the 2015 fire season, find the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook at www.predictiveservices.nifc.gov.

To contact Joe Arbow at the Oregon Department of Forestry, call 503-859-4323 or email jmarbow@odf.state.or.us.

Public agencies and private companies have invested more than $1 billion in the lower Columbia River navigation channel and facilities since it was deepened five years ago, a new study says.

The Pacific Northwest Waterways Association and Port of Portland released a study outlining the $1.08 billion in public and private investments. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent $180 million to deepen the 110-mile navigation channel from 40 to 43 feet. The dredging was finished in 2010.

The study also documented investments in grain export facilities, mineral bulk export facilities and rail and road infrastructure following completion of the channel deepening project.

“All of these projects were due, some totally, some in part, to the channel deepening project,” said Kristin Meira of the waterways association. “It made our river system more efficient and a better place to do business.”

The $230 million Export Grain Terminal at Longview, Wash., was the first new grain export facility in North America in roughly 25 years, she said.

Other projects cited in the study include $228 million to expand rail freight infrastructure at the Port of Vancouver, $100 million that Temco LLC spent to increase grain capacity and $140 million to improve potash exporter Canpotex’s shiploading efficiency at the Port of Portland.

About $5.15 billion in investments are proposed, according to the study, including a $600 million coal terminal at the Port of Longview and a $500 million propane export terminal at the Port of Portland.

Roughly 77 percent of the Portland port’s current business is related to movement of agricultural and mineral bulks, said Curtis Robinhold, deputy executive director of the port, in a press release.

“The deepening of the channel has led to an increase in volumes of bulks at our facilities since ships can travel more fully loaded,” Robinhold stated.

Meira said the study shows why the river is important to the region and the nation. Maintenance and targeted investment are crucial to ensure a competitive transportation system, she said.

The system is slated for a 14-week closure beginning in December 2016 for lock maintenance. Navigation channels require adequate financial support from the federal government to be maintained, Meira said.

“This is not a river system that’s simply holding in place,” she said. “Folks are making hundreds of millions of dollars of investments in their facilities. They are banking on the future of the Columbia-Snake river system.”

WESTFIR, Ore. (AP) — Officials in the small city of Westfir, Oregon, are easing water restrictions that banned outdoor uses like watering lawns or washing cars.

The Register-Guard in Eugene reports that a forgotten piece of the city’s past should restore its seniority in water rights. In 1924 a sawmill secured its first water right, predating the water right established for the river’s fish that shut down Westfir’s hoses in April.

The mill’s water right was sold to the city for $1 to Westfir in 1979.

The council has announced that a voluntary water restriction will take the place of a mandatory one. The city’s use of the old water right hasn’t yet received official approval as the city wants to change the use to strictly domestic use.

TODAY

The federal government’s operation of Northwest hydropower dams is again under attack for allegedly jeopardizing fish, potentially impacting irrigators who rely on the Columbia and Snake rivers.

The most recent “reasonable and prudent alternatives” aimed at mitigating risk to threatened and endangered fish, issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service last year, were challenged as unlawful during a recent court hearing.

Critics of the agency’s plans claim that it’s overly confident about the positive effects of restoring tributaries while downplaying the hazards of hydropower facilities in the main river channels.

“We’re always looking to the future for benefits that haven’t yet materialized,” said Stephanie Parent, an attorney representing the State of Oregon, during oral arguments in Portland on June 23.

The plaintiffs also faulted the federal government for being ambiguous in its goals and time frames for increasing salmon and steelhead populations, which they claim are killed at unsustainable levels as they pass through 14 hydroelectric dams.

These species are still at risk of getting wiped out by a catastrophe even if their numbers have improved due to natural conditions in recent years, according to the plaintiffs, which include tribes and environmentalists.

“A growing species is not the same thing as a recovered species,” said Todd True, attorney for the Earthjustice law firm.

If the case results in further revisions to the hydropower system’s operations, it could affect irrigators on multiple fronts, said Darryl Olsen, board representative of the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association, which has been involved in the litigation.

Environmental groups want to reduce water levels in storage reservoirs, arguing this will improve flow rates and thus enhance fish survival, he said.

The federal government has rejected this claim, finding that the main factor in fish survival is temperature, which isn’t affected by lowering reservoir levels, Olsen said.

“Much of our water management has nothing to do with empirical reality,” he said.

Water rights may also be affected by the litigation.

The flow rates in the Columbia and Snake rivers already preclude any new water rights from being assigned, but an eventual ruling could require even greater pressure to leave water in-stream, Olsen said.

Also, any mandate that NMFS revise its plans for the hydropower will also be extremely expensive and effectively raise the costs of electricity for pumping, he said.

The recent court battle is part of an ongoing legal campaign against the hydropower system’s management that stretches back to 2001.

A potentially important difference is that the litigation is now overseen by a new federal judge, Michael Simon.

