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Commercial market for western juniper studied

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

A Portland non-profit will use a USDA Rural Development grant to expand markets for western juniper, which could help keep greater sage grouse off the endangered species list, aid Eastern Oregon ranchers and provide jobs.

It starts with a $64,990 USDA grant to Sustainable Northwest, the non-profit, which will explore commercial uses of western juniper, a knotty, twisty wood that’s difficult to mill. The idea is to certify engineering design values for juniper, which is naturally rot-resistant and for now is largely limited to use as landscape timbers, sign posts, garden boxes and the like.

Oregon State University and the West Coast Lumber Inspection Bureau will assess the design values over the coming year. A bigger market for lumber made from western juniper could have an echo effect in Eastern Oregon, where removing the tree is seen as a key factor in helping sage grouse recover.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide in 2015 whether to list sage grouse as endangered. Western junipers are a problem because they crowd out sagebrush and grasses favored by the birds, suck up water and provide perches for hawks, ravens and other predator birds that prey on young sage grouse or eat eggs.

A 2013 study by the Nature Conservancy showed sage grouse leks, or breeding areas, do not exist where junipers and pinyon pines cover more 4 percent of the area.

Western juniper encroachment in Eastern Oregon is estimated at 6 million to 10 million acres; the Nature Conservancy study concluded an investment of $8.75 million annually could eliminate encroachment near all known Oregon leks within the next decade.

Killing junipers through prescribed burns is an acceptable treatment, but mechanical removal — logging — provides a more immediate benefit, according to the study. To make cutting juniper worth the expense, however, an expanded lumber market is necessary.

Oregon cattle ranchers and producers throughout 10 other western states believe an endangered listing for sage grouse would be devastating, bringing grazing restrictions and other regulations. In an attempt to head off listing, voluntary efforts have sprung up in several states. In May, Harney County ranchers in Southeast Oregon signed agreements to improve sage grouse habitat on up to 1 million acres of private rangeland. In return for management changes, including juniper removal, ranchers will be sheltered for 30 years from additional regulations even if the bird is listed as endangered.

Salvage logging begins after Oregon wildfire

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Spiky clumps of Oregon grape are just beginning to emerge in a sea of brown needles, charred bark and blackened rock blanketing southwestern Klamath County.

“It burned hot,” said Andy Geissler, pointing to naked trees and gnarled shrubs that were scorched in the 35,000-acre Oregon Gulch Fire in August.

“I haven’t seen a green needle in a while.”

On Wednesday, Geissler, a Western Oregon field forester for the American Forest Resource Council, and a representative from Boise-Cascade toured a portion of the 17,000 acres blackened in Klamath County; roughly 5,000 of those acres are public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Before the Gulch Fire ignited on July 31, the land was covered with grassy flats, shrubs, oak woodland, pine and other conifer. Now, timber managers are scouring the area to find out what’s left and if it has any value.

“Timing is the key. These trees burned and they’ve got a shelf life,” Geissler said. “It’s kind of a risky venture to put bids in on salvage wood because you just don’t know what you’re getting into.”

According to BLM forester Shane Durant, salvage logging has already begun at the Gulch Fire site.

He said the agency met National Environmental Policy Act requirements with a special exclusion that allowed timber slated for harvest on an existing sale to be salvage logged.

Durant pointed out that much of the BLM land affected by the fire is designated as Oregon and California Railroad Act (O&C) land.

He said the land was heavily logged about 100 years ago, but has since been managed as part of the O&C program intended to provide money to counties through timber production. Of the 4,870 acres burned in Klamath County, only 818 acres are public domain. The rest is O&C land.

“Half the money from those timber sales goes to the counties,” Durant said.

According to Dennis Lee, a forester with the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Klamath-Lake District, depending on their diameter, burned trees are typically salvageable. He said timber value isn’t degraded until trees start rotting or they become infested with insects or “blue stain” fungus.

“If you get to a tree quickly, before the blue stain sets in, it’s still a good, viable log,” Lee said. “If the value goes down, it makes it harder to profit from harvesting the trees.”

Blue stain is caused by microscopic fungi that infects sapwood and causes discoloration in the shape of wedges, specks, spots, streaks or patches. Stains come in a variety of colors — not just blue including shades of yellow, orange, purple, and red. Blue stain fungi do not cause decay and do not impact the strength of the wood.

“We’re trying to error on the side of if they could live, we’ll leave them. If they die, they’ll just be another snag,” Durant said.

But eventually, dead trees will fall down, Lee said.

“And downed wood material is certainly good for the critters,” Lee said.

Jordan Beckett, a public lands advocate for K.S. Wild, agreed that dead snags can provide excellent habitat for wildlife. But, he said, as of now, K.S. Wild does not support salvage logging at the Gulch Fire site.

