Scott White, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association in Klamath Falls, Ore., announced Monday he will resign from the job following a 2018 irrigation season plagued by drought and uncertainty.

White, 40, joined the KWUA in February 2016. The association represents 1,200 family farms and ranches within the Klamath Project, a federal water management project that encompasses over 170,000 acres in Southern Oregon and Northern California.

“I’ve been blessed to work for these guys the last three years,” White told the Capital Press. “It becomes who you are. It’s an identity that I’m extremely proud of, and it’s not easy to walk away from.”

White’s last day is Friday, Nov. 30. KWUA President Brad Kirby said the board will act promptly to fill the position. Until then, KWUA attorney Paul Simmons will fill in as interim executive director.

Kirby, who also serves as manager of the Tulelake Irrigation District in Tulelake, Calif., said White was “the right person at the right time” to lead the association through a challenging period that included very dry conditions, multiple lawsuits and a court injunction.

“We’re united and stronger than we were when Scott arrived,” Kirby said.

Ultimately, White said the stress took a toll on him and his family.

This year was especially nerve-wracking, as growers had to wait until June before the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation issued its annual water allotment for the Klamath Project while balancing demands for fish.

On April 30, a federal judge in San Francisco upheld a 2017 injunction that requires the bureau to send more water from Upper Klamath Lake downstream to flush away a deadly salmon-killing parasite, known as C. shasta, in the lower Klamath River.

At the same time, the Klamath Tribes also sued the Bureau of Reclamation, National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking to hold more water in Upper Klamath Lake to protect endangered shortnose and Lost River suckers. The same judge, William Orrick, denied their request for an injunction and transferred the case to U.S. District Court in Oregon.

Meanwhile, drought only compounded fears of water shortages heading into summer, set up by below-average mountain snowpack. White said he felt like there was a crisis on his hands almost every single day.

“There is just this ache of anxiety in your chest around the clock,” he said. “It hit me hard.”

But it wasn’t all bad news in 2018. As difficult as it was, White said they did make it through the season and came out the other side with up to $10 million in emergency relief for future drought years — a provision written into the America’s Water and Infrastructure Act of 2018, which was signed by President Donald Trump on Oct. 23.

White said the new KWUA executive director will be responsible for ensuring those dollars are appropriated, possibly as early as next year given forecasts for a warmer and drier winter across the Pacific Northwest due to El Nino.

As for himself, White said he plans to take December off, taking time to decompress and recharge his batteries.

“These guys mean a lot to me, and I am sincerely hopeful there is a secure and prosperous future for all of them,” White said.

Oregon’s farm regulators have submitted several possible scenarios for overseeing canola production in the Willamette Valley to legislative leaders.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture was required to submit its report to the Legislature in mid-November under laws that allow for 500 acres of canola production a year until 2019, when the agency’s expected to adopt a new system for regulating the controversial crop.

Canola has been the subject of policy disputes since at least 2013, when ODA attempted to relax restrictions on its cultivation. Specialty seed producers worry it will cross-pollinate with related Brassica seed crops and potentially increase disease pressure in the region.

Farmers who want to grow canola hope to rotate it with grass seed and wheat while harvesting a commodity that can easily be sold without contract obligations.

In its report recently submitted to lawmakers, ODA doesn’t specifically provide its preferred regulatory scenario but instead provides options the agency could pursue under its existing legal authority as well as those that would require additional legislation to expand that authority.

• Exclusion zone — Under this option, ODA could use its existing “control district” authority to form an advisory board that would help design a potential “exclusion zone” where canola would come under stricter regulation.

The agency recently floated the idea of creating a 889,000-acre exclusion zone for canola, down from 1.96 million acres under an earlier proposal. The area of cropland within the newly proposed exclusion zone would be 624,000 acres, compared to 980,000 acres under the previous plan.

The ODA acknowledges that under this option, there would remain “questions about isolations distances required to maintain seed purity and how to resolve conflicts between growers near the borders” and notes stakeholders haven’t come to consensus on such issues.

• No exclusion zone — Without creating a formal exclusion zone, ODA could use its existing authority to impose new requirements on all growers of Brassica crops, such as treating seeds and otherwise controlling diseases and insects, following minimum rotation periods between Brassica plantings and killing any Brassica volunteers before they flower to reduce cross-pollination risks.

While this option would follow the findings of an Oregon State University report which said canola poses no greater hazards that other Brassica crops, it “may not specifically protect the unique attributes of the specialty seed industry, because of the lack of an exclusion zone,” the report said.

• Extend existing system — The Legislature could extend the existing system, under which ODA is in charge of “pinning” 500 acres of canola a year to reduce cross-pollination risks, with the possibility that a larger acreage level could be phased in over time. As the agency notes, however, “nothing in the OSU report indicates that there is a scientific reason for limiting the number of canola acres in the Willamette Valley Protected District.”

• Statewide pinning — New legislation could require a statewide pinning system for Brassicas maintained by ODA or OSU, which would be “equitable for both specialty seed and canola growers” but would require additional resources to enforce, the report said. Also, the administrative rules for state government agencies would “not allow for quick resolution of conflicts between growers.”

The report said that ODA plans to begin a rulemaking process by the end of the year to provide farmers with certainty before the summer of 2019, when canola fields would be harvested for the final time under existing rules. A copy of the canola recommendation report can be found online at oda.direct/canola.

Thanksgiving traditionally means food, family and football on TV, but for Willamette Valley wineries it also ushers in one of the biggest and most important sales weekends of the year.

Wine Country Thanksgiving is Nov. 23-25, with more than 140 wineries from Portland to Eugene opening their doors for special events, tastings and offering new releases. Some wineries, such as Ken Wright Cellars in Carlton, Ore., also host private gatherings for wine club members and invited guests the previous weekend, adding to the festivities.

Ken Wright, who founded the winery in 1994, said he figures to do 20 percent of his annual retail business around Thanksgiving.

“It’s by far the most profitable weekend we have, by a mile,” Wright said.

Wright was expecting more than 1,100 guests for a private barrel tasting Nov. 17, where wine lovers could get an early taste of 2018 Pinot noir from several nearby vineyards in the northern Willamette Valley. Harvest only just finished in October, and the wine has spent barely a month aging and fermenting in oak barrels.