U.S. District Judge James Redden, who previously presided over the case, repeatedly found the federal government’s operation plans to be inadequate and remanded them for changes.

After recusing himself from the lawsuit, Redden said he believed the government should require the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Snake river to improve fish passage.

Another contentious point is how much water should be spilled over dams to prevent fish from passing through turbines, with the plaintiffs pressing for increased spills.

During the recent oral arguments, plaintiffs alleged that NMFS set a lenient standard for overcoming the “jeopardy” that hydropower operations impose on fish.

The agency was also faulted for failing to explain how it arrived at certain conclusions about fish survival.

“It’s impossible to follow the train of reasoning,” said True.

The federal government argues that its “jeopardy” analysis complies with the Endangered Species Act, which gives agencies with discretion in determining a species’ chances of survival and recovery.

It also rejected claims that the “reasonable and prudent alternatives” were lacking, arguing that the plaintiffs cannot overrule the agency simply because they favor a different policy.

“The best available science shows that removing tributary habitat constraints through restoration actions is reasonably certain to increase fish abundance and productivity,” NMFS said in a court document.

BANDON — New Artists Productions, the South Coast’s youth theater program, is presenting "Peter Pan and the Magic Crystal" for their summer musical at the Sprague Community Theater over two we…

A problem with a server that handles classified advertising for the Capital Press has delayed printing for the June 26 edition.

The paper is normally printed Wednesday night at the East Oregonian in Pendleton, then entered into the mail early Thursday morning.

As of 9:45 a.m., the malfunction had not been repaired and it was unclear when the paper would be printed. Arrangements are being made to print and deliver the paper to the post office as quickly as possible.

Publisher Mike O’Brien extended his apologies to readers and advertisers.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Standing in a field of golden wheat that reached barely up to his knees, Joe Rietmann said this year’s abnormally short crop is clearly feeling the effects of drought.

“This is all typical drought stress,” said Rietmann, owner of JDR Farms in Ione. “If you look over the expanse of the field and see the darker areas, that’s where it’s stunted.”

Like most dryland farmers in Eastern Oregon, Rietmann expects the hot, dry weather will cut into his winter wheat harvest and lower yields by more than half in some areas. Ione’s precipitation is three inches below normal dating back to September 2014 — when winter wheat is usually planted — while weekend temperatures forecast well into the triple digits.

If it weren’t for about an inch of rain that fell in May, Rietmann said things would look even worse. As it is, he figures to harvest somewhere in the high-teens to mid-30s on bushels per acre, depending on the location of the field.

“In an agricultural endeavor, you just have to roll with it and stay in business,” he said.

This year actually marks the third straight year of below-average precipitation for the region’s wheat farmers after a solid season in 2012. That’s compounded the problem for growers like Rietmann who manage their fields in a wheat-fallow rotation to build up moisture deep in the soil.

Larry Lutcher, soil scientist with Oregon State University Extension Service in Morrow County, said the cumulation of three dry years in a row has left farmers with virtually no water left in storage. He predicted yields could be less than 10 bushels per acre on land that typically grows 35-40 bushels.

“Even with crop insurance, it gets difficult to make ends meet,” Lutcher said. “They’ll get by, but they certainly won’t make any money generating yields like this.”

Umatilla and Morrow counties rank first and second by a wide margin in Oregon wheat production. Last year, the two counties combined to harvest 17.8 million bushels of winter wheat on 357,000 acres, according to the National Agricultural Statistics Service.

In 2012, the counties harvested 21.7 million bushels, thanks in part to higher rainfall. Precipitation in Ione averaged 12.23 inches between the months of September and June from 2010-2012, but just 7.5 inches from 2013-2015.

The timing of rains is also an important factor, said Jason Middleton, director of grain operations for Pendleton Grain Growers. Dryland farmers always need precipitation in May and June to finish a winter wheat crop, and precipitation has essentially shut off the past month, he said.

“I would expect (yields) to be down across the board this year,” Middleton said.

Lower yields means more farmers could fall back on crop insurance to make them whole. Debbie Morrison, an agent with Wheatland Insurance in Pendleton, said she expects a lot of claims in the coming weeks.

“I don’t think we’ll have the high yields we were looking for,” Morrison said. “As soon as they start harvesting, they’ll call me and tell me if they’re light.”

Crop insurance provides coverage based on a field’s production over the past 10 years, marking a guaranteed value that can be set either to yield or revenue. If harvest comes in below the guarantee, insurance pays the rest.

Farmers can only insure up to 85 percent of their crop, and the higher the percentage, the higher the premium, Morrison said.

Don Wysocki, soil scientist with OSU Extension in Umatilla County, said this is the kind of year crop insurance is designed to protect. He said the best farmers can do now is hope for a burst of rain in August or September, which will allow for earlier planting of next year’s crop.

“An inch of rain in early September would do a lot of good,” Wysocki said. “Yield expectations would be better if you can plant during the optimal time period.”

