BOSTON (AP) — Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Colorado Rep. Jared Polis are leading a bipartisan push urging President Donald Trump to reinstate an Obama-era policy discouraging federal prosecutors from targeting individuals involved in the marijuana trade in states that have legalized the drug.

The Democrats and 52 other members of Congress have written a letter dated Thursday to Trump, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions lifted the policy earlier this month. Sessions said he would leave it up to prosecutors whether to crack down.

In the letter, the members say lifting the policy puts businesses, consumers and patients at risk.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington and the District of Columbia have legalized the recreational use of marijuana by adults.

Others have decriminalized marijuana or legalized its medicinal use.

A judge has refused to dismiss a class action lawsuit seeking more than $1 billion from Oregon’s government for insufficient logging of state forestlands.

Linn County filed a complaint in 2016 accusing Oregon’s forest managers of breaching a contract to maximize timber harvests from forests donated to the state by county governments.

According to the lawsuit, Oregon began prioritizing environmental protection and recreational values over logging due to a policy change in 1998.

The lawsuit was certified as a class action by Linn County Circuit Judge Daniel Murphy, which effectively included 14 counties and more than 100 taxing districts as plaintiffs in the case.

Attorneys for Oregon raised several grounds for dismissing the lawsuit that have now been rejected by Murphy.

The judge has ruled against the state on a particularly controversial point that’s resurfaced several times during the litigation: Whether the doctrine of “sovereign immunity” prohibits county governments from suing the State of Oregon.

Initially, Murphy allowed the case to proceed despite the state’s sovereign immunity claim, but later issued a ruling that it’s a valid defense.

The judge withdrew that opinion and has now again rejected Oregon’s motion to dismiss, referencing his original ruling that counties can enforce their contract rights against the state government in court under these circumstances.

“He’s back to where he’s historically been in the case,” said John DiLorenzo, attorney for the county plaintiffs.

As part of the ruling, the judge also threw out Oregon’s argument that counties can’t seek to “maximize timber revenues” because that term wasn’t included in their contracts.

Oregon’s government is required to manage the forestland for the “greatest permanent value,” but this term is ambiguous and may be interpreted based on the circumstances under which the contract was made, Murphy said.

The judge also disagreed with Oregon’s attorneys that future damages in this case were “too speculative” to be decided, since “forestry experts make these estimates all the time,” and dismissed other motions filed by the state.

Frank Hammond, an attorney representing Oregon, said he cannot comment on pending litigation.

DiLorenzo, the plaintiffs’ attorney, said he’s pleased with the ruling, which removed the remaining obstacles standing in the way of a trial.

For much of the litigation, Oregon’s Board of Forestry — which oversees the defendant Oregon Department of Forestry — has treated the case with derision, DiLorenzo said.

“This should be a signal to state policymakers the court is taking this case quite seriously,” he said. “I hope this is a wakeup call the Board of Forestry might very well lose this case.”

The plaintiffs are amenable to Oregon filing an “interlocutory appeal” to challenge Murphy’s most recent ruling before the Oregon Court of Appeals, DiLorenzo said.

That way, the Court of Appeals can ensure that assumptions about sovereign immunity and other legal issues are correct before the beginning of trial, which may last a month, he said.

“From an efficiency perspective, it makes sense to get direction from the Court of Appeals first,” he said. “Everybody is going to invest a lot of time and effort in this case.”

Oregon lawmakers will consider a bill when the Legislature convenes Feb. 5 that, in concept, would provide additional wolf-livestock compensation for ranchers as the wolf population increases statewide.

House Bill 4106 requires the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife to prepare a report each biennium on the change in wolf population. Legislators would then allocate money from the general fund to the Department of Agriculture’s Wolf Depredation Compensation and Financial Assistance Grant Program that “fully reflects the estimated change.”

The bill is spearheaded by Rep. Greg Barreto, R-Cove, who represents northeast Oregon where the majority of wolves are located. Co-sponsors include Sen. Bill Hansell, R-Athena, Rep. Brad Witt, D-Clatskanie, and Sen. Herman Baertschiger Jr., R-Grants Pass.

The idea, Barreto said, is simple — compensation for ranchers would correlate directly with the number of wolves living in the state.