Judy Erdman and Richard Stinson, self-described “wine groupies” from Portland, walked between the rows of barrels in the dimly lit winery, savoring sips of the budding Burgundy. Erdman said they never miss a chance to enjoy Thanksgiving in Oregon’s wine country.

“It’s after harvest. You get to talk to the winemakers and figure out how things went,” she said. “You’re looking to the future.”

Compared to other renowned wine regions around the world, Oregon’s wine industry is still relatively young, with the first present-day wineries established in the late 1950s.

Since then, the number of wineries in Oregon has grown to 769, along with 1,114 vineyards and $5.61 billion in annual statewide economic impact. Between 2013 and 2016, winery sales increased 46 percent to $529 million, overall retail sales increased 18 percent to $1.04 billion and wine-related tourism skyrocketed 167 percent to $787 million, according to a report released earlier this year by Full Glass Research, an independent marketing company based in Berkeley, Calif.

Tourism and direct-to-consumer marketing are at the heart of Wine Country Thanksgiving, now in its 36th year organized by the Willamette Valley Winegrowers Association. Morgen McLaughlin, the association’s executive director, said it is difficult to track the precise dollar value of the promotion, since not all wineries share their sales figures.

“It certainly is a very important tourism weekend,” McLaughlin said. “We have wineries that will see 20 to 50 people a day. Other wineries will see more than a thousand a day. It is a very important weekend for visitation.”

One winery that does share sales data, as a publicly traded company, is Willamette Valley Vineyards in Turner, Ore. Its most recent annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission shows fourth-quarter revenue in 2017 at $5.9 million, more than any other quarter during the year. The first quarter brought in $4.45 million, then $5.3 million in the second quarter and $5.1 million in the third quarter.

“Typically, first quarter sales are the lowest of any given year, and sales volumes increase progressively through the fourth quarter mostly because of consumer buying habits,” the report states.

Jim Bernau, founder and CEO of Willamette Valley Vineyards, said those habits are driven by the holiday season.

“It’s the time of year when people really want to celebrate,” Bernau said. “They often will have family that travel from outside of Oregon, and people love bringing them out to the wineries to show (them) what’s happening in Oregon, and the quality of our wines.”

Wine Country Thanksgiving can trace its early roots back to David Lett, a pioneer of Willamette Valley Pinot noir, who founded the Eyrie Vineyards in McMinnville, Ore. with his wife, Diana, in 1965.

By the early 1970s, no wineries had opened tasting rooms, but Diana Lett remembers envisioning what would become their first Thanksgiving get-together. It was just before harvest in 1974 when she and David were having dinner with local Gary Lawrence, and they thought it would be fun to put on an event featuring Eyrie wines and art.

“We decided that an ideal time would be the weekend right after Thanksgiving, since we would be done with harvest and people would be looking for something to do with their relatives,” Diana Lett said.

The winery, located in a former food processing plant, transformed into a beautifully decorated tasting room and art gallery, she remembers, with music from their friends Timothy Swain and his Early Music Calliope group. Their other friends, Hank and Helen Hazen, brought in their crepe cart, and guests were lined up all the way around the block.

Diana Lett said they had no idea their little celebration would become the industry’s signature annual event.

“We weren’t trying to think that far ahead,” she said. “We hoped there would be a small industry that would grow here.”

McLaughlin, with the Willamette Valley Wineries Association, said things have changed between then and now as more wineries have tasting rooms open year-round with regular hours, along with wine clubs and online shopping. Thanksgiving and Memorial Day weekends are no longer the only times when wineries have guests, though the holidays remain important fixtures on the their calendar.

“I think what’s fun is all of the wineries offer very different experiences,” McLaughlin said. “It’s a good time, too, to look for wineries that you may not have ever visited, or a chance to explore new places.”

Bernau, with Willamette Valley Vineyards, said their goal is to tell the story of Oregon through wine, from Pinot noir from the lush Willamette Valley to Rhone varieties, such as Syrah, in the more arid climates of the Walla Walla Valley.

“Oregonians have so much pride in their state, and what this does is it allows them to really see what our state can do,” Bernau said. “We love telling the Oregon story through wine, while serving as good stewards of the land.”

Not surprisingly, Bernau said the 2018 vintage is shaping up to be another high-quality year. The summer was certainly dry, but not too hot for the grapes, while deep volcanic soils were able to hold enough moisture for the vines to stay productive.

For the first time he can recall, Bernau said there was no rain during harvest, which made for ideal working conditions in the vineyards.

“I would say this was probably the most idyllic harvest I can remember,” Bernau said. “It was just extraordinary. I just hope the wine turns out as beautiful as the summer was.”

Steve Robertson, owner of SJR Vineyard and Delmas Winery in Milton-Freewater, Ore., said conditions were similarly good on the east side of the state. The region experienced a wet spring, which put enough moisture in the ground leading up to a hot summer.

Perhaps most critically, Robertson, who also serves as president of The Rocks District of Milton-Freewater American Viticultural Area, said things cooled down “beautifully” in August, which allowed the grapes to preserve acids and maintain flavor profile.

“Things need to cool down at the right time,” Robertson said. “Otherwise, you don’t have a very interesting flavor component.”

Neither region should be concerned about smoke taint from wildfires burning across the West, Bernau and Robertson both said. Southern Oregon, on the other hand, is having to defend the quality of its crop after Copper Cane, a winery in California’s Napa Valley, canceled 2,000 tons of grapes just before harvest, citing smoke damage.

The cancellations came just before harvest, leaving vineyards without enough time to recover. Shipments were valued at $4 million, putting those growers in a major financial bind.

“Hopefully, these people will be able to survive for another year,” said John Pratt, owner of Celestina Vineyard in Medford, Ore., and president of the Rogue Valley Winegrowers Association.

To support the affected vintners and defend the region’s quality, a group of Willamette Valley wineries — including Willamette Valley Vineyards and the Eyrie Vineyards — purchased over 140 tons of the grapes to make Pinot noir, Chardonnay and rosé under the name “Oregon Solidarity.”

