The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife will present its plan to restore and preserve fresh water wetlands for salmon and waterfowl at a public meeting Thursday.

The plan would protect, enhance and restore wildlife habitats, according to ODFW. The department would also build and maintain facilities on the land.

Stuart Love, a biologist with ODFW and manager of the Coquille Wildlife area, said the plan would help juvenile coho salmon make their way to sea.

“There’s a time period when they aren’t ready to go into the ocean yet,” Love said. “And they need to be able to find places where they can get out of the heavy currents and spend the winter.”

He said the proposed area would be open to the public and would provide education and recreation activities. The site would have bird watching, hunting and fishing. Love said that schools would be able to tour the property and learn about wetland enhancement and development.

Wetland restoration on the property has been an ongoing discussion in the county. In 2012, the Coos-Curry Farm Bureau presented their concerns about having agriculture land taken away for restoration. Farmers in the area wanted to keep the land in agricultural production, rather than using it as protected wetlands.

The meeting is scheduled for Thursday in Coquille. The plan will be submitted to the state Fish and Wildlife Commission in August.

Love described the proposed area as  “very important for the overall well being of fish and wildlife resources in the valley.”

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — After weeks of stalemate, a state legislative committee has advanced a bill setting up Oregon’s legal marijuana system.

The approval of the joint House-Senate committee on Monday sends the bill to the full House, which can take it up as soon as this week.

The measure includes a compromise on local control, an issue that has stymied previous attempts to pass marijuana bills. The compromise would allow local governments to ban recreational and medical marijuana businesses in counties that voted overwhelmingly against Measure 91 in last year’s election. Elsewhere, voters would have to approve a ban on marijuana sales.

Lawmakers did not take up a separate bill that would create a sales tax on pot in place of the harvest tax in Measure 91.

YAKIMA, Wash. — Hop acreage in Washington, Oregon and Idaho will increase 16 percent this year as growers continue to try to meet growing demand from an increase in small, craft breweries.

Total acres strung for harvest are 43,987 up from 38,011 in 2014, according to a June 1 forecast released by USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service on June 10.

Washington is at 32,205 acres up 3,347 from last year. Oregon is 6,807 up 1,397 from last year and Idaho is 4,975 up 1,232.

If those numbers are realized it will be the third highest total harvested acreage on record, NASS said. Washington is 73 percent of the national crop, Oregon is 16 percent and Idaho 11 percent.

Acreage increased about 10 percent a year for the past three years. Growth of craft breweries is expected to continue to 2020.

Acreage is not only increasing but continuing to shift away from high alpha varieties large brewers prefer to aroma varieties for the small brewers, said Pete Mahony, director of supply chain management and purchasing for John I. Haas, Yakima. It’s a leader in hop growing, processing, research and development.

Previously, Mahony and others have warned of a potential shortage of high alpha hops but now Mahony says Germany likely will pick up the slack when large brewers re-enter the market.

Large brewers became oversupplied with C02 extract of high alpha in 2008 and 2009 and are still reducing their inventory, he said.

Germany has a new high alpha variety called Hercules that is better yielding than CTZ, the main high alpha in the U.S., Mahony said.

“We feel that with the expansion of that (Hercules) when the big brewers come back, Germany will make up much of the shortfall we may have in the U.S.,” he said.

The larger issue, he said, is tightness of available land in traditional growing areas in the Pacific Northwest and enough plant capacity to process larger volumes of aroma varieties that have tighter harvest windows.

“Growers need a balance of early, mid and late maturing varieties. Therefore, varietal mix on the farms is of increasing importance as acreage shifts further into aroma, effectively shrinking the harvest window,” he said.

Growers are expanding facilities but it costs millions of dollars, he said.

Summit, CTZ and Super Galena are the high alpha varieties of greatest acreage decline and Simcoe, Centennial, Mosaic and Citra are the aroma varieties of greatest increase, according to NASS.

The 2015 crop is reportedly very good with normal pest and disease pressure, NASS said.

In Washington’s Yakima Valley growers are using efficient drip irrigation to conserve water and are supplementing normal irrigation supplies with groundwater, NASS said. Oregon and Idaho have adequate water in hop growing areas, the agency said.