“It’s one of those bills that shouldn’t be controversial,” Barreto said. “In fact, it should be a positive on both sides.”

ODFW already does annual year-end reports on wolf management and population. Between 2014 and 2015, the population rose 36 percent from 77 to 110 total wolves. The most recent population stayed mostly flat with 112 wolves at the end of 2016.

The Legislature also created the compensation fund for ranchers in 2011, which pays for livestock losses as well as implementing non-lethal wolf deterrents such as range riders and fladry fencing.

Funding is administered by Department of Agriculture, which awards grants to individual counties. Barreto said the program issued $395,000 last year for 112 wolves — those numbers would serve as the base line for future compensation under his proposal.

The bill has already garnered support from the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association, and skepticism from wolf advocates who worry the program is not being used responsibly.

Todd Nash, a Wallowa County commissioner and rancher who also serves as chairman for the OCA wolf committee, said that as the wolf population has increased, producers are now paying an average of $10,000 per wolf on tools to protect their livestock.

The bill is not a fix-all, Nash said, but it will help cover some of the added costs for producers.

“It doesn’t cover all losses,” he said. “There’s losses we don’t find that never get reported. There’s weight loss and handling differences, the loss of forages where cattle refuse to go ... This is going to be a tough issue for a long time.”

Steve Pedery, conservation director for Oregon Wild, said the compensation program was established to minimize wolf-livestock conflicts while also increasing social tolerance for the animals.

However, Pedery said the fund is lacking in accountability and oversight, which has led to questionable payments over the years. He suggested the program ought to be audited by the Secretary of State before investing any more money.

“We certainly still like the idea. It’s just kind of gone off the rails here in Oregon,” Pedery said. “I don’t think anybody wants this just to be a new entitlement program here in Oregon.”

According to ODFW reports, the agency confirmed 16 wolf attacks on livestock in 2017. That is fewer than the 24 confirmed incidents in 2016, but more than the nine confirmed incidents in 2015.

ODFW did authorize killing four wolves from the Harl Butte pack in Wallowa County, and another two wolves from the Meacham pack (though only one was killed) in Umatilla County, for repeatedly preying on livestock. Another four wolves were illegally poached, including three in southwest Oregon where they remain on the federal Endangered Species List.

Still, Nash said some ranchers have become so fed up with how wolves are managed they are not bothering to report livestock losses anymore.

“This was a tough year,” he said.

ODFW has also once again pushed back the date for adopting an overdue revision of the Wolf Management and Conservation Plan. The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission was scheduled to vote on the plan Jan. 19 before it was rescheduled for April 19-20 in Astoria.

The vote is now postponed indefinitely while the commission conducts additional outreach “in hopes of getting more consensus from stakeholders,” ODFW announced. The Oregon wolf plan was last updated in 2010. Revisions are due every five years.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture is seeking proposals for innovative projects as part of the USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant Program for 2018.

Applications are due by noon on Thursday, Feb. 27. Approximately $1.5 million is expected to be available for groups statewide including processors, commodity commissions, industry associations, nonprofits and local governments.

Oregon ranks among the top 10 states in production of specialty crops, which are defined as commonly recognized fruits, vegetables, tree nuts and nursery plants.

Last year, 45 applications were submitted to the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program totaling $4.4 million. Out of those, $1.7 million was awarded to 15 groups.

Funding priorities for the program include food safety compliance and traceability, certification programs, on-farm labor needs, training the next generation of farmers and marketing exports.

A 14-member industry advisory committee will evaluate each proposal in June and make recommendations to ODA Director Alexis Taylor on top-ranked projects. Selected applicants will be submitted to the USDA, and projects chosen to receive funding will be announced by November.

There is a selected funding range of $25,000 to $175,000, and a project timeline of up to 2 1/2 years. Match funding is not required, but highly encouraged.

More information and directions on submitting proposals is available by calling the ODA Agriculture Development and Marketing Program at 503-986-4620, or visiting www.oregon.gov/oda.

The North Santiam River flows past fields of green grass at Butler Farms west of Stayton, Ore., where Gary Butler and his two brothers grow more than 2,000 acres of irrigated crops.