Early rains also allow farmers to spray for grassy weeds, such as cheatgrass and feral rye, before planting, which saves money on specialized herbicides they would otherwise have to use to kill the weeds while sparing wheat.

Growers certainly don’t enjoy the dry years, Rietmann said, but they always plan for difficult conditions and aren’t surprised when they happen. Dry periods are normal for the area, he said, and conditions always turn back around.

“There are worse things in life than a dry crop year,” Rietmann said. “This is just part of farming ... I suspect somewhere on the other end of this, it will pick back up again.”

Limited canola production will likely continue in Oregon’s Willamette Valley under recently-passed legislation, but the debate it inspired foreshadows future battles over the crop.

House Bill 3382, approved by Oregon’s House and Senate, allows 500 acres of canola to be grown in the region through 2019 despite an overall moratorium on its cultivation.

Canola is restricted in the Willamette Valley due to the concerns of specialty seed growers who worry it will cross-pollinate with related crops and destroy their market.

To reassure canola opponents, lawmakers included provisions in HB 3382 that set new conditions on canola research conducted by Oregon State University.

The research is intended to yield recommendations for coexistence between canola and other crops, but canola proponents suspect the veracity of OSU’s study will become a point of contention in future discussions.

Before the Senate passed the bill 25-5 on June 17, it was amended to require that OSU’s research be evaluated by vegetable seed experts and that it include historical data about canola’s interaction with brassica crops in other regions.

During a discussion of HB 3382, Sen Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, said the new research parameters were included in the bill due to fears that OSU and the Oregon Department of Agriculture — which will make recommendations on coexistence — have a “pro-canola bias.”

Edwards noted that in 2013 lawmakers were contemplating an outright ban on canola in the Willamette Valley but instead opted for a six-year moratorium while OSU conducts a three-year study of the crop’s potential to cause weed and disease problems.

Farmers were permitted to produce canola on 500 acres during the study and under HB 3382 will grow that amount until the end of the moratorium, subject to certain restrictions.

“It’s a reasonable compromise between opposing views on the bill,” Edwards said.

Opponents of canola production are already casting doubts on the validity of OSU’s research, giving themselves “wiggle room” to eventually refute the study’s conclusions, said Matt Crawford, president of the Willamette Valley Oilseed Producers Association.

While the study is focused on weed and disease issues, canola opponents actually have other reasons they’re worried about the crop, he said.

Some see it as providing a “biotech foothold” in the region, as genetically engineered varieties of canola are available, Crawford said.

Other critics dislike canola’s potential to compete for acreage with other crops, he said. “The more options a farmer has, the harder the seed company will have to try to have a place on those farms.”

While the possibility for cross-pollination does exist, other related brassica crops — including turnips and radish — are grown on large acreage in the valley without restriction, he said.

Canola could similarly coexist if it’s included in a “pinning” system used for other brassicas, which allows farmers to plant at sufficient distances to avoid cross-pollination, Crawford said.

The legislature’s willingness to pass HB 3382 is a positive sign for canola, particularly since it was supported by lawmakers who wanted to prohibit the crop two years ago, he said. “That was actually a pretty big step.”

The Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association does not preclude coexistence between canola and related crops, said Greg Loberg, the group’s public relations chair and manager of the West Coast Beet Seed Co.

“It will be difficult to find that sweet spot, but I don’t think it will be impossible,” he said.

Even so, canola doesn’t neatly fit into the management system for brassica seed crops because it’s grown for oil rather than genetics, Loberg said.

There’s no incentive for oilseed farmers to keep the genetics of canola pure, which raises questions about their willingness to follow coexistence rules, he said. “Will all canola oilseed producers abide by that same principle?”

Canola restrictions have been in place for more than 25 years in the valley, which has given specialty seed producers the opportunity and confidence to expand their business, Loberg said.

Removing or altering those protections should not be done carelessly, which realistically will require continued involvement from lawmakers, he said. “They picked up a piece of Oregon agriculture and now there’s no good way to put it down.”

The ongoing drought has highlighted the need for increased water supplies in Oregon, but low soil moisture poses a major impediment to water storage, experts say.

Even if Oregon experiences healthy precipitation and snowfall in the future, it will take years to refill some reservoirs because water will first be absorbed by the thirsty soil, experts say.

“That’s the first place it’s going to go,” said Margaret Matter, water resource specialist with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. “Once you get the soils resaturated, there’s nowhere for water to go but down the channel.”

Soils dried rapidly in June, leading to an extremely low level of moisture before summer even began, said Scott Oviatt, state snow survey supervisor for USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

“We’re seeing conditions that are typical of July or August,” he said during a recent meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission.

Snow at the mid-elevation level, which is critical for stream flows, melted early in the year, he said. “What snow did accumulate was mostly at the higher elevations.”

The current “El Nino” cycle of warm temperatures in the Pacific Ocean is likely to persist through the coming winter, which bodes for more mild weather in the Northwest, said David Rupp, research associate at Oregon State University’s Oregon Climate Change Research Institute.