“We wouldn’t have brought that fruit in if we thought it was (tainted),” Bernau said. “We might have the best vintage in Rogue Valley history, and it might be unbelievably rare.”

MEDFORD, Ore. (AP) — A major California wine producer must stop using labels that imply a connection to Oregon pinot noirs.

The Mail Tribune reports that the Federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has ruled that Napa Valley vintner Joe Wagner must surrender nine labels — including Elouan and The Willametter — because of the deceptive labeling.

But wine produced by Elouan Winery that is already in stores and warehouses will not be recalled.

The labeling caught the attention of the Oregon wine industry and state Legislature last summer.

Wagner has previously called the controversy a “charade.”

He says he uses Oregon grapes but produces the wine in California.

Oregon wine producers say the state’s $5.6 billion wine industry needs to be protected from false claims.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Oregon Cannabis Commission is recommending the state set up an independent agency to regulate legal marijuana rather than having three different agencies share the job, a newspaper reported Tuesday.

Marijuana is currently regulated by the Oregon Health Authority, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission and the Oregon Department of Agriculture, but their responsibilities also include public health, alcohol and crop services.

The Statesman Journal obtained a draft report through a public records request that says having three agencies manage marijuana creates confusion and each agency has a different mindset about how to address cannabis.

Law enforcement officials and growers also find the multi-agency approach “confusing and difficult to navigate,” the report said.

The lines regarding who’s responsible for what have changed over time.

Certain medical growers were required as of July 1 to use the OLCC’s Cannabis Tracking System, which recreational licensees also use. To help track medical marijuana, the OLCC in August revealed it planned to seek $7 million per biennium in recreational pot tax money from the 2019 Legislature.

Mark Pettinger, a spokesman for the OLCC, told the newspaper he had heard mention of the new agency recommendation, but said it was “not our issue to comment on.”

The cannabis commission was formed by the 2017 Legislature.

Jonathan Modie, spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority, stressed the recommendation is still a draft. The cannabis commission meets Nov. 27 via conference call to discuss recommendations included in the draft report.

If the commission approve the recommendation, Modie said, the report will presented to a legislative committee when the session begins.

Jim Moore, a political science professor at Pacific University, said proposals like this usually come about after an audit reveals problems, but this one appears to be spontaneous.

“I think it will have good political support,” he said.

Canyon and Payette counties in southwest Idaho have been designated primary natural disaster areas due to drought.

The designation allows the USDA Farm Service Agency to extend emergency credit to producers suffering from natural disasters.

In the two counties, producers who suffered losses due to the recent drought may be eligible for FSA emergency loans, the agency said in a news release. Producers in contiguous counties Ada, Gem, Owyhee and Washington, and Malheur County in Oregon, also are eligible to apply.

The application deadline is July 8. Information is available at local FSA service centers or online. The agency reviews loan applications based on the extent of losses, security available and repayment ability.

Emergency loans can be used to meet recovery needs ranging from replacing essential equipment, livestock and other items to reorganizing a farming operation and refinancing debts.

Also in southwest Idaho, USDA in late October designated Washington County as a primary natural disaster area due to drought. The declarations are based on a U.S. Drought Monitor result of D2 (severe) for eight straight weeks.

Online

https://www.farmers.gov/recover

Oregon State University will be seeking an additional $30 million for agricultural research, Extension and its forest laboratory next year, representing a 25 percent boost over the current biennium.

About $14.4 million would be used to restore 15 positions lost due to recession-era budget cuts, while $15.6 million would be dedicated to new positions.

“We still have not ever really rebuilt,” said Bill Boggess, executive associate dean of OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences.

It’s likely OSU’s Extension Service would receive 53.3 percent of the money, its Agricultural Experiment Stations would receive 38.5 percent and its Forest Research Laboratory would receive 8.2 percent, which is the current split among the institutions.

The university’s statewide public service programs got a $14 million budget increase during the 2015-17 biennium, but its $124.4 million budget in the current biennium fell 3 percent short of keeping pace with the rising cost of wages and benefits.

University leaders are optimistic about the state’s positive revenue forecast and note that Oregon’s seven public universities — which are funded separately from research, Extension and the forest lab — have also asked for a 25 percent budget boost.

“We’re symmetric with that increase,” Boggess said.

Exactly which positions would be funded with the $30 million has yet to be decided, with OSU seeking input from commodity crop commissions and others who benefit from the statewide programs.

“We’re in active discussions now with stakeholders,” said Scott Reed, director of OSU’s Extension Service.

Agricultural groups and other supporters will likely help OSU leaders lobby lawmakers to approve the sizable funding increase, which is expected to be vetted by the education or natural resources subcommittees of the Joint Committee on Ways and Means during the 2019 legislative session.

“The statewides enjoy a very high level of confidence statewide,” Reed said.

With many newly-elected lawmakers beginning their terms next year, it’s imperative to inform them about the critical role that OSU’s services perform in supporting natural resource industries, said Boggess.

“Educating new legislators is a non-stop challenge,” he said. “We’ve had good support from both sides of the aisle. The bigger challenge is there are a lot of new faces, period.”

While it’s to early to specify exact positions, OSU plans to invest the $30 million in three basic categories:

• Natural resources science and stewardship, which would focus on building resilience to fires, water quality and otherwise protecting exosystems and working landscapes.

• Sustainable agricultural, food and natural resource production, which would focus on improving productivity, developing new products and gaining better access to markets.

• Community health and resilience, which would focus on workforce development, mental health issues, and alleviating social problems such as poverty and low graduation rates.

These services are more broadly intended to create connections and bridge some of the divisions in the state between urban and rural populations, Reed said.

“We’re advancing toward one Oregon, and it’s all about the interdependence,” he said.

PORTLAND — Limagrain Cereal Seeds, an international agricultural cooperative and fourth-largest seed company in the world, will launch a new line of wheat varieties developed in partnership with the University of Idaho in 2019.

Named “Varsity Idaho,” the line will debut with two as yet unnamed soft white wheat selections, company executives revealed Nov. 16 at the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention in Portland.