In addition to grass seed, the family farm raises green beans and sweet corn for NORPAC Foods, along with hazelnuts and peppermint. Irrigation is essential to the operation, Butler said. That is why a major proposal 30 miles upstream at Detroit Dam has him so concerned.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which maintains 13 multipurpose dams in the Willamette River Basin, wants to build a 300-foot-tall water temperature control tower and floating screen at Detroit Dam to benefit native fish, including endangered chinook salmon and steelhead.

However, construction of the project may require draining Detroit Lake — the reservoir that feeds into the North Santiam — for up to two full years, leaving farms parched during the dry summer months and vulnerable to flooding during high river flows.

Butler, who serves on the board of directors for the Santiam Water Control District, said the impacts could be devastating for agriculture in the Mid-Willamette Valley.

“If we can’t irrigate, we can’t plant vegetable crops. If we can’t plant them, then NORPAC is looking for vegetable crops elsewhere,” Butler said. “It’s going to be an issue.”

Farmers are not the only ones who would be impacted. The cities of Salem and Stayton both get their drinking water from the North Santiam, and Detroit Lake is a popular destination for fishing, boating and outdoor recreation that drives tourism in the area.

The Army Corps is currently considering five construction alternatives with varying levels of drawdown at Detroit Lake. Tom Conning, spokesman for the agency’s Portland District, said it is still early in the process and will take years to complete an environmental impact study before work can begin in 2021, at the earliest.

Butler said local farmers are not pushing the panic button yet, but they realize how much is at stake.

“The jury’s still out,” he said. “We have to take a wait-and-see attitude on how they’re going to make it happen.”

Completed in 1953, Detroit Dam is a 450-foot-tall concrete structure on the North Santiam. It provides 321,000 acre-feet of water storage and has a peak electricity generation capacity of 100 megawatts.

It is also a barrier for salmon and steelhead that migrate to the Pacific Ocean before returning up the river as adults to spawn. Over the last 10 years, fewer fish have returned on average into the Upper Willamette Basin compared to the previous 50-year average, according to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife which tracks passage at Willamette Falls Dam.

Combined spring and fall chinook returns averaged 11,757 fewer fish per year, or roughly a 24 percent reduction, while winter steelhead returns averaged 3,852 fewer fish, a 41 percent reduction. To protect the species, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion — called a BiOp — in 2008 outlining what the Army Corps needs to do to improve fish survival.

Part of the BiOp includes the project proposed at Detroit Dam, said Conning, the Corps spokesman.

“Basically, (the BiOp) gave us some recommendations for reasonable, prudent actions to take so we did not violate the Endangered Species Act,” Conning said.

The plan has two components.

First, the Corps would build a temperature control tower — called a selective withdrawal structure — roughly the height of a downtown Portland building next to Detroit Dam. It would mix water from different levels of the reservoir to ensure the water released downstream is neither too warm nor too cold for the fish.

“Salmon need a specific temperature to navigate all the way back to where they originally spawn from,” Conning said.

The second component would be a floating screen structure about the size of a football field to capture juvenile fish swimming downstream in the reservoir so they can be moved past the dam either by truck or bypass pipe.

Together, Conning estimated the work will cost between $100 million and $250 million. But first, the Corps must complete its environmental impact study evaluating the impacts on everything from aesthetics to the water supply.

“We’re getting feedback from the public about their concerns,” Conning said.

For farmers, the chief concern remains how the Corps plans to build the project, and how that will affect the irrigation supplies.

The alternatives for building the tower at Detroit Dam range from draining the reservoir for two full years — what the agency calls “building in the dry” — to no drawdown whatsoever, or what it calls “building in the wet.”

Building in the dry poses the lowest safety risk of the alternatives, but potentially has the greatest impact on water users.

Building in the wet, on the other hand, has the lowest impact on water users, but is the most expensive and dangerous of the five options. Another option involves building a temporary coffer dam around the construction site, allowing the reservoir level to remain higher.

The Santiam Water Control District was formed in 1954 and is responsible for delivering irrigation water to more than 17,000 acres of farmland, along with water to three hydroelectric plants and other uses.

The district also provides the majority of municipal water to the city of Stayton, population 8,080.