The situation would be aggravated if the “blob” of warm temperatures in the north Pacific — which deflected storms from the region — does not dissipate, he said.

There’s no evidence that El Nino cycles are more frequent due to increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Rupp said.

However, it stands to reason that El Nino’s effects would be more pronounced if temperatures get higher, he said.

In some years, natural variability may counteract the overall warming trend, but in the long-term it’s unlikely the region will be getting more snow, Rupp said.

“The year we’re seeing this year, which is not normal, will be normal by 2050,” he said.

Aspiring developers of Oregon water projects will soon be able to request financial assistance from the state government’s $10 million water supply fund.

The Oregon Water Resources Commission has approved final rules for the fund’s operation, which means water regulators expect to begin accepting proposals this summer from developers who hope to win project funding in the spring of 2016.

“I think we have a really good start here,” said April Snell, executive director of the Oregon Water Resources Congress, during the June 19 commission meeting.

The rules aren’t perfect as they required compromises from a multitude of stakeholders, and will probably require “tweaks” as the water supply development fund becomes functional, she said.

“In particular, it’s the storage piece we will have to have more discussions about,” Snell said.

Storage projects are more controversial than water conservation but are necessary in light of the state’s dire water situation, she said.

The $10 million fund was created by Oregon lawmakers in 2013 but the grants and loans could not be dispensed until task forces representing diverse interests agreed on underlying concepts for its operation.

The process was further delayed because former Gov. John Kitzhaber missed a deadline for appointing the task forces, which did not begin negotiations until last summer.

After a deal was hammered out earlier this year, the concepts were incorporated into proposed rules by the Oregon Water Resources Department, which offered them up for public comment before submitting them to the commission for final approval.

One of the most contentious aspects of the fund’s operation was the determination of “seasonally varying flows,” or how much water can be withdrawn from streams during periods of heavy flow.

Storage projects that win grants must also release 25 percent of their water for in-stream environmental benefits.

It was ultimately decided that projects will be subject to a “matrix,” under which those with the largest environmental impact and least amount of stream data would be subject to the most scrutiny.

Under the rules recently adopted by the commission, the Oregon Water Resources Department can conduct the “seasonally varying flow” analysis on projects that are approved for funding.

However, project developers with sufficient information can complete this step before they even apply for funding, said Tracy Louden, senior policy coordinator for the agency.

Proposed projects will be ranked by a technical review team based on their economic, environmental and social benefits, but the Oregon Water Resources Commission will make the final call about which ones will receive money, he said.

The department expects to have applications ready in August, but it has not yet set a deadline for submissions that aim to win funding in 2016, Louden said.

PORTLAND — Zenger Farm, which operates at the edge of one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, opened the doors June 22 on a facility intended to train the next generation of farmers, consumers and food entrepreneurs

The Urban Grange, built with $2.3 million in donations, has 6,600 square feet of classroom, office and meeting space. A commercial kitchen is available for start-up food businesses and community events.

The Grange — the name was used with permission from the national Grange — is part community center, part conduit to proper nutrition and a vibrant local food system.

Through camps for children, school visits, adult classes and presentations, families learn where food comes from, how to grow it and how to prepare it, Executive Director Mike Wenricksaid.

Rural residents who grow up in agricultural settings already understand farming, Wenrick said. But he asked a group of children recently where eggs come from and one boy answered, “A carton.”

“It might be a novelty to see the reaction children have to pulling a carrot out of the ground,” Wenrick said.

“In an urban environment, a lot of the (food system) education rural children get is not happening,” said Laleña Dolby, Zenger’s communications director.

Zenger’s programs help them value the farming lifestyle and farmers as well, Dolby said. That can pay off when they’re adults and decide issues that affect agriculture.

“That urban piece is what makes us unique,” she said.

About 10,000 people visit the farm annually, and Wenrick expects that to double now that the Grange is up and operating.

Zenger Farm has emerged over the years as a bridge between urban and rural. The 16-acre property is owned by the city of Portland and operated by the non-profit Friends of Zenger Farm.

The farm founded and supports the Lents International Farmers Market, which serves low-income neighborhoods in outer Southeast Portland. Crops grown on the property go to the market, to a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, and to restaurants.

The farm trains a handful of interns each year, people who want to be farmers but don’t know how to go about it. Children attending camps get to pet chickens, plant, care, harvest and prepare vegetables and enjoy fruit trees and berry bushes.

The farm has a relationship with the David Douglas School District, and fifth graders visit several times a year as part of their science curriculum. A wetlands on the property provides additional learning experiences.

Donations for the Urban Grange construction came from some of the Portland area’s best known organizations.

Portland Development Commission gave $300,000. Providing $100,000 to $299,000 were Bob’s Red Mill, M.J. Murdock Memorial Trust, Meyer Memorial Trust, New Seasons Market, the city of Portland, the Collins Foundation, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District and an anonymous donor.