Researchers are now certain that kochia weeds found growing in two sugar beet fields in Eastern Oregon and Southwestern Idaho last year were resistant to glyphosate, the active ingredient in the popular weed killer Roundup.

The kochia weed is widespread in the region. Researchers are determining how widespread the resistant weeds are and developing ways to help sugar beet growers in the region deal with them.

That includes field trials designed to show growers the benefit of using multiple herbicides, in addition to Roundup, to prevent or control the development of glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Virtually all of the 180,000 acres of sugar beets grown in Eastern Oregon and Idaho are genetically modified by Monsanto Co. to resist glyphosate.

A field trial at Oregon State University’s Ontario research station set up to determine the best treatment method to control resistant kochia weeds is being coordinated by OSU weed scientist Joel Felix and University of Idaho weed scientist Don Morishita.

It was Morishita and Felix who first alerted sugar beet growers last year they had found kochia weeds that could be resistant to glyphosate. Lab tests have since confirmed that they are.

Both said weeds don’t mutate to develop resistance to a herbicide such as glyphosate. Rather, the product allows a very small population of the weeds that are naturally resistant to thrive because it kills off their competition.

That’s why it’s important for growers to use other herbicides, in addition to Roundup, Felix said.

Roundup might not control a very small number of resistant weeds, he said, but the use of multiple chemistries will. Crop rotation is an important part of that approach because it allows farmers to use different chemistries, he added.

“People who are using (Roundup Ready crops) need to manage that technology by rotating their chemistries,” said Greg Dean, manager of agricultural services for Amalgamated Sugar Co., which purchases the sugar beets grown by farmers in the region

Some farmers in the area are still relying on glyphosate alone to control weeds, Morishita said.

“Any farmer who is just relying on glyphosate is really setting themselves and their neighbors up for some problems in the future,” he said.

The decision on what herbicides to use is an economic one and it comes down to the grower’s call, Felix said.

But, he added, “We are stressing ... both crop rotation and the use of chemistries other than just glyphosate. As you rotate, you use different modes of action and you control weeds in all crops. By the time you get into sugar beets, you may be free of kochia if you do a good job.”

Felix and Morishita are collecting weeds from different areas and will spray them with Roundup to try to determine how widespread glyphosate-resistant kochia weeds are in the region.

“It’s really important for ... sugar beet growers to know if they have glyphosate-resistant weeds on their farm,” Morishita said. “I think we’ll have a better idea of the level of resistance later this year.”

Fire officials in Bend warned that some residents should be ready to evacuate as the Shevlin Fire quickly spread Thursday.

The brush fire near Shevlin Park started as a small blaze in the Tumalo Creek canyon, but grew to about 10 acres in about an hour before firefighters started to gain the upper hand.

“We threw a lot of resources at it all at once,” said Dave Howe, battalion chief with Bend Fire and Rescue. “We were able to shut down the highway, notify the neighbors, get water on the fire and hold the extent of the fire to about 8 to 10 acres.”   He estimates 50 to 60 firefighters responded, along with bulldozers, a helicopter to dump water, and air tankers to drop retardant.

After the blaze took off, fire officials quickly issued a Level 1 pre-evacuation notice, which asks residents in the area to leave if they need extra time for evacuation or have health conditions that could be worsened by the smoke, such as respiratory conditions. The evacuation warning covered the Three Pines and Shevlin subdivisions on both sides of Shevlin Park, west of McClain.

“Evacuations are voluntary, but residents are encouraged to leave if concerned,” said a release from Deschutes County spokesperson Anna Johnson.

Shevlin Commons resident Christina Pollard lives in one of the three neighborhoods in the pre-evacuation area. She turned on her sprinklers full blast, and watched the smoke rise from the canyon below her home.

“I think the whole neighborhood is pretty nervous,” said Pollard.

The cause of the fire is unknown, but the Oregon Department of Forestry is conducting an investigation.

Firefighters from 19 units worked quickly to contain the blaze, and by 5 p.m. fire managers said growth of the fire had stopped. 

Howe says he and his fire crews are gearing up for a busy summer. “This is just a preview of this season. If we don’t get much rain this summer we’re going to be doing this on a very continuous basis.”