District Manager Brent Stevenson said the project details are still fuzzy, but each of the Corps’ five alternatives describes at least one season with reduced or no stored water.

“Early on, it’s just really hard to clearly identify what the range of impacts could be,” Stevenson said. “The worst case is we don’t have water available for the drawdown years.”

The value of the crops grown in the area adds up quickly. Marion County is the top agricultural producer in Oregon, according to the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture, with 286,194 acres of farms generating $592.8 million in farm gate value. The district provides water to about 6 percent of the county’s farms.

Mary Anne Cooper, public policy counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the organization will submit comments to the Corps, and has big concerns from both an irrigation and flood control perspective.

“There’s not a ton of information out there, but one of the plans does look at dewatering the reservoir,” Cooper said. “It seems like there’s got to be another way to achieve any fisheries objectives that need to be achieved.”

The Corps won’t release its draft impact study until next year. Until then, Conning said the agency is urging stakeholders to provide feedback that will help it analyze each alternative.

“We need input from the public,” he said. “They might know something we don’t about how much water they need, or those types of issues.”

Steve Keudell, a board member of the Santiam Water Control District and co-owner of Keudell Farms in Aumsville, Ore., said draining Detroit Lake for any period of time could potentially alter the face of farming in this part of the Willamette Valley.

“You’d have to try to raise crops that aren’t so dependent on irrigation,” Keudell said. “You basically either turn into a dryland farmer, or maybe you’d have to look at drilling irrigation wells. ... There’s obviously going to be an expense.”

In 39 years of farming, Keudell said he has never gone without irrigation water for his fields.

“In our case, all lower ground has water rights on it,” he said. “The peppermint and the vegetables get watered every year. There’s never been a year, and there won’t be a year that I foresee, when you wouldn’t need irrigation for that.”

On Tuesday, Stevenson submitted four pages of written comments to the Corps on behalf of the district. He asked the Army Corps to complete a detailed “water budget” identifying all legal water rights, which would then be reviewed by the Oregon Water Resources Department to determine exactly which rights would be vulnerable during the project construction.

The district also wants to the Corps to analyze which flows may released from the nearby Big Cliff Dam during construction.

Big Cliff Dam is 2.7 river miles below Detroit Dam, though it does not store nearly as much water and is instead relied upon as a “re-regulation” dam, smoothing out flows from power generation at Detroit Dam.

“It is critical to understand if Bureau of Reclamation stored irrigation water will be available during the construction period,” Stevenson wrote in his comments. He added the federal Bureau of Reclamation should be included as a cooperating agency on the project.

For now, Keudell said he is trying not to get too alarmed and carry on business as usual.

“I just don’t know how it’s going to work,” he said.

Online

More information about the project and a timeline of activities is available on the Army Corps website at http://www.nwp.usace.army.mil.

In looking back at my post about the Boston CMC meeting, I had (at least) one thing wrong…I said that the worldwide crop was down 1,500,000 bbls. Nope, wrong. The projected crop was down that amount off the August 2017 estimate. The projected crop as compared to the actual 2016 crop is down 2,100,000 bbls or almost 16%. This includes all of Canada and Chile. Sorry for any confusion.

MAPLETON, Ore. (AP) — Authorities say a Springfield man died after a logging accident in western Oregon.

The Register-Guard reports 35-year-old Arturo Toral-Pacheco died Tuesday near Mapleton after the Lane County Sheriff’s Office says he likely fell from a height.

Search and rescue crews recovered his body about 200 yards down a steep embankment about 20 miles east of the state Highway 126 and Highway 36 junction.

The sheriff’s office says the death is under investigation.

HERMISTON, Ore. — A water reuse project by the city of Hermiston has inspired Umatilla to imagine new ways to use water coming out of the region’s data centers.

Umatilla city manager Russ Pelleberg shared details of the project, which the city hopes to begin construction on later this year, at the Oregon Water Coalition’s annual membership meeting in Hermiston on Tuesday morning.

The $3 million project would separate Umatilla’s commercial wastewater from its domestic flows, allowing the city to send water from current Amazon data centers at the Port of Umatilla, a planned data center off Lind Road and any future data centers to irrigation canals for agricultural use. Future phases would include an industrial wastewater treatment plant at the port and storage ponds for keeping reuse water during the winter when it is not needed for irrigation.