As the 2015 legislative session winds down in Oregon, lawmakers are making their final votes on agricultural bills that have undergone extensive review in various committees.

Meanwhile, final action on other legislation that’s critical to farming — like $50 million in additional funding for water projects — isn’t expected to take place until the last days of the session in late June or early July.

Following is a summary of bills that have won approval from lawmakers or appear likely to pass the legislature:

Two bills that provide more than $1 million in financial assistance for juniper harvesting and processing are awaiting a signature from Gov. Kate Brown after passing the House and Senate.

Juniper is a native species in Oregon’s dry regions but is behaving like an invasive due to fire suppression and other effects of European settlement. Its spread depletes water and threatens the habitat of sensitive species, such as the sage grouse, that can impact livestock grazing.

While there are economic uses for lumber from juniper, its extraction and processing are complicated and expensive.

House Bills 2997 and 2998 aim to help juniper companies overcome these barriers by providing them with $900,000 in loans and grants, technical assistance and mapping services, as well as $250,000 in funding for cooperative efforts led by Portland State University.

The goal of the legislation is to simultaneously increase the removal of juniper trees, which have taken over 10 million acres in Oregon, and assist new companies that make products from the wood. Both bills passed the House unanimously on June 10 and passed Senate 26-2 on June 18.

Livestock producers will be able to raise funds for increased predator control under a bill that’s headed for a vote on the Senate floor after recently passing muster with environmental and finance committees. The bill previously passed the House 56-2.

Under HB 3188, landowners could petition county governments to create special districts where they’d be charged fees that would compensate the USDA’s Wildlife Services for enhanced predator control.

Landowners with more than 10 acres would be charged $1 an acre while smaller ones would pay a flat fee of $25. If they chose not to pay the fees, they wouldn’t benefit from the program.

USDA’s Wildlife Services already hunts coyotes and other predators but the amount of county funding for this program has shrunk due to reduced federal timber payments.

Opponents of HB 3188 said that decisions about predator management should not be made at the local level and urged lawmakers to consider non-lethal methods of control, but those objections have not impeded the bill’s progress thus far.

Disputes over cross-pollination between biotech, organic and conventional crops would be encouraged to seek mediation through state or federal farm regulators under HB 2509.

The original version of the bill introduced and passed in the House had much sharper teeth, as farmers who refused mediation would be liable for the opposing party’s legal bills in the event of a lawsuit.

After quietly passing the House, HB 2509 encountered a strong backlash from critics of genetic engineering, which prompted lawmakers to significantly scale back its scope in the Senate.

The Senate unanimously passed an amended version on June 11, the language about liability for legal bills was eliminated. The bill now simply allows a judge to consider a farmer’s reluctance to mediate when imposing sanctions or considering an injunction.

Before HB 2509 heads to Brown for a signature, the House must first sign off on the changes made in the Senate. Those amendments were scheduled to be considered on the House floor on June 22.

The House and Senate have approved increased fees on fertilizers, veterinary products and nurseries, with the bills awaiting the governor’s signature.

HB 2443 creates a new 5-cent fee per ton of lime and increases the evaluation fee on new fertilizer products from $50 to $500. The Oregon Department of Agriculture expects the bill to raise $70,000 during the 2015-2017 biennium to pay for fertilizer and water research.

SB255 raises the maximum registration fee on veterinary products from $75 to $150, which could generate up to $225,000 in revenue for ODA. However, the agency must still complete the rule-making process for the rate increase and it’s unclear how much registration fees will actually rise.

SB 256 hikes the maximum annual fee on nurseries $20,000 to $40,000 and from a half-percent to one percent of their revenues. The annual cap on fees for Christmas tree growers would increase from $75 to $110 and from $3 to $4.50 per acre, with the total not to exceed $7,000. The increased caps would allow ODA to raise $436,000 in additional revenues during the next biennium.

Water regulators have largely stopped permitting new agricultural wells in Oregon’s Harney Basin due to concerns about groundwater depletion.

Groundwater pumping is exceeding the rate of recharge in the area, which has prompted the Oregon Water Resources Department to deny most new permits until it conducts a multi-year study of the situation, said Ivan Gall, the agency’s groundwater section manager.

“You can see these declines occur over a fairly broad area of the valley,” Gall said during a recent meeting of the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which oversees the department.

Preliminary data indicates the basin is experiencing an overall downward trend in groundwater levels, but the agency hopes to gain a better understanding by measuring a larger number of wells and conducting detailed geological mapping, Gall said.

“We have some significant holes in our data,” he said. “We don’t think it’s at a crisis right now, but that’s also based on not a lot of information.”

The agency estimates that 201,250 acre feet of groundwater rights are used each year, while only about 170,800 acre feet are available for use.

Heavy rains only offer a temporary reprieve from the problem, Gall said. “A really wet year helps for a period of time, but then it rolls over and begins its downward trend again.”