“These will be essentially the launch of a new brand in the Pacific Northwest,” said Zach Gaines, national sales and marketing manager for Limagrain. “This is going to be one of the big things we’re talking about this summer.”

Started in France, Limagrain has only been in the U.S. for eight years, yet commands 35 percent of market share for wheat varieties planted in Oregon and Washington. Part of that growth, Gaines said, has come from establishing collaborative breeding programs with the University of Idaho and Oregon State University.

“If you really want to have the very best genetics as quickly as you possibly can, you collaborate,” he said. “Everybody has their strengths. Nobody is ever going to be the best at everything.”

The breeding program with OSU, branded “Norwest,” has already yielded popular varieties including Duet and Tandem. Duet, in particular, has scored the highest yields in northern Idaho for three years running, according to the company.

Other new Limagrain varieties released in 2018 also include:

• LCS Ghost: This soft white winter wheat was adapted for fields south of Dayton, Wash. It has outstanding yield potential in irrigated and high-rainfall zones, Gaines said.

• LCS Shine: Similar to Bobtail, another soft white winter variety, with good test weight. “They both are very different, and that is part of the reason why we released them,” Gaines said. Shine is also resistant to current stripe diseases.

• LCS Zoom: This is a hard red wheat variety with better yield potential in dryland environments. Gaines said it is a good option for deep furrowing, with improved stripe rust resistance over earlier varieties Keldin and LCS Jet.

“These are strategic releases,” Gaines said. “In the beginning, we needed to fill our portfolio. We’re at the point now where we can start focusing on filling in our gaps.”

Mike Flowers, product development and trait manager for Limagrain, also provided an update on the CoAXium wheat production system, developed with the Colorado Wheat Research Foundation and Albaugh LLC.

CoAXium is built upon patented herbicide-resistant traits to help farmers better manage grassy weeds like cheatgrass and feral rye. The team launched its first variety, LCS Fusion AX, in 2017. Flowers said there will be very limited seed production next year, before it becomes more widely available on the market.

In addition, Flowers said they are now in seed production for three additional hard red CoAXium varieties, of which he expects at least two will be released.

“We’ve really pushed this, not just in the Pacific Northwest but across the country, as fast as we can,” Flowers said.

PORTLAND — With three times the fiber of oatmeal and a wide assortment of health benefits, barley has the potential to permanently change American food, says Bryce McKay with Highland Specialty Grains based in Moses Lake, Wash.

But first, McKay said the industry needs to shift public awareness of barley as a key ingredient in beer, to a key ingredient in meals.

McKay outlined efforts to boost the profile of food barley during a presentation Nov. 16 at the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention, a gathering of farmers from across Oregon, Washington and Idaho. This year’s event was in Portland.

U.S. barley production grew year over year to 153 million bushels in 2018, up 8 percent from 142 million bushels in 2017. Idaho was easily the largest producer by state, with 53.5 million bushels or about 35 percent of the entire crop, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Washington harvested 4.8 million bushels, while Oregon totaled 1.3 million bushels.

In November 2013, Highland Specialty Grains took over the barley breeding program formerly run by WestBred, a subsidiary of Monsanto. McKay, the company’s commercial manager, told growers at the convention he expects a 10-plus percent increase in barley acres next year.

Overall, McKay — who also serves as director of marketing for McKay Seed Co. in Almira, Wash. — said barley exports are growing tremendously, especially to Japan, where the market has quadrupled over the last year.

However, a recent setback rattled some nerves after Japanese officials partially banned imports from Australia earlier this year, detecting high levels of the pesticide azoxystrobin in shipments, he said.

“That was something we had never faced before,” McKay said. “As the market has grown, there have been more and more regulatory implications, which makes sense. ... Obviously, this is for human consumption. That means safety is the most important factor.”

As for developing the domestic market, McKay is bullish. He said barley cereals, grain blends, pilafs and frozen foods may all prove popular with American consumers, especially given USDA claims it can help fight diabetes and lower the risk of heart disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports about 610,000 people die of heart disease in the U.S. every year, making it the leading cause of death for both men and women.

“Changing your diet and incorporating something like this starts to make a lot of sense,” McKay said. “That’s where I think we start to see a lot of interest rising.”

The challenge, McKay said, is overcoming perceptions. He said industry leaders are working with nonprofit organizations to tout barley’s health benefits, and get the grain onto school lunch menus.

“One of the main aspects of this is getting people to think about barley as a delicious addition into their diet,” McKay said.

So-called “naked” varieties of barley, bred to strip away the indigestible hull normally on the grain, may provide an additional degree of efficiency, McKay said. In January, Oregon State University announced it is leading a three-year, five-state project to test new varieties of naked barley, with $2 million in funding from the USDA Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative.

Seven Oregon water infrastructure projects have won $5.3 million in grant funding from the Oregon Water Resources Commission, which postponed deciding on an eighth project until next year.

Most of the projects focus on improving water conveyance systems, such as replacing open canals with pipes, as well as improving the function of water storage and diversion structures.

One of the grant proposals that state water regulators recommended for approval — $1 million for replacing a municipal pipeline used the City of The Dalles — will be reconsidered by the commission in 2019 due to objections from tribes and an environmental group.

The commission also turned down 11 grant proposals for nearly $10 million at the recommendation of the Oregon Water Resources Department.

The decisions were made during the commission’s final quarterly meeting of 2018, held on Nov. 15-16 in Salem, Ore.

A portion of one of the rejected proposals — drilling two deep water supply wells in Mosier, Ore. — did win funding under a previous grant cycle, but the remaining phase did not rank high enough under a scoring system intended to measure social, environmental and economic value.

Money from the previous water supply development grant proved insufficient to drill both Mosier wells, so a farmer and local soil and water conservation district asked for $670,000 in funding to complete the second well.

Members of the commission discussed the project’s value to learning more about Columbia basin basalt aquifers, but ultimately decided to allow supporters to re-apply with more information during a future grant cycle.

“There will always be grants on the bubble,” said commissioner Joe Moll, executive director of the McKenzie River Trust in Eugene, Ore. “We can’t change that, it’s always going to be that way.”