Pelleberg said data centers use “a ton of hydraulic capacity” for cooling purposes, but the water coming out the other end and into the city’s sewer system is still “very, very clean.”

“It didn’t make sense to treat clean water,” he said.

As the city looked for better solutions, Hermiston was pioneering a reuse program with West Irrigation District. Water coming from Hermiston’s recycled water treatment plant built in 2014 was well within the state’s standards for cleanliness, but was too warm to put in the Umatilla River in the summer. So the city worked out a deal with West Irrigation District to pipe the water into their canal during the growing season instead, allowing the district to save money by pumping less water from the Columbia River.

“We’re really excited about the project because it was the first time it was done in the state,” Hermiston city manager Byron Smith said.

After getting approval for the project from a laundry list of state agencies, Smith said he and West Irrigation District manager Bev Bridgewater are now sitting on a state committee working to write a set of regulations for other communities that want to follow suit.

Pelleberg said Umatilla wants to do something similar by diverting water coming out of data centers to West Irrigation District.

“We really like what Hermiston is doing with reuse,” he said.

Bridgewater said like the Hermiston water, the Umatilla water would likely be used to replace Columbia River water instead of expanding the district’s acreage. But Pelleberg said he is looking with city engineers at property that could hold massive open-air ponds to hold recycled Class A water created during the winter for use during the summer, and Bridgewater said that project could possibly lead to expanding the district’s acreage. The city needs to secure funding first, however.

The discussion was one of several presentations at the Oregon Water Coalition meeting, which was combined with the Greater Hermiston Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business to Business breakfast at Hermiston Agricultural Research and Extension Center.

Miff Devlin, water quality supervisor at the Port of Morrow, also spoke about a three-phase recharge project to dilute nitrogen from the groundwater around the port. JR Cook of Northeast Oregon Water Association spoke about an economic impact study being developed for the Mid-Columbia Basin and goals for future water projects in the area. The meeting was wrapped up by a “water rights bootcamp” by attorney Laura Schroeder of Schroeder Law Offices.

An article in the Packer…..

https://www.thepacker.com/article/comments-due-volume-control-cranberries

Convincing the federal government to officially recognize a wine region’s unique “terroir” can substantially boost the price per bottle, according to a recent study.

The study found that certain geographic regions within Oregon’s Willamette Valley saw statistically significant wine price premiums due to their federal designation as “American Viticultural Area” appellations.

Average prices and wine rankings were compared across six sub-appellations within the overall Willamette Valley AVA as part of the research, which was headed by economics professor Omer Gokcekus of Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

After obtaining their sub-appellation designations, wines from four of those areas — Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Ribbon Ridge and Yamhill Carlton — saw their price-to-quality ratio outpace the rest of the Willamette Valley.

All other things being equal, the sub-AVA designations contributed to higher prices ranging from $1.43 to $14.13 for a bottle with a 90-point score from Wine Spectator, an industry publication that rates wines.

Price premiums for wines produced in the Dundee Hills AVA were the highest found in the study.

Russell Gladhart, whose family owns Winter’s Hill Estate, said the Dundee Hills AVA benefits from being densely planted with vineyards within a relatively compact area.

The resulting lack of variation makes wines from the region more distinct, he said. “The customer knows more precisely where the wine came from.”

Gokcekus, the study’s author, said he became intrigued by the phenomenon while attending an academic conference in Oregon.

“There should be a reason for this,” he said.

For wineries to petition the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for a sub-AVA, there must be an economic motivation, Gokcekus said.

“I was expecting to see an increase, otherwise, why should you bother?” he said.

Even so, Gokcekus said he was surprised by the size of price premiums some wines commanded solely due to their appellation.

The range of grape-growing conditions is narrower within a smaller appellation, leading consumers to believe they’re at less risk of buying a lower-quality wine from that region, he said.

There’s also a sense of exclusivity that comes from purchasing wine from an area that only has a limited number of bottles available, Gokcekus said.

“We are talking about wine. In my mind, we are talking about perceptions,” he said.

Creating ever-smaller appellations probably stops making economic sense at some point, though.