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Forests Service is gearing up in anticipation of a major battle with a wildfire apparently ignited by lightning in a remote part of southwestern Oregon burned by the 2002 Biscuit fire.

Spokeswoman Virginia Gibbons said Friday that five hotshot crews, two heavy helicopters and one air tanker are assigned to the Buckskin fire, which so far has grown to about 100 acres on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, about 10 miles southwest of Cave Junction.

Gibbons says a Type II fire management team has been called in, due to expectations that drought conditions, rugged terrain and the remote location will make this a difficult fire to contain.

The Biscuit fire grew to half a million acres — 781 square miles — making it the nation’s biggest in 2002.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Two Josephine County commissioners who sent a letter to the Oregon Legislature opposing a bill that would restrict hemp production have revealed they are partners in a consortium that is growing hemp near Murphy.

The Daily Courier reports that following threats of an ethics investigation against Commissioner Cherryl Walker, Commissioner Simon Hare announced Wednesday that he also is an industrial hemp production.

Walker has been fending off claims by critics that she has a conflict of interest by advocating against House Bill 2668, which would place restrictions on hemp production and specifically would affect industrial hemp production in Josephine, Jackson and Douglas counties.

Marijuana growers have opposed hemp farms because they fear cross-pollination.

Oregon Ethics Commission officials say they have not received a formal complaint against Walker.

MORO, Ore. — The latest developments on soil problems, diseases and varietal options attracted about five dozen wheat growers and others to Oregon State University’s Sherman County field day.

Stephen Machado, a crop physiology and agronomy professor assigned to the Columbia Basin Agricultural Research Center in Pendleton, explained ways to increase soil pH and reduce acidity.

While lime application is the usual fix, biochar shows promise, Machado said. Biochar, a charcoal-like substance produced by heating woody biomass such as logging slash, carries a pH of about 10, Machado said. Trials have shown wheat yield increases ranging from 26 to 34 percent, and biochar may need to be applied only once, compared to every couple years with lime, he said.

“It’s still new, but it’s something we are considering,” Machado said. He acknowledged biochar production would have to be increased to establish a dependable supply and bring down the price.

Soil scientist Don Wysocki, also at OSU’s Pendleton station, delivered the news that black leg disease was found in Eastern Oregon canola. An outbreak in the Willamette Valley last year was a concern to specialty seed growers and became part of the unresolved argument about allowing canola in the valley.

After the discovery, Wysocki examined last year’s canola stubble and found it there, too.

“That tells me it was fairly wide spread in 2014,” he said.

He said growers shouldn’t panic.

“You manage it,” Wysocki said. “We have the disease. We just don’t know how severe it’s going to be or what the effect will be.”

Mike Flowers, an OSU wheat breeder, walked growers through the characteristics of multiple new varieties under development.

Richard Smiley, an OSU expert in soil-borne pathogens, held forth on root lesion nematodes and fusarium crown rot. All types of wheat are vulnerable to the pathogens, which interfere with plants’ ability to extract water and nutrients from the soil, he said.

In one Iranian study, the combination of root and crown diseases reduced yield 68 percent, Smiley said.

A common weed in wheat fields, jointed goat grass, is a good host of nematodes, but spraying for the weed may cause the nematodes to migrate to moist wheat roots, Smiley said.

He said barley is much less sensitive, and wheat following barley in rotation does well.

“There’s something magical about barley’s resistance to these root lesion nematodes,” Smiley said.

Smiley, who is retiring, spoke briefly at a lunch following the field presentations. He thanked local growers “for the 30 years of a good ride I’ve had here at the Sherman station.”

The field day coincided with a visit from a Chinese trade team representing several grain and oil companies. Blake Rowe, CEO of the Oregon Wheat Commission, said he’s hoping to convince Chinese companies to buy Oregon wheat instead of Australian and Canadian products.

LA GRANDE, Ore. (AP) — Investigators with the Oregon State Police Fish and Wildlife Division are trying to solve a poaching case outside of La Grande, and it wants the public’s help.

Sgt. Chris Hawkins says a buck in the Starkey Unit was shot twice in the head with a .17-caliber rifle. The shooting happened around June 3, a time when deer hunting is not in season.