According to Beckett, K.S. Wild, an organization that advocates for forests, wildlife and waters of the Klamath and Rogue River basins, is concerned that BLM is not leaving enough large snags and downed wood for wildlife habitat.

“Large snags and downed wood left to naturally regenerate are unlikely to burn a second time, and they provide outstanding wildlife habitat,” Beckett said.

He said the organization also plans to monitor how many slash piles are created from logging activities.

“Post-fire logging increases fire hazard and fire severity if there are later unexpected fire events,” Beckett said.

Doug Heiken, conservation and restoration coordinator for Oregon Wild, said if resource managers want to generate complex old growth stands, complex young growth must precede it.

“Science has shown overwhelmingly that salvage logging is bad for ecosystems,” Heiken said.

According to Lee, fallen trees, whether scorched or not, provide food for bugs and birds, and create microsites for new tree growth by allowing moisture to accumulate and providing shade.

Lakeview BLM spokeswoman E. Lynn Burkett said the Gulch Fire burned hot and fast for several reasons. During the fire, conditions and fuels — like needles and the duff layer — were exceptionally dry.

Durant said fire has always been at play in this neck of the woods, but the stands of trees are not necessarily natural. He said 100 years ago, forests had less understory growth and were more open, meaning flames would be less concentrated in one area.

“You could run a fire through them without killing a lot of the trees,” Durant said.

The agency will probably start replanting this fall, he said.

“We’re leaving all the green trees. All the trees we think will survive.”

Oregon GMO task force drafts report

Capital Press Agriculture News Oregon -

An Oregon task force on genetically engineered crops agrees that more regulatory clarity is needed for biotechnology but diverges on the specifics of any governance scheme.

Earlier this year, Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber convened a task force to frame the debate over genetic engineering and issue a report to guide lawmakers during the 2015 legislative session.

After six months of discussions, the task force has now released a draft version of its report to the public.

While task force members believe there should be a “path to coexistence” among biotech, conventional and organic growers, they were divided as to whether preventing cross-pollination among such crops should be mandated by the government or conducted on a voluntary basis.

During an Oct. 23 task force meeting, members negotiated revisions to the draft.

Marty Myers, general manager of Threemile Canyon Farms, said he would like the report to emphasize the possibility of farmer-to-farmer cooperation.

“Farmers are quite good at this and have shown examples of being able to coexist in the past,” he said.

However, there have clearly been conflicts over cross-pollination, as evidenced by farmer participation in lawsuits over biotech sugar beets and alfalfa, said Ivan Maluski, director of Friends of Family Farms, which is critical of biotech regulations.

“I don’t think we would be here if it had been smooth sailing all the way on coexistence,” he said.

The topic of liability for cross-pollination also highlighted the members’ contrasting perspectives.

Suggestions that organic and conventional farmers could buy insurance to cover the risk of cross-pollination by GE crops were deemed unfair by members who said biotech companies should not be absolved from responsibility while the burden falls entirely on growers.

Some members thought biotech seed developers should be liable for harms caused by cross-pollination but others argued this approach is unfair because companies would be held “liable for actions beyond their control,” the report said.

The problem of liability is also technical, said Greg Loberg, manager of the West Coast Beet Seed Co.

The report should reflect that there is no way to ensure that seed is absolutely free of biotech genes — there has to be a testing threshold, rather than just “zero,” he said.

“In order to have compensation or enforcement, you have to have a test,” Loberg said. “What test?”

The draft report also said government policy should “clarify the interaction between state and federal law” for GMOs and define the role of state agencies in regulating biotechnology.

However, the task force did not reach consensus on what level of regulatory oversight is sufficient.

Some members were confident in conclusions by federal agencies that deregulated biotech crops are equivalent to conventional ones, while others didn’t think these studies were of adequate duration and worry about long term impacts to human health and the environment.

The State of Oregon’s current authority to regulate biotech crops and its ability to expand that oversight was another subject of dispute.

At this point, the Oregon Department of Agriculture only sets “control areas” designating where GMOs can or cannot be grown if the crops are still regulated by USDA. Once they’re deregulated, the ODA believes it no longer has authority over those crops.

“There were varied and strong perspectives among members on whether ODA should or could take on a larger role at present or if its authorities were changed,” the report said.

Oregon Consensus, a mediation program that’s assisting the task force, will adjust the draft language to incorporate changes discussed during the recent meeting.

“We want to find a solution everybody can live with,” said Peter Harkema, project manager for the program.

The task force plans to ask the public to comment on its report at a meeting in Salem, Ore., in mid-November, though a firm date has yet to be set.

A draft version of the report is available online at www.oregon.gov/gov/gnro/.

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