As the number of wineries within each area shrinks, they must each spend more money to promote the region and can’t pool their resources as effectively, Gokcekus said.

“On the one hand, there is exclusivity. On the other hand, there is cost,” he said. “It’s a kind of balancing act.”

Wineries won’t gain much from a sub-AVA designation if they’re located within a larger appellation that hasn’t won many accolades, he said. In this case, the Willamette Valley had already established a solid footing in the wine industry.

“It’s a prerequisite,” Gokcekus said. “The AVA you are in should already have a certain reputation.”

Although a sub-AVA designation may boost prices higher than they’d rise based on quality alone, it’s also necessary for wines from the region to stand out, he said.

For example, the price-to-quality ratio for two sub-AVAs, Eola-Amity Hills and McMinnville, did not meaningfully surpass the rest of the Willamette Valley despite the designations, he found.

While the price-to-quality ratios increased in both regions, they largely kept pace with the larger appellation — probably because their average wine ratings didn’t exceed the Willamette Valley’s average, Gokcekus said.

Being located within a well-known sub-AVA, such as Dundee Hills, is associated with a premium but winemakers must source 95 percent of their grapes from that appellation to promote it on their label, said Denise Flora, co-owner of the Native Flora winery.

That requirement isn’t a problem for Native Flora, which is a boutique winery that relies entirely on the 16 acres of vineyards growing on its estate, she said. “It fits our business model.”

Have you seen that viral video that’s been going around social media, purporting to be a trailer for a “Friends” movie? According to the movie trailer, we will be blessed with a “Friends” movie as early as spring 2018. The…

Legendary musician Neil Diamond says he’s retiring from touring and that he’s been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. The artist, who has been a mainstay in the music world for 50 years, revealed on his official website that doctors recently told…

I love this first picture I am sharing. It was taken in 1956 of Mrs. Nellie Biggar's first grade class (which meant they graduated from BHS in 1968) on a float during the Cranberry Festival.

Farmers, cities, and conservationists rely on melting snow to water their crops, feed their aquifers, and fill streams and rivers for fish. But, usually, no one has any idea how much snowpack — and, thus, snowmelt — to expect until it’s too late.

“It’s important for farmers to understand what can they plant, and when should they plant?” NOAA scientist Sarah Kapnick explained when I caught her on the phone just before the government shutdown went into effect for her agency. “It also matters for people that are really interested in fisheries.”

That’s why Kapnick led a team of researchers to build a tool that can predict the snowpack eight months ahead of time, before the snow even falls. The researchers use conditions in July to predict how much snow will have accumulated in the mountains by the following March. They use observations of ocean temperatures and weather patterns — for example, whether or not it’s an El Niño year — and plug those initial conditions into three global climate models to generate a prediction for what the snowpack will look like eight months out.

Kapnick says the tool can make predictions for individual mountain ranges so each region knows what to expect.

The research was published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but Kapnick and her team want to further refine their tool before making it available to the public.

At the moment, Washington’s snowpack is pretty close to normal, but Oregon’s snowpack is very low.

Dolores O'Riordan's family and friends mourned the star at a mass held at St Ailbe's Church in Ballybricken, County Limerick on Tuesday (01.23.18).

LONDON (AP) — Hundreds of mourners gathered in Dolores O'Riordan's Irish hometown Tuesday for the funeral of the Cranberries singer, who died last week at the age of 46.

CORVALLIS, Ore. — A new hazelnut cultivar geared toward the kernel market will soon be released by Oregon State University and named in honor of longtime industry official Polly Owen.

The variety, to be dubbed PollyO, is the latest hazelnut tree developed by OSU breeder Shawn Mehlenbacher that is resistant to Eastern Filbert Blight, a fungal pathogen.

“We’ve had a lot of disease pressure in our field with no cankers on these trees,” Mehlenbacher said during the Nut Growers Society’s annual meeting.

Polly Owen became the director of the Hazelnut Industry Office in 1995 after previously working for the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association and the National Livestock and Meat Board.

She also raised sheep and cattle after graduating from OSU with a bachelor’s degree in food science and technology in 1970.

Geoff Horning, formerly the head of Oregon Aglink, replaced Owen as the hazelnut organization’s chief last year, but she remains involved in the group.