Hawkins says a citizen found the buck only a couple miles off Interstate 84 in Union County.

A reward is being offered by the Oregon Hunters Association through the Turn-in-Poachers program for any information leading to a conviction.

The program number is 1-800-452-7888.

SALEM — The Oregon Senate rejected a last-ditch effort to exclude farms from a bill that requires employers to provide workers with paid sick leave.

Senate Bill 454 was approved by the Senate 17-13 on June 10 despite requests by several lawmakers to send the proposal back to committee for an amendment to exempt agricultural businesses.

“I don’t care what anybody else says in this room, you’re going to hurt ag,” said Sen. Chuck Thomsen, R-Hood River, who raises pears.

The bill was approved largely along partisan lines, with all Democrats except Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, voting in favor and all Republicans voting against it.

Under the legislation, employers with more than 10 workers must provide them with 40 hours of paid sick time per year. Those with fewer workers must provide unpaid sick leave.

During a floor debate on SB 454, Thomsen argued that farmers should be exempted because many hire large numbers of workers to pick perishable crops, with prices dictated by global supply and demand.

“We don’t have the ability to recoup costs,” he said.

The bill could theoretically allow an entire picking crew to take paid sick leave at once, leaving the farmer with an unharvested crop while they go harvest for another grower, Thomsen said.

Agricultural employers say the bill is a “job killer and a business killer,” not only for fruit growers but also cattle and wheat producers who have year-round workers, said Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day.

Opponents of SB 454 claim that it amounts to an unfunded mandate that will cost Oregon companies about $1 billion a year.

“This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Ferrioli.

Sen. Michael Dembrow, D-Portland, said the bill has undergone multiple changes to accommodate employers and he denied that agriculture’s unique needs were ignored.

“When someone came to us with a problem, we tried to solve it whenever possible,” he said.

Specifically, workers can only use their paid sick leave after completing a 90-day probation period, so many seasonal workers will never even qualify for the benefit, Dembrow said.

It’s also unlikely that workers will pretend to be sick and forgo picking fruit at piece rate wages, which are usually higher than the minimum wage they’d get under paid sick leave, he said.

The bill is necessary because higher-paid workers in Oregon generally get paid sick leave but most low-wage workers do not, Dembrow said.

Such workers risk getting fired or losing significant income by not showing up for work when ill, he said. “This is one of the most striking examples of economic inequity that we face.”

The 90-day probation period won’t actually stop many farm workers from qualifying for paid sick leave, since growers plant multiple varieties of crops, such as blueberries, to mature over a longer period of time, said Roger Beyer, lobbyist for the Oregon Blueberry Commission and other farm groups.

“Their picking season lasts 100 days or more,” he said.

Also, workers who return to a farm to prune or perform other duties within 180 days will continue to accrue time toward the 90 day probation period, said Jenny Dresler, government affairs associate at the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Growers will need to contend with a complicated formula to determine whether they average 10 workers per year, and track workers who leave and return to the farm, she said.

While SB 454 has yet to be approved by the House, it’s proponents likely don’t expect significant obstacles, Dresler said. “I doubt they would be moving forward if they didn’t think the votes were there.”

With drought and changing precipitation patterns on the minds of farmers and ranchers, an ongoing study of the Willamette River Basin’s dams and reservoirs is taking on a new urgency.

One of the key issues to be answered in the Willamette Basin Review is how much water agriculture really needs — or wants.

“That is indeed the question,” said Jim Johnson, land use and water planning coordinator for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

The study is a joint project of the Oregon Water Resources Department and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and it could ultimately result in Congress being asked to re-allocate water stored behind 13 dams in the Willamette River drainage system.

The Corps of Engineers owns and operates the dams and reservoirs. The projects were built for flood control, irrigation, power production, navigation, wildlife and other purposes, but it’s water for agricultural use that is getting close attention.

Another federal agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, holds the water rights certificates for the entire conservation storage available in the Willamette system.

The certificates authorize 1.64 million acre-feet of stored water for irrigation annually, but less than 5 percent of it is used. That’s because the infrastructure necessary to get the water to the users — canals and pipelines — don’t exist.