Tom Byler, OWRD’s director, noted that Oregon’s water supply development grant program is relatively new, and more established grant programs also wrestle with tough decisions.

“We have a lot to learn,” Byler said. “Grant-making is a messy process.”

Following are descriptions of the projects that did win funding this year:

• Conversion of 300 acres in Wallowa County from flood irrigation to a center pivot irrigation system, with the conserved water dedicated to in-stream flows that will benefit federally protected fish. The grant will pay for about $600,000 of the projects total cost of $800,000.

• Replacing 6 miles of open canals and aging pipe used by the Dee Irrigation District in Hood River County with a new pipeline, with the conserved water dedicates to in-stream flows. The grant will pay for $1.6 million of the total project cost of $2.7 million.

• Installing 6 miles of pipe to replace an open canal used by the Tumalo Irrigation District in Deschutes County, with conserved water to be dedicated to in-stream flows. The grant will pay for $1.3 million of the total $6.7 million project cost.

• Raising the capacity of the Painted Hills reservoir in Wheeler County from 800 acre-feet to 1,300 acre-feet, along with upgraded irrigation equipment that will conserve water, contributing to in-stream flows. The grant will pay for $580,000 of the project’s total $1 million price tag.

• Storing and treating stormwater from Beaverton, Ore., with the water then recharging an aquifer through an existing well. The grant will pay for $860,000 of the project’s total $1.15 million cost.

• Replacing equipment and moving the point of diversion for irrigation water from Galls Creek in Jackson County, restoring fish habitat due to dam removal and conserving water through improved efficiency. The grant will pay for roughly $150,000 of the $200,000 cost.

• Excavating the Pinchot reservoir in Grant County to return it to full storage capacity. As part of the project, converting the irrigation system from wheel lines to a center pivot is expected to conserve water, and a new delivery headgate will include a fish screen. The $200,000 grant will pay for roughly half the project’s cost.

The City of The Dalles project that was tabled by the commission would replace 3.5 miles of wooden pipeline with a new iron pipe for $8 million, of which the grant would pay for $1 million.

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and Waterwatch of Oregon had several problems with the proposal, but a central point of contention was the pipeline’s increased capacity, which could potentially allow it to draw more water from the Dog River.

The 2018 grant approvals mark the third cycle of disbursements from Oregon’s water supply development fund, which lawmakers created in 2013 but did not become operational until three years later.

About $8.5 million will remain left in the fund after the most recent grant approvals, though it’s likely lawmakers will be asked to allocate more money to it during the 2019 legislative session.

PENDLETON, Ore. — Cattle grazing on public land in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area was challenged in U.S. district court last week when an environmental group argued that it threatens a wildflower.

The U.S. Forest Service and Greater Hells Canyon Council of La Grande argued in front of Judge Patricia Sullivan regarding the perceived harm, or lack thereof, caused by cattle to the threatened wildflower Spalding’s catchfly, a forb found only in the inland Northwest.

The council filed suit in January claiming the Forest Service violated federal laws when it developed the Lower Imnaha Range Analysis. Jennifer Schwartz, representing the council, claimed cattle grazing is the number one threat to catchfly recovery.

“Most of the damage is ongoing, especially on slopes, the plant’s niche habitat,” Schwartz said.

For almost 100 years the McClaran family has winter-grazed cattle in Hells Canyon. Rancher Scott McClaran said catchfly doesn’t have a niche habitat and is found throughout much of Wallowa County.

“We have the longest running permit in the national recreation area and it has the highest density of Spalding’s catchfly, but we aren’t even talking about 600,000 acres that hasn’t been inventoried or the 400,000 ungrazed acres,” McClaran said,

Department of Justice attorney Sean Martin, representing the Forest Service, told Sullivan the 2015 range analysis was designed to improve habitat for catchfly, a species first documented in 2004 that has survived more than 200 years of cattle and horse grazing in the canyon, first by the Nez Perce and later by white settlers.

Martin said a survey conducted this summer inventoried 800 more plants than documented at the time of the 2015 decision.

“A Forest Service botany expert said cattle grazing is not threatening the viability of the species,” Martin said. “After all these years, it is not likely to be extirpated any time soon.”

The council’s complaint alleged the agency did not “take a hard look at the action’s potential environmental consequences” and therefore its decision was arbitrary, capricious, not in compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act and “must be reversed and remanded.”

According to Darilyn Parry, the council’s executive director, her staff waited to see how the decision would be implemented before filing suit. The trigger was the result of a Freedom of Information Act request filed in August 2017. The complaint said the response did not include any current allotment management plans or botanical survey monitoring data.

“We monitored how the decision was implemented. For example, we wanted to see if the Forest Service would follow any Fish and Wildlife Service’s conservation recommendations for the project, or conduct addition monitoring of catchfly population, in order to get a sense of how the populations are doing over time.”

The McClarans and Wallowa County intervened in the case and were represented by Caroline Lobdell of the Western Resources Legal Center at Lewis and Clark Law School. She argued the plaintiff’s case was political and the Forest Service’s decision was neither capricious nor arbitrary.

“The plaintiffs say they are not asking for an injunction, but are blaming grazing for everything,” Lobdell said. “If they don’t like this decision then we are back to the prior management rule with less benefit.”

Sullivan said as she formed her opinion in the case she would be balancing interests.

“Getting rid of grazing in this particular area of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, I don’t see that happening. Now we have to figure out what to do. I have to applaud the McClarans — they are very careful, conscientious ranchers who want continued survival,” Sullivan said.

The judge concluded by recommending the Forest Service and the council get together while she is working on her opinion and settle the case.

“Nothing is written in stone,” Sullivan said. “There are a number of alternatives. Is there a better one?”

Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican-controlled House passed a bill Friday to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species.

Long despised by farmers and ranchers, wolves were shot, trapped and poisoned out of existence in most of the U.S. by the mid-20th century. Since securing protection in the 1970s, wolves have bounced back in the western Great Lakes states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as in the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing the wolf’s status and is expected to declare they’ve recovered sufficiently to be removed from protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The House bill would enshrine that policy in law and restrict judicial review of listing decisions. The measure was approved, 196-180, and now goes to the Senate, where prospects are murkier.

The bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., said farmers in Wisconsin and other states are “one step closer to having the legal means to defend their livestock from gray wolves.”

States should be responsible for managing wolf populations, “not Washington bureaucrats,” Duffy said.

Environmental groups and many Democrats slammed the bill as a last-ditch effort by Republicans to push a pro-rancher agenda after losing control of the House in this month’s midterm elections.

“This final, pathetic stab at wolves exemplifies House Republicans’ longstanding cruelty and contempt for our nation’s wildlife,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director for the Center for Biological Diversity, an Arizona-based environmental group.

“The American people overwhelmingly support the Endangered Species Act and the magnificent animals and plants it protects,” Hartl said. “We don’t expect to see these disgraceful anti-wildlife votes next year under Democratic control of the House.”

Livestock industry associations representing ranchers who have to contend with wolves scaring and attacking cattle and sheep, said in a letter to Congress that U.S. wolf populations have recovered in recent decades. The animal would have been removed from the endangered species list if not for “activist litigants” who “used the judicial system to circumvent sound science and restore full ESA protections to these predators,” the groups wrote.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is trying again to place a GPS collar on at least one wolf from the Rogue pack in Southern Oregon following a recent spate of attacks on livestock in Jackson and Klamath counties.

State wildlife officials confirmed the latest kill of an 11-month-old heifer at a ranch northeast of Medford on Nov. 10. It is the fifth depredation attributed to the Rogue pack over the last three weeks.

Gray wolves in Oregon west of highways 395, 78 and 95 are managed by the federal government. John Stephenson, USFWS wildlife biologist and wolf coordinator, said he is working to collar a wolf from the Rogue pack to keep closer tabs on their location and movements.

“They move around a lot at this time of year,” Stephenson said. “You just have to put (traps) in one area and wait them out.”

The Rogue pack was designated in 2014 when Oregon’s famous wandering wolf, OR-7, settled in the area with a mate and had their first litter of pups. Today, the pack is estimated at seven or eight members.

A collar on OR-7 has not worked since 2015. Agencies successfully collared another female wolf from the pack, OR-54, last fall, though it later dispersed into Northern California.

Veril Nelson, wolf committee co-chairman for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, said collaring wolves is a top priority for ranchers.

“We’d like to have a collar on a wolf in every pack in Oregon, so that ranchers can be prepared when they’re in the neighborhood,” Nelson said. “That’s one of the things we’d like to see in the next five-year wolf plan.”

The Rogue pack has certainly been keeping ranchers on their toes.

On Nov. 10, a producer near Butte Falls reported three dead cows in the same 50-acre private pasture. A biologist from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife examined each carcass, determining that one of the heifers was killed by wolves within the past three days.

A second carcass had been mostly eaten, leaving the cause of death as “unknown,” while the third showed no signs of trauma or tooth scrapes usually associated with a predator attack. It was ruled as “other.”

Just three weeks earlier, the Rogue pack was responsible for killing four cows in rapid succession near Fort Klamath in the Wood River Valley at the eastern end of the wolves’ territory. The pack also killed three more calves and a guard dog earlier this year at Mill-Mar Ranch, about 10 miles north of where the most recent attack took place in Jackson County.

Stephenson said it is difficult to know why livestock predations are on the rise, though it could be due in part to the Rogue pack growing in size. OR-7 is also nine years old now, he said, and it is possible that as wolves get older they spend more time around ranches instead of up in the woods where they should be — as was the case with OR-7’s father, OR-4, the alpha male of the Imnaha pack in northeast Oregon.

“There definitely is a relationship with bigger packs tending to be involved with depredations more frequently,” Stephenson said.

Wolves are a federally endangered species in western Oregon, and Stephenson said there are no plans to kill wolves to curb livestock attacks. Instead, he is helping ranchers to put up non-lethal deterrents like fladry fencing and foxlights.

“We’re trying to solve the problem with non-lethal deterrents,” Stephenson said. “They can be very effective.”

Nelson said he feels ranchers are doing everything they can with non-lethal tools to protect livestock from wolves. Having collars in every pack would at least give ranchers a heads-up when they are nearby, he said, though he doubts whether they can get that assurance from ODFW in the next Wolf Conservation and Management Plan.

“At the same time, they don’t want us to go to lethal take on these wolves,” Nelson said. “I don’t know what the heck they expect ranchers to do. I guess just suffer the losses.”

Western Oregon has a new authorized dealer for International Trucks and IC Bus after Peterson Trucks, based in San Leandro, Calif., acquired Brattain International earlier this month.

The deal includes five locations in Portland, Salem, Eugene, Bend and Albany which were re-branded as Peterson dealerships on Nov. 5.

Brattain International was the longtime dealer for International Trucks and IC Bus — a manufacturer of both commercial buses and school buses — throughout the region. Peterson Trucks now assumes the mantle, expanding its territory from Northern California.

Tom Bagwell, executive vice president of Peterson Trucks, said the company is investing heavily in parts inventory at each new location. Terms of the deal with Brattain International were not disclosed.

“We know how important this is,” Bagwell said in a statement. “Anywhere we provide truck or bus service we will have an impressive parts inventory, dedicated to turning equipment around fast.”

Peterson Trucks is also the authorized dealer for Idealease commercial trucks and TrailMax trailers.

The Peterson family of companies is no stranger to the Pacific Northwest. Peterson Cat, the authorized dealer for Caterpillar equipment, has been in Oregon since 2003, and its territory stretches from Longview, Wash., to San Martin, Calif.

Daniel Williams, the company’s marketing manager, said that when Peterson Trucks saw a chance to expand into Oregon and better match the footprint of Peterson Cat, they were eager to make the move.

“From the customer’s perspective, this should be good news,” Williams said. “We have a big territory and a lot of resources that we can bring to help them with their business.”

All former employees of Brattain International were given the chance to apply for jobs at Peterson Trucks, Williams said.

I think the goal was to keep things very seamless, which would include employees,” he said.

In addition to Cat parts and equipment, Williams said the company is an authorized dealer for Agco and Klaus farm equipment, and they are dedicated to continue serving agricultural customers.