PollyO hazelnuts mature up to two weeks earlier than Barcelona, the popular variety grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The nuts blanch well, meaning they easily shed the skin or pellicle around the kernel that’s undesirable due to bitter compounds.

With an average of about 64.8 pounds of nuts per tree, the PollyO variety is higher yielding than the popular cultivar Jefferson, which produces 54.7 pounds per tree, and Yamhill, which produces 58.4 pounds per tree.

However, PollyO trees are larger than those other varieties, which means the variety produces fewer tons per acre.

The new cultivar is compatible with the McDonald, Wepster and York varieties for pollinization.

Typically, farmers tried to minimize the number of “pollinizer” varieties in an orchard because they weren’t as high yielding, Mehlenbacher said.

Now, many new varieties are sexually compatible and generate decent yields and high-quality nuts, allowing growers to plant multiple cultivars in an orchard, he said.

Farmers who don’t like the small, spreading trees of the Yamhill variety can choose PollyO as an alternative, as both varieties are suited to the kernel market, Mehlenbacher said. Varieties such as Barcelona and Jefferson are typically sold in the in-shell market.

PORTLAND — The end of harvest is just the beginning of the story for Oregon wheat, as farmers from around the state learned Jan. 18-19 at the Oregon Wheat Commission’s 2018 grower workshop in Portland.

A group of 15 people gathered at the commission offices in the historic Albers Mill overlooking the Willamette River. From there, they met with experts and toured facilities to witness firsthand what happens to their crop once it leaves the farm.

Oregon farmers typically grow 50 million to 70 million bushels of wheat every year, with a total economic output averaging more than $815 million. Tana Simpson, OWC associate administrator, said the commission assesses 5 cents per bushel, which pays for programs such as export market development, grower services and university research.

The annual workshop is intended to show farmers the value they get in return for their investment, Simpson said.

“These are your dollars that you’re going to see over the next few days,” she said.

The group made its first stop at the nonprofit Wheat Marketing Center, which does quality and product testing using wheat samples from across the Northwest. Janice Cooper, managing director at the center, said they also do hands-on training for overseas customers making products such as crackers, noodles and tortillas.

“Most of the work we do is with Asian and Latin American trade teams that come here,” Cooper said.

Laboratory supervisor Bon Lee demonstrated some of the high-tech equipment he uses to measure things such as gluten and starch content in dough. Lee explained in depth how he performs what is known as the “falling numbers” test, which checks for sprout damage in grain.

Low falling numbers has plagued parts of Washington and Idaho in recent years due to pre-harvest rains, Lee said.

“When it rains before harvest ... the sprouting process starts,” Lee said. “Even if you dry it, it’s too late.”

The vast majority of Oregon wheat — 85 to 90 percent — is shipped overseas. The U.S. Wheat Associates is the industry’s promotion arm, developing export markets in more than 100 countries.

Shawn Campbell, deputy director of the organization in Portland, said the most important thing farmers can do is maintain high quality, especially as the global marketplace for wheat becomes more competitive.

Countries such as Japan are particularly interested in buying high-quality soft white wheat from the Pacific Northwest, Campbell said, and consumers there have the income to pay for it.

“If we didn’t give our overseas customers what they wanted, they’d go elsewhere and find it there,” Campbell said.

Next, the group traveled to the Pacific Export Terminal at the Port of Portland, where employees work around the clock loading and unloading wheat shipments from around the region. The terminal is capable of moving 900 metric tons of wheat per hour, while also providing another layer of quality testing on site through the USDA.

Kim Harper, quality assurance specialist, showed how he pulls samples from wheat shipments and combs over each individual grain looking for things such as mold, insect and sprout damage.

“We’re seeing wheat come from across the West and Midwest,” Harper said. “We have to keep up on all that.”

The group wrapped up day one with a stop at a downtown Portland bakery, and spent day two aboard a river tugboat and chatting about the latest wheat research with Oregon State University scientists.

Blake Rowe, CEO of both the Oregon Wheat Commission and Oregon Wheat Growers League, said workshops are designed to give farmers a feel for everything that happens off their farm.

“They’ll actually get an appreciation of what a customer is looking for,” Rowe said. “I think that is something that is helpful to them.”