Meanwhile, growing cities and industrial users can’t get at the remainder. The Willamette Basin, running roughly 120 miles south from Portland to Cottage Grove, holds about 75 percent of the state’s population and is growing rapidly.

But agriculture is big in the Willamette Valley as well, growing about 170 crops and accounting for more than 40 percent of the state’s gross farm sales, according to a 2013 Water Resources Department draft report.

Johnson and others point out that a significant amount of farmland in the valley isn’t irrigated and potentially could be used to grow higher-value crops if farmers could turn on the sprinklers. That capability should be taken into consideration when deciding future water allocations, Johnson said in an email.

“We have a great deal of acreage in the Valley that has greater potential if water could be made available,” he said.

Climate change is a big part of the discussion. In the Pacific Northwest in recent years, winter precipitation has arrived as rain rather than snow. This year, meager mountain snowpacks have already melted, according to federal hydrologists.

The WRD draft report says that may be the new normal. Scientific models indicate the Willamette Basin is headed for warmer, wetter winters and hotter, drier summers. The average temperature is projected to increase by 2 to 7 degrees Celsius over the next century, and the Cascades snowpack will decrease by 60 percent, according to the report.

Melting snow traditionally provides up to 80 percent of the Willamette River’s flow in late summer, but that flow is expected to decrease by 20 to 50 percent as the mountain snowpacks diminish, according to the report.

“The area’s reliance on high-elevation water during summer months highlights the vulnerability of the Willamette Basin to the influences of a warming climate,” the report concludes. “Water stored in the Willamette Basin Corps Reservoirs is viewed as the last remaining supply of water for meeting future needs, both in-stream and out-of-stream needs.”

The changing patterns already play havoc with reservoir operators. This year, despite near normal precipitation in some areas, water levels in the Willamette Basin reservoirs are 51 percent of normal because the peak snow melt runoff occurred before operators began refilling reservoirs.

Corps of Engineers spokesman Scott Clemans said he’s heard some people question why the Corps doesn’t begin refill operations in December or January instead of waiting until February.

The reason is that the dams were built primarily for flood control, Clemans said, and the risk from flooding must be accounted for throughout the winter months.

Clemans said there are likely to be “wilder and wider swings” in refill operations as climate change takes hold.

The Corps and state Water Resources Department are expected to finish a report to Congress in three years.

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (AP) — Wildlife officials are tracking a wolf they say has made its way into southwest Oregon’s Klamath County.

The Herald and News reports the 2-year-old male gray wolf is one of two to make its way into the county from a dispersed Imnaha Pack in northeastern Oregon.

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife official John Muir called the wolf that was captured and collared in 2014 a “wandering teenager.”

He said the wolf has made its way through a large swath of eastern Oregon and most recently sent signals near a cattle ranch.

Wildlife officials notified Yamsi Ranch partners John and Jerri Hyde of the wolf’s presence, who said they’ve had wolves on the property before, but never any problems.

They said they hope it moves on.

The U.S. Forest Service doesn’t have to study the impact of logging on wolves before proceeding with a thinning project in Oregon’s Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, a federal judge ruled.

The agency plans to treat about 3,200 acres as part of the Bybee project, which is aimed at reducing the risk of wildfire in overstocked forest stands.

Oregon Wild, an environmental group, filed a legal complaint claiming the Forest Service should have supplemented its environmental assessment of the project due to the presence of wolves in the area.

A male radio-collared wolf originally from Northeast Oregon, known as OR-7, sired two pups with a mate in the area last year. Gray wolves are protected as an endangered species in that part of the state.

The Forest Service conducted a “new information review” to see if logging would affect the wolves, but concluded it would not since their den was at least 15 miles away from the project site.

U.S. District Judge Owen Panner found that the agency took a sufficiently “hard look” at the issue, given the wolves’ distance and the lack of designated critical wolf habitat in the area.

Panner reached a similar conclusion in regard to the northern spotted owl, a threatened species, because the Bybee project doesn’t remove any of critical habitat or “take” any birds.

The Forest Service also postponed thinning some areas to preserve high value wildlife habitat, he said.

Oregon Wild claimed that the agency should have undertaken a more comprehensive “environmental impact statement” of the project because it contains potential federally designated areas and due to its proximity to the Crater Lake National Park.