KITCHEN MAVEN: THANKSGIVING MEAL DIVERSITY FOR ALL  Tillamook County Pioneer

By Judith Yamada, The Kitchen Maven I recently wrote an article, about Thanksgiving, for the Tillamook County Pioneer. It was basically a myth buster ...

Tillamook County Pioneer
Tillamook County Pioneer
Tillamook County Pioneer
Try this original recipe for spiced scalloped apples and yams with toasted walnuts and Oregon cranberries. It takes about 10 minutes to prep and bakes without any checking and fussing. Generously grease a 9” x 13” oven safe glass or ceramic baking pan ...

Jayne Bock may be just 10 days into her new job as technical director at the Portland-based Wheat Marketing Center, but she is already looking to build upon research to strengthen markets for Northwest growers.

Specifically, Bock has proposed to continue studying characteristics of saltine crackers made with soft white wheat — a signature variety grown across the Pacific Northwest with low protein content that makes it perfect for products such as pastries, cookies and cakes.

Bock laid out her proposal Wednesday to members of the Oregon Wheat Commission, Washington Grain Commission and Idaho Wheat Commission during a meeting at the Tri-State Grain Growers Convention in Portland, requesting $20,000 from the groups to pay for lab testing.

The project started last year as customers in Latin America began switching from soft red winter wheat to soft white wheat for making saltines, but were uncertain about what protein levels they needed.

At the time, researchers identified protein levels between 10.5 and 11.5 percent for replacement of soft red winter wheat, but Bock said their study was limited in the test kitchen. According to her proposal, it did not include products like malted barley flour, which are added commercially to maintain consistency and can have a significant effect on quality.

“That will affect how the dough spreads and how it will fit packaging,” Bock said.

Bock said she would like to re-run the study with added malted barley flour to better replicate what buyers and consumers are seeing. Grower funding would cover costs such as samples and milling.

Though commission members did not take a vote, Glen Squires, CEO of the Washington Grain Commission, said it was a “no-brainer.” Each group committed to discussing the request further at their next meetings.

In addition to Bock, the Wheat Marketing Center recently hired a new research scientist, Lingzhu Deng, and lab technologist, Tina Tran, while the board of directors also voted to grow from 13 to 15 members, welcoming the Oklahoma Wheat Commission to the table.

Managing Director Janice Cooper said it is the first time a new state has joined in 33 years.

“We are open to other states that are interested in joining the effort,” Cooper said.

In other presentations, the Tri-State Grain Commission heard from Mike Spier, a merchandiser with Columbia Grain, who discussed market trends in the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service’s latest export sales report.

According to figures, world production is down 29 million metric tons in 2018, including 14 million metric tons in Europe and 17 million metric tons from Black Sea producers including Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. Production is actually up 4 million metric tons in the U.S., though sales are down 16 percent year-over-year, including 10 percent among soft white wheat.

Retaliatory tariffs in China have some effect, Spier said, though the biggest trade war casualty is U.S. soybeans. By this time last year, there were 54 soybean vessels bound for China carrying nearly 3 million metric tons of product, and none this November.

“Soybeans are the biggest impact,” Spier said.

Kristin Meira, executive director of the Pacific Northwest Waterways Association, addressed some outstanding issues on the Columbia River system, including a newly energized argument for breaching Snake River dams in order to boost salmon populations which act as an important food source for struggling orcas.

But Meira, whose organization represents ports and businesses that depend on river navigation, said the answer is not that easy.

“Everybody’s focus seems to be on the Snake River dams,” she said. “It’s just been a whole lot of mischief.”

SALEM, Ore. — A hobby discovered late in life has provided the Schreiner family with a thriving niche business for the better part of a century.

F.X. Schreiner was a “gentlemen farmer” in Minnesota when in 1925 he began hybridizing irises for fun.

Shortly before his death six years later, he’d offer his three children some practical advice: “This would be a good business.”

Bob, Connie and Gus took the guidance to heart, and nearly nine decades later, their father’s words continue to ring true.

Schreiner’s Iris Gardens, now operated by the third and fourth generations of the family, produces roughly 1,200 selections of iris on about 100 acres north of Salem, Ore., that are sold around the U.S. and the world.

The company also makes about 20,000 crosses a year to hybridize new varieties, resulting in about 15 to 18 marketable new selections a year offered to customers.

“Most of them will be thrown away because they’re not that much different,” said Ray Schreiner, the founder’s grandson. “People are going for bigger flowers, beards, bud counts and any new color break.”

Flowers are hand-pollinated, the seeds are later harvested from cucumber-like pods and planted in November, then germinate the following year and have their flowers evaluated during the spring bloom.

Those handful of plants judged to be superior or unique have their rhizomes replanted to begin commercial production — each rhizome will produce three or four more, so scaling up takes time.

The Schreiners considered using tissue culture propagation, in which tiny plants are split up and regrown over a relatively short period of time in a lab.

While the technique does exponentially increase the numbers of a new selection, they found that those descendants didn’t stay true to type compared conventional vegetative propagation.

“They didn’t stay stable,” Ray said.

Brand new selections tend to fetch the highest prices — $60 to $65 per rhizome — but the volume tends to be low, said Liz Schmidt, Ray’s sister.

“We don’t have a lot, so we don’t sell a lot,” she said.

Most people will not fork over $60 or more per rhizome, but collectors, breeders and farmers often will, said Ray. These new varieties can generally be freely cultivated, as irises haven’t traditionally been subject to plant patents.

That would likely change if anyone eventually manages to produce a red iris, which has so far proven elusive, he said. “It’s almost the colors of the rainbow, except red.”

Some traits, such as irises that bloom more than once a year, take a longer time to breed. Weather fluctuations can affect this particular characteristic, but it’s getting more consistent, Ray said.

“The trouble with re-bloomers is they don’t always rebloom,” he said.

The contributions of Schreiner’s Iris Gardens to iris breeding have been repeatedly recognized with prestigious awards, such as winning the Dykes Memorial Award — considered the industry’s top honor — 11 times since 1958.

Growing irises on a commercial scale is particularly labor-intensive during the summer. The company begins digging up rhizomes to fill orders in July, which often overlaps with planting rhizomes in August for the next year’s crop.