Once the agency completes the study, it may continue denying new well permits for agriculture and only allow “exempt” domestic uses, he said.

However, the OWRD will establish rules for the region that may allow an existing permit to be canceled — likely in return for money — so that a new well can be drilled, Gall said.

OWRD’s decision to halt new well permits came after WaterWatch of Oregon, an environmental non-profit, protested several approvals last year.

The group became concerned after seeing the agency issue multiple well permit without determining if water is available or the wells would affect surface water, said John DeVoe, its executive director.

“This was happening over and over,” he said.

Even so, it was becoming apparent that groundwater pumping in the basin was unsustainable, which would require action to prevent the area from developing more severe problems such as those seen in the Umatilla Basin, DeVoe said.

“I think it’s an area that was going to get some scrutiny whether we were involved or not,” he said.

The Harney Basin experienced a major increase in well drilling over the past decade for farm uses, said Gall.

However, it’s difficult for OWRD to deny permits unless it has data to support such a decision, and the agency’s resources are limited, he said.

“The development got ahead of the data collection,” he said.

T.J. Hafner, agronomist for AgriCare, said spotted wing drosophila pressure on the company’s Jefferson, Ore., blueberries this year is three or four time heavier than he’s ever seen.

And, Hafner said, trap counts on AgriCare’s Jefferson acreage have been lower than elsewhere.

As blueberry harvest swings into full gear, growers throughout Western Oregon have their hands full battling high populations of the spotted wing drosophila.

Oregon State University entomologist Vaughn Walton compares this year’s SWD pressure to 2013, when growers treated blueberry fields 10 and 11 times for the pest, compared to a typical six- or seven-spray regime.

“The input costs this year will be way higher,” Walton said, “both for the earlier crops and for production costs in general.”

Walton said Western Oregon’s mild winter and warm spring — conditions that helped blueberry crops get off to a fast start — were ideal for the spotted wing drosophila.

“If you have a cold winter, it takes a long time for those SWD populations to build up, and the early fruit can usually escape damage,” Walton said. “Now you don’t have that.”

SWD populations survived the winter on alternative hosts, Walton said. When the pest moved to fruit crops, it did so in large numbers and with overlapping generations.

“That is why you have to space your sprays so close to each other,” Walton said. “It is not as if you are getting discrete generations. You are getting overlapping generations at this stage already, and so you have constant egg laying.

“And preventing that egg laying is what growers are trying to do,” he said.

Hafner, who oversees agronomic activities on certified organic blueberries for AgriCare, said he started treating the early-season Duke variety with organic crop protectants in late May, well ahead of a normal treatment regime.

And, he said, any thought of stretching intervals between treatments have been tossed aside.

“Early on, you can usually get a little gap between sprays,” he said. “But we’re tightening up the intervals and getting back over the fields quicker than we have in the past.”

Hafner said he’s using electrostatic sprayers from On Target Spray Systems of Mount Angel to apply the organic protectants. The electrostatic component of the sprayers attracts material to leaves, providing good coverage in the shady under-part of the canopy, which is where the flies tend to hang out, he said.

To date, Hafner said he’s confident that he’s staying ahead of the pest, but only time will tell.

“We’re doing everything we can and I’m optimistic right now, but we’ll see how the season goes,” he said.

“I think conventional guys are going to have a hard time later on in the season,” Hafner said, “and I think organic guys are going to have a really hard time.”

ONTARIO, Ore. — The iris yellow spot virus, which can severely impact onion yields, has made an early appearance in the Treasure Valley.

Southwestern Idaho and Eastern Oregon produce about 25 percent of the nation’s fresh bulb onion supply and the virus normally appears in onion fields in this region later in the summer.

But it was detected in commercial bulb fields in Payette County, Idaho, June 12 and in Malheur County, Oregon, last week, said Oregon State University Cropping Systems Extension Agent Stuart Reitz.

The advanced symptoms seen on some of the infected onion plants suggests they were probably infected around the first of June, he said.

“That would be really early,” said Oregon farmer Bruce Corn, who said the virus can devastate onion fields.

“It can take a whole field out in a pretty short amount of time,” he said.

The virus is transmitted to onion plants by thrips and growers are being encouraged to aggressively manage the tiny insects.

“Keep vigilant about watching what’s happening in your fields,” Reitz said. “Don’t wait until you get a full-blown infection across your field.”

Reitz said thrips populations didn’t experience their normal die-off rate this year because of a relatively mild winter and he believes that is a factor in the early appearance of the virus.

The mild weather also permitted the survival of more volunteer onions, which allow thrips to over-winter, he said.

The region faced less virus pressure than normal last year and a big reason for that was onion farmers sprayed for thrips earlier and more often, said Nyssa farmer Paul Skeen, president of the Malheur County Onion Growers Association.