The judge rejected these arguments because the project only has a small amount of acreage eligible for wilderness designation, the strictest form of federal land protection.

Panner said the Forest Service addressed concerns about Crater Lake National Park by scaling back the project near the park’s border, and he agreed that thinning will help protect the area from fire.

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — In less than a month, Oregonians over age 21 will be able to legally grow, own and consume their own small amounts of recreational marijuana.

Legislators, however, are still working on the regulations that will govern the legal marijuana industry. After months of talks, they’re getting closer.

Oregon and Alaska both approved measures to legalize recreational marijuana last fall, following Washington state and Colorado, whose markets are up and running. Consumption of recreational pot becomes legal in Oregon on July 1.

As they hammer out the details of the larger retail marijuana industry, lawmakers are hoping to build a strong new economic sector for the state.

“The goal is to give everyone a fair shot at competing in this new marijuana market,” said Rep. Ann Lininger, D- Lake Oswebo, co-chair of the joint committee developing guidelines for the regulations. “We are welcoming people who want to invest in or come to Oregon and help us create a strong sector.”

Growers said they are excited by the prospect of coming into the mainstream.

“We are witnessing the surfacing of an old industry that’s 78 years in the making,” since Congress outlawed marijuana in 1937, said Richard Reames, a member of the board of directors of the Oregon SunGrown Growers Association. The group has hired a lobbyist to make sure its interests are protected in the Legislature.

Oregon already had a thriving medical marijuana program. Based on surveys of growers, Oregon consumes 160,000 pounds of marijuana a year, with up to 80,000 pounds consumed by the state’s 70,000 medical marijuana patients, said Seth Crawford, who teaches a class in marijuana policy at Oregon State University.

Based on interviews with Oregon lawmakers, state officials and industry representatives, there is strong support to let medical marijuana dispensaries, approved by the Legislature in 2013, also sell recreational marijuana.

However, it doesn’t look like retail operations will be able to sell recreational marijuana until late 2016, to allow time for setting up an orderly system for granting permits to growers, processors, wholesalers and dispensaries, and tracking pot from seedling to retail sales to keep it out of the black market.

Another issue has been how to satisfy indoor and as well as outdoor growers. Outdoor growers tend to be in southern Oregon, in the so-called Emerald Triangle, where there’s more sunshine. A lot of indoor growers are in the Portland area.

“I think that it is important for them to strike some sort of balance between the north and the south, the outdoor and the indoor,” said Donald Morse, a medical marijuana dispensary owner and director of the Oregon Cannabis Business Council. “It’s not just economics. It’s making sure that there’s enough supply, but not too much supply and the supply comes on a regular basis, and is not always just a land rush of marijuana in the fall from the outdoor harvest, while the rest of the year, people are starving.”

It looks likely that grower permits will give indoor growers and outdoor growers equal access to the market.

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which has authority over recreational sales, could award grower permits based on the canopy area — the horizontal area covered by branches and leaves. Individual outdoor growers would have up to four times the canopy area because they only produce one crop a year, while indoor growers can produce up to four crops a year under artificial lights.

Oregonians seem eager to get started. The city of Vancouver — just across the Columbia River from Portland — has become one of the hottest cannabis markets in Washington state. Four stores have reported sales totaling more than $18 million — better than 12 percent of all retail marijuana sales in Washington.

ROSEBURG, Ore. (AP) — Crews have completed a fire line around a 100-acre blaze burning east of Canyonville, Oregon.

Kyle Reed of the Douglas Forest Protective Association says 90 firefighters, a bull dozer, and two water tenders are on scene Tuesday at the Corn Creek wildfire. They plan to strengthen fire lines and start mopping up.

The cause of the fire has yet to be established.

Reed says firefighters in that part of southwest Oregon are also responding to new reports of small fires after a lightning storm moved through Tuesday morning.

If there were any doubt, the final snowpack report of the year from the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service shows Oregon has little water to spare going into the height of summer.

Sixty percent of the NRCS’s automated measuring stations, called SNOTEL for snow telemetry, recorded their lowest snowpack on record. As of June 1, only one of the 81 SNOTEL sites in Oregon had any snow left.