“When the weather is nice, you have to go like crazy,” said Ray.

Labor shortages are nothing new in agriculture and the problem is growing worse, which has the company looking for ways to improve efficiency.

Currently, iris rhizomes are harvested mechanically with an implement attached to the back of a tractor. As the harvested plants fall out the back, four workers scurry to throw them into bins on top of it.

In the heat and the dust, it’s hardly the most desirable task on the farm, and those four workers would be happy to be assigned other duties.

“It’s a horrible job,” said Ray.

“Nobody wants to do it,” Liz added.

To improve the process, the company is modifying a combine harvester that would dig up the iris rhizomes on the front end.

Dirt would be shaken from them while tumbling across rods under the machine, then they’d be directly deposited into bins out the back without human intervention.

“It’s not like any other crop, where you can just buy the machinery,” said Ben Schreiner, Ray’s son and the family’s fourth generation to grow irises.

Schreiner’s Iris Gardens

Founded: 1925

Location: Salem, Ore., after relocating from St. Paul, Minn., in 1946.

Family: Founded in Minnesota by R.X. Schreiner, relocated to Oregon by his children, Bob, Connie and Gus. Now run by Gus’s children, Ray Schreiner, Steve Schreiner and Liz Schmidt, as well as Ray’s son, Ben.

Size: 100 acres

Crops: 1,200 selections of irises, as well as day lilies

Employees: 21 year-round, roughly 100 seasonal

Sales channels: Online, print catalog, wholesale and direct-marketing from 10-acre display garden

PARIS (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump is partly right but far from completely correct when he says that France’s “big tariffs” make it hard for American vintners to sell their wines to the French.

Wrong because customs duties on imported wines are applied not by France but by the European Union. Right because American tariffs are “globally” less than what Europe charges, the French customs authority says.

Prices aside, wine made in the U.S. is apparently appreciated in the European Union — the world’s premier importer — and in France, where the value of wine imported has risen 200 percent between 2008 and 2017, according to the French Federation of Wines and Spirits Exporters.

Trump went after France on several fronts in tweets Tuesday, including blasting tariffs on its emblematic wine.

“On Trade, France makes excellent wine, but so does the U.S.,” Trump tweeted. “The problem is that France makes it very hard for the U.S. to sell its wines into France, and charges big Tariffs, whereas the U.S. makes it easy for French wines, and charges very small Tariffs. Not fair, must change!”

French tariffs as such don’t exist. Tariffs are set by the European Union “in the same conditions” as wines imported from most countries and are applied by all EU countries, the French exporter group said in an email.

“This tariff has not evolved in 20 years,” it said.

The alcohol level helps determine tariffs on non-EU wine imported into European countries, with a higher duty as the alcoholic volume rises, Lionel Briand, communications chief for the French Customs office, said in an email. Alcoholic content is also factored into U.S. tariffs, along with the size of the wine’s container.

“American products are not submitted to a distinct duty but to the same duties as all third countries,” those outside the EU, Briand added.

As an example, a bottle of white American wine with 13 percent alcohol content imported into the European Union carries a customs duty of 10 euro cents (a bit over 11 U.S. cents). A bottle of white wine from the EU exported to the United States has a customs duty of 5 U.S. cents.

The gap in duties is narrower for red wine with an alcohol content of 14.5 percent.

Bulk wines are another story — the U.S. tariff is double the EU one, a break for American producers since bulk wine represents 25 percent of the volume of U.S. wine coming into the EU, according to the French exporter federation.

Still, “the level of customs duties applied by the United States to (imported) wine is globally weaker than EU duties for the same products,” Briand of the Customs office said.

And Americans clearly like French wine. The United States is the leading importer of French wines by value, taking in 1.67 billion euros worth of French wines between Aug. 2017 and July 2018, according to FranceAgriMer, which works under the French Agriculture Ministry. That is up 30 percent compared to five years ago.

HERMISTON, Ore. — An international company pioneering new techniques of in-vitro fertilization for cows has its headquarters in Hermiston.

The company has been operating in Hermiston since 2015 but in August re-branded from Cogent IVF to Vytelle. The company provides services to the region from its Hermiston headquarters but also has sites in Idaho, California, Texas, Paraguay, Uruguay and South Africa.

Business director Luciano Bonilla said Vytelle is unique in several ways, including its “cutting-edge” hormone-free collection process for unfertilized eggs. The lack of stimulating hormones is easier on the animals, allows for weekly collection and requires no shot schedule.

Farmers and dairies using in-vitro fertilization can benefit from multiple calves born per year that are the biological offspring off their highest-producing milk cows, or animals that are superior in other ways.

“Naturally, one cow can give one calf per year,” Bonilla said. “If they use this technique, they can get hundreds.”

Farmers and dairies using Vytelle’s services choose their best cows for harvest of unfertilized eggs, known as oocytes, which can be done by Vytelle technicians on the farm or at a collection location they have on GT Land & Cattle property. The process takes 10 to 15 minutes, after which the oocytes are taken to the Vytelle lab at 80383 N. Highway 395 and combined with sperm from a bull of the farmer’s choosing, using human-grade IVF equipment.

Vytelle technicians then grow the embryos in special incubators and a rotation serums over a seven-day period before freezing the embryos using a process unique to the company, or immediately impregnating the desired number of cows.

Eight people total work out of the Hermiston office. Aline Bonilla, the research and development laboratory manager, said clients of the Hermiston lab come from all over Oregon, but they serve an especially high number of dairies from the Tillamook area.

Aline and Luciano are originally from Brazil and came to the United States for Ph.D. study and work. While they previously worked in Wisconsin for Vytelle’s parent company WheatSheaf Group, Aline said there were partnerships the company had in the Columbia Basin area that made sense for them to start what was then Cogent IVF in Hermiston instead of Wisconsin.

She said while most bovine IVF companies use a complicated pricing structure that charges at different junctures, Vytelle’s production rate is so high that it only charges farms and dairies for the number of embryos it successfully creates.

“They pay for what they get,” she said.

For more information about Vytelle, visit vitelle.com or call 866-689-3477.