Skeen said it’s critical that growers stay on top of their thrips management programs. Skeen, who has farmed for 43 years, used to never spray before the first of June but sprayed two times before that date this year.

“If people are not staying on top of their spraying, they’re going to get in trouble” he said.

Skeen said his fields are free of the virus but he’s also spraying a lot, which raises his production costs substantially.

“We’re at the point now where we’re spending more money trying to fight back the thrips than we do on fertilizer,” he said.

Plant health plays a major role in controlling the impact of the virus, Reitz said, since healthier plants are less susceptible to it.

Growers can minimize the stress on their onion plants by ensuring they have adequate moisture and fertility levels, he said.

“It’s every bit as important to try to minimize the stress on your plants,” said Corn. “If you can keep your plants healthy, (the virus) seems not to be as devastating.”

Despite the early appearance of onion farmers’ main production challenge, the region’s top cash crop looks good so far, Skeen said.

“For the most part, the onion crop looks very good and it looks healthy,” he said.

Willamette Valley farmers are advised to check their wheat fields for a fungus that hasn’t typically been seen in the area for more than a decade.

Oregon State University Extension cereals specialist Mike Flowers recently notified growers that leaf rust has been found in several research plots and grower fields in the northern and southern regions of the Willamette Valley.

Leaf rust is generally a warmer-season rust pathogen that typically arrives later in the season.

“We’re seeing it about a month earlier than we would normally see it,” Flowers said.

Leaf rust has largely been absent for the last 10 to 15 years, but the relatively unusually warm and moist weather has allowed it to infect earlier, Flowers said.

Leaf rust has dark orange pustules that appear in a random pattern across the leaf, unlike the stripes and bright orange pustules of stripe rust, a more common wheat disease, according to Flowers.

Leaf rust has been found on the varieties Bobtail and Cara, which are typically less susceptible to stripe rust.

When temperatures get hot, stripe rust usually shuts down, Flowers said. Leaf rust doesn’t fare well in cold temperatures, but does well in warmer temperatures.

“If it gets into irrigated spring wheat fields, it will act a lot like stripe rust,” Flowers said. “It probably won’t be slowed down by warmer temperatures, whereas stripe rust might.”

Similar to stripe rust, a heavy infection of leaf rust reduces yield, he said.

“We don’t have a very good idea of the susceptibility of our varieties to leaf rust, because we generally don’t see it to a point where we can actually take notes on it,” Flowers said. “Generally, when it comes in, it comes in late enough that it doesn’t really cause any economic harm. So it’s not really been worth the time and effort to screen varieties for it.”

Most wheat in the Willamette Valley is past flowering, so fungicides aren’t likely to be economical. Flowers recommends an application if fields are heavily infected or have not flowered yet.

“I don’t think it’s worth controlling, it’s not a heavy enough infection to try controlling,” he said.

Flowers wants to be sure the industry is aware of the situation and can identify it if it comes up.

“I don’t think it’s a big concern,” Flowers said. “There is this pathogen out there they may or may not run across ... this is not something a lot of the younger field men have probably seen.”

ONTARIO, Ore. — The Owyhee Irrigation District has increased its 2015 water allotment to 1.6 acre-feet and the bleak irrigation situation facing farmers who get their water from the district has improved ever so slightly.

The new allotment for the 2015 season is up slightly from the previous level of 1.5 acre-feet. But it’s still below last year’s allotment of 1.7 acre-feet and well below the normal allotment of 4 acre-feet.

A two-week stretch of rainstorms added about 10,000 acre-feet to the Owyhee Reservoir system, said Jay Chamberlin, manager of the OID, which provides water for 1,800 farms and 118,00 acres of irrigated land in Eastern Oregon and part of Southwestern Idaho.

“Spread out amongst all the acres, that’s (not a lot) but we’re going to try to get them another tenth of a foot,” Chamberlin said.

The Owyhee Reservoir was dropping at a pace of about 2,000 acre-feet a day but fell only about 200 acre-feet a day during the stretch of rain storms, said OID board member Bruce Corn, a farmer.

Stream in-flows into the reservoir increased from 135 cubic feet per second to about 900 during part of that stretch, Corn said.

Farmers in the area are suffering through a fourth straight year of drought conditions and have left a lot of ground fallow and planted less water-intensive crops as a result.

While the rains didn’t turn things around, they have helped this year’s situation a little bit by enabling OID to provide farmers a tad bit more water, Corn said.

“That’s still only 40 percent of the normal allotment, but every little bit helps,” he said.

Chamberlin said the district hopes to keep the water flowing until the first part of August, which is the same time OID stopped delivering water last year. He said the rains may add a few days to the end of the season.

Nyssa farmer Craig Froerer hopes the rains allow the water to flow until close to September.

If the season is extended, that could make a big difference for some growers, said Froerer, who estimates last year’s tight water supply had about a $1 million impact on his farm.

Froerer will be finished watering his short-term crops, like wheat and peas, by then, but the extra water would be especially important for his long-term crops, such as mint and asparagus.