Water forecasters and researchers have been repeating the same refrain for months: While the state’s precipitation totals were near normal over the winter, it fell as rain rather than snow and won’t be available to melt and feed streams as the weather warms.

In Western Oregon, the snowpack was 60 to 90 percent below normal. On the east side of the Cascades, the snowpack ranged from 30 to 80 percent of normal, according to NRCS.

In May, NRCS reported the snowpack wasn’t just meager, it was already gone. In many streams, the peak flow from melting snow occurred in February.

“Snowmelt in February is months too early to synchronize crop planting and irrigating,” NRCS Portland snow survey supervisor Scott Oviatt said in a news release.

The melt and runoff also came too early for Oregon reservoir operators to capture and store. Reservoirs were designed for flood control and late season irrigation, and operate under rules that govern spring water releases.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has already declared a drought state of emergency for Klamath, Lake, Malheur, Harney, Crook, Baker, Wheeler, Josephine, Jackson, Lane, Deschutes, Wasco, Grant, Morrow and Umatilla counties. The southeast corner of the state is considered an “extreme” drought area by the USDA.

Oregon’s situation isn’t as severe as California’s, where a continued drought has caused farmers to leave fields fallow and touched off a well-drilling spree that was featured in a June 7 article in the New York Times.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee declared a statewide drought emergency in mid-May. In Idaho, the U.S. Drought Monitor lists various regions of the state as in extreme or severe drought, and the remainder in moderate drought or as “abnormally dry.”

NRCS allocated up to $2.5 million for Oregon farmers, ranchers and woodland owners in drought-declared counties to help mitigate the effects on their operations. Funding is available through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program. Producers should file funding applications by June 26; details are available at USDA county service centers. http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/or/contact/local/

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — Technicians in southwest Oregon’s Jackson County are going after larvae instead of adult mosquitoes in their control efforts this year.

Jackson County Vector Control manager and biologist Jim Lunders said verifying what types of mosquitoes are present and then targeting those insects at their source will help eliminate populations, the Mail Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/1dXJxbh ).

“You can’t just go spray for adult mosquitoes anymore,” Lunders said. “We need to be going out and finding these larval sources and controlling the mosquitoes there first.”

New federal environmental guidelines prompted the changed policy.

“We were transitioning this way anyway,” he said. “It’s just a better way to do what we do.”

Lunders said the agency got about 3,000 calls for service last year that mostly dealt with returning adult populations.

“Once we know all the larval sources have been controlled in that area ... then we’ll do adult mosquito application,” Lunders says. “We’re trying to fix the problem rather than just put a Band-Aid.”

Vector Control officials are encouraging the public to eliminate standing water sources that can yield new mosquitoes in seven days.

———

Information from: Mail Tribune, http://www.mailtribune.com/

SALEM — A bill to extend limited canola production in Oregon’s Willamette Valley will move to a vote on the Senate floor over the objections of a specialty seed growers’ group.

House Bill 3382, which allows canola to be grown on 500 acres in the region through 2019, had already passed the House and was approved on June 3 by the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources with a “do pass” recommendation.

Lawmakers contemplated banning canola in the Willamette Valley in 2013 due to fears of cross-pollination with related seed crops but instead opted for a six-year moratorium.

During the first three years, Oregon State University was directed to study volunteer plants, cross-pollination and disease issues associated with canola on 500 acres annually.

Growers who want to continue raising canola are now pressing lawmakers to extend that 500 acres of production through the final three years of the moratorium by passing HB 3382.

The Willamette Valley Specialty Seed Association and the Friends of Family Farmers group oppose the bill, fearing a larger “seed bank” of canola, among other issues.

Sen. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, said that opponents have also expressed concerns with the integrity of OSU’s study, such as the amount of scientific peer review it will receive.

To assuage their concerns, an amendment to HB 3382 specifies that canola can only be grown in the region for another three years if it’s cultivated under the same restrictions as during the OSU study, he said.

Under the amendment, OSU’s study must also be reviewed by experts on vegetable seed production and include data on canola and brassica seed production in several other regions in the U.S. and around the world.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture must also make recommendations based on OSU’s study about what protections are necessary to ensure coexistence between the canola and specialty seed industries.

Opponents of HB 3382 said the revisions weren’t enough to overcome their objections, stating they’re afraid the ODA will interpret the bill as authorizing the agency to allow unrestricted canola production after 2019.

Edwards said the legislature will inevitably have to make further decisions about canola after 2019.

Although the amendment did not result in a “Kumbaya moment” of agreement, it nonetheless has enough support among lawmakers, he said.

The committee unanimously referred the bill to a vote on the Senate floor, though Sen. Floyd Prozanzki, D-Eugene, said he will continue to analyze the bill and may ultimately change his mind.

SALEM — Legislation that permits water right transfers by Klamath basin farmers has been approved by Oregon lawmakers. Supporters say it will provide flexibility during chronic water shortages.

Senate Bill 206, which allows such leases and transfers before water rights in the regional are adjudicated in court, was approved by the House on June 4 after earlier passing the Senate and now awaits Gov. Kate Brown’s signature.

While water rights in the Klamath Basin have been quantified by state regulators, the legal adjudication process is still pending, which has prevented growers from making transfers.

Aside from shifting limited water among growers, transfers let farmers dedicate water to in-stream uses for environmental benefits without risking a forfeiture of their water rights, said Greg Addington, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association.

“It’s another tool we’re able to use, not just in drought years,” he said.

Lawmakers also recently passed companion legislation, Senate Bill 264, which authorizes Oregon water regulators to oversee a water agreement among tribes and irrigators in the Upper Klamath Basin.

Both pieces of legislation have drawn fire from opponents of a controversial proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams along the Klamath River, which is meant to improve its hydrologic function.

Opponents fear that dam removal will release built up toxic sediment. They also say it will deprive local governments of tax revenue.

Tom Mallams, a Klamath County commissioner, urged lawmakers to reject SB 206 because it will result in more water diversions for non-agricultural uses.

He also asked them to abandon SB 264, arguing that it’s a necessary part of broader water deals in the region that require dam removal.

During the House vote on June 4, Rep. Gail Whitsett, R-Klamath Falls, said she her support of the bills was not intended as an endorsement of those larger agreements. Both bill passed the House unanimously.

BANKS, Ore. — Eighteen college forestry students from Norway visited a Banks, Ore., Christmas tree farm June 3 as part of a two-week stint here to study Northwest farm and forestry practices.

The students, mostly seniors, peppered farm owner Mark Schmidlin with questions: How many trees does he plant per acre, they wanted to know. What percentage of the trees make top grade? How much fertilizer does he add and when? How does he harvest the trees? How long does it take to produce a Christmas tree? How does he process and transport them?

From the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, the students were primarily interested in forestry operations, but also wanted to see a Christmas tree farm. So tour organizer, Olav Hoibo, who is spending a year’s sabbatical at the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, called Schmidlin and arranged the stop.

Two of the students, including Lars Raaen, said their families are involved in Christmas tree production. And, according to Raaen, many Norwegian families decorate their homes each holiday season with a Christmas tree.

“Christmas trees are as big in Norway as they are here,” Raaen said.

Among forestry stops, the students visited forest products operations in British Columbia, Washington and Oregon.

Birger Eikenes, a forest technology professor at the Norway’s University of Life Sciences and one of three professors to make the trip, said the students already knew a lot about U.S. forest products practices. “But it is another thing to go and see with your own eyes,” he said.

“They wanted to go out and see how forestry is done in other places,” Eikenes said.

“We wanted to see how things are done on the other side of the water,” said Terje Olav Ryd, “and see if it is as big as we expected. We always hear that everything is bigger in America.

“It is,” he said.

The students were next headed to Northern California to view Sequoia trees and Coastal redwoods, Eikenes said.

“There is nothing that size in Norway,” Eikenes said, noting that trees in Norway are more similar in size to East Coast trees.

Of course, there are a lot of similarities between the two countries, the students said, including environmental regulations.

“We have a lot of environmental rules that will shut down areas for a while,” said Ingebord Anker-Rasch.

Also, she said, like here, the industry has mechanized its harvest in recent years, and is recovering from a lengthy economic downturn.

“The last few years, the pulp industry was suffering from low prices,” Anker-Rasch said. “But now there is a big focus on using wood products in construction.”