“If we can last a little bit longer ... it will make a big difference to us,” he said.

The rains didn’t solve all the region’s water problems “and it was not a game-changer, but it may lengthen the season a little bit, which is very, very important,” Corn said. “It’s still a bit better than it would have been and it gives people a little hope.”

Cliff Thomason’s goal is to be growing 10,000 acres of industrial hemp in five years. But right now he’s dealing with opposition from medical marijuana growers and Oregon legislators.

Thomason is among the first growers licensed by the state to raise hemp, which lacks the THC levels that gets pot smokers high but is valued because it can be used to make a wide variety of food, health and fiber products.

Thomason’s Oregon Hemp Co. has grow operations in Murphy and near Grants Pass, in Southwest Oregon, and he is negotiating to sharecrop space on an organic farm near Scio, in the Willamette Valley.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture has issued 13 hemp licenses, but it’s unclear how many growers have a crop in the ground this summer.

Thomason said growers are hampered by infrastructure and political problems. First, it’s difficult to obtain seed, although Thomason said he has seed from China, Lithuania, Slovakia and Germany. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” he said.

The Oregon Legislature is another matter. Medical marijuana growers in Southern Oregon believe pollen from industrial hemp will contaminate their potent pot and reduce THC levels. A bill in the Legislature would force a 5-mile separation between hemp and pot growers.

Hemp growers say that would essentially prohibit them from growing, because so many pot plots fill the area.

Thomason said he’s trying to be a good neighbor by keeping pollen-bearing male hemp plants in greenhouses and transplanting only females outdoors.

“I keep saying that with responsible farming practices, it will regulate itself,” he said.

Thomason described himself as “truly an accidental farmer” who was asked to help find seed and land for the hemp industry because of his real estate background.

“When I did, we formed a company to move the project forward,” he said.

He said his plants are growing rapidly and are intended for the medical market. The German seeds seem to do the best, perhaps because its climate is similar to Oregon’s, he said.

The other licenses issued so far are:

27B Stroke6 Farm, Corvallis; American Hemp Seed Genetics, Salem; Cannalive Organics, Yamhill County; Central Coast Enterprises, Seal Rock; Genesis Media Works, Baker County; Hemp for Victory Gardens, Wilsonville; Hughes Farms LLC, Bend; Integrative Health Source, Corvallis; Mark McKay Farms, St. Paul; Oregon Agriculture Food and Rural Consortium, Eagle Point; Went to Seed LLC., Bend; and Wildhorse Creek Hacienda, Adams.

Wheat yields are projected to take such a hit this summer that some Eastern Oregon growers may not even harvest their crop, a senior grain merchandiser said.

Sparse rainfall and diminished snowpack is the story for producers all across the West, but an unseasonable heat wave in late May and early June hit developing wheat plants at exactly the wrong time, said Dan Steiner of Pendleton Grain Growers.

Dryland wheat growers, who farm without irrigation, were hit especially hard as the National Weather Service recorded temperatures of 90, 96 and 102 degrees in the Pendleton area from May 29 to June 10.

“Production will be down significantly,” Steiner said. He estimated a 20 percent yield drop overall from the statewide average of about 60 bushels an acre.

“Some of the dryland areas are going to have zero,” he said. “Some (fields) will be abandoned.”

Steiner said the heat wave came as wheat plants were in the stage of filling out their grain kernels. Evaporation stole what little water was left for plant development, he said.

“It came at a very, very bad time,” he said. “A lot of moisture that could have gone to the kernel was simply lost.”

If temperatures had been in the 70s or 80s during that time, there would have been a chance to have an average crop, Steiner said.

As things stand, some dryland growers in parts of Morrow, Wasco, Sherman, Umatilla and Gilliam counties may decide it’s not worth the expense of running a combine over their ground, Steiner said. Some Eastern Washington growers may be in similar situations, he said.

Steiner said growers need to harvest seven or eight bushels an acre simply to pay for the cost of operating a combine. Growers may be cushioned from some of the loss by revenue guarantees of their insurance, he said.

Steiner said he’s been in Oregon since 1988, including the past 15 years with Pendleton Grain Growers. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”

The same problems have hit wheat growers before, of course. Steiner said El Nino weather patterns always bring hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters, neither of which is good for dryland wheat.

Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said hot weather also raises the protein level of soft white wheat above what Asian buyers prefer. It won’t drive customers away, but they will be aware of it, he said. Most of the wheat grown in the Pacific Northwest is exported to Japan, Korea and elsewhere, where it’s used to make crackers, cakes and other products.

Steiner, of Pendleton Grain Growers, said the bad weather this year isn’t likely to change how farmers operate. Dryland growers don’t have many options, he pointed out,

“I would imagine they’ll plant like always do, and try to be optimistic,” he said. “The timing of that rain is absolutely critical. We can’t have 100 degree days at the end of May and the first of June.”