While the Trump administration has reopened western sage protections for further review, the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association is renewing its call for more grazing and rancher-friendly provisions on the range.

In a letter sent Jan. 10 to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, OCA President Nathan Jackson and Executive Director Jerome Rosa said the Bureau of Land Management ignored key local findings when it approved the 2015 Oregon Greater Sage Grouse Resource Management Plan.

Specifically, they argue the BLM eliminated grazing from many research natural areas and neglected how grazing can actually improve the landscape for sage grouse — namely reducing wildfire fuels and controlling invasive weeds.

Rosa said the letter also reiterates that Oregonians want to see changes in the plan, despite seemingly contrary public comments from Gov. Kate Brown.

“There is some confusion in Washington, D.C., that Oregon is the only western state that is not supportive of amendments to the sage grouse plan, which is tremendously worrisome,” Rosa said.

Brown has said in a statement last October that the decision to reconsider sage grouse plans last year was “reckless,” adding the administration “is playing fast and loose with two things that make Oregon special — proud rural communities and diverse wildlife.”

The OCA speculates, however, whether Brown understands that the BLM did not adopt Oregon’s own sage grouse assessment, which was adopted by the Department of Fish & Wildlife in 2011.

“With all due respect to our governor, unfortunately, she appears to have been misinformed that the BLM (plan) adopted the ODFW Oregon sage grouse strategy. It did not,” the OCA states in its letter to Zinke.

The BLM plan needs to be amended to harmonize with the state strategy, the letter continues.

“The ODFW Oregon sage grouse strategy was state driven, Oregon-based, and was an outgrowth of collaboration that considered the unique conditions in Oregon,” the OCA writes.

According to the ODFW strategy, “ranching as a land use generally supported greater biodiversity as measured by native plant species and shrub/grassland nesting birds than exurban developments or reserves.”

Yet ranchers claim the BLM eliminated livestock grazing in many suitable areas, such as 8,282 acres in the Rahilly-Gravelly allotment in southeast Oregon, which was previously determined to be in good health.

On Nov. 27, 2017, both the OCA and Oregon Farm Bureau submitted nine pages of written comments to the BLM in Portland, seeking to remove what they described as overly restrictive components of the federal sage grouse plan. One request was to allow “proper grazing and compatible grazing practices.”

Tom Sharp, president-elect of OCA and a cattle rancher near Burns, Ore., explained how grazing is compatible and sometimes beneficial to the landscape, which in turn supports sage grouse habitat.

Not only does livestock reduce the fuel load that can spur devastating rangeland fires, but in springtime the cattle eat still-green species of common weeds such as cheat grass and medusahead.

The slogan among ranchers, Sharp said, is “good for the bird, good for the herd.”

“When utilized properly, (grazing) can be used to do good things across the landscape,” he said.

Sharp acknowledged that, when done carelessly or abusively, grazing can have negative impacts and strip the land bare. But responsible grazing is increasingly being recognized by science as beneficial, he said.

“It’s those good practices that are being recognized not only by science, but by the U.S. Fish ad Wildlife Service as being compatible and sometimes beneficial to sage grouse,” Sharp said.

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Consumers increasingly see hazelnuts as healthy, which means the crop is in prime position to be included in new food products, according to consumer research.

In 2017, a survey found that 47 percent of consumers considered hazelnuts “very healthy,” up from 24 percent in 2006, said Steve Bryant, managing director of the Seattle office of MSL, a public relations firm.

“It tells us you’re really on the right track,” Bryant said at the Jan. 18 annual convention of the Nut Growers Society.

Overall, 88 percent of survey respondents said hazelnuts were either very or somewhat healthy.

These perceptions align with the facts, as hazelnuts have been found to be high in iron, dietary fiber and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, he said.

Consumers appear to be eating more whole hazelnuts — as opposed to hazelnuts in manufactured foods — with the proportion rising from 33 percent once a month in 2006 to 49 percent once per month in 2017, Bryant said.

Among those consumers who haven’t eaten hazelnuts, 82 percent want to try them, he said. “That’s a good signal for the food industry.”

The top consumers of hazelnuts are currently women aged 18-44 with a higher-than-average income, a college or post-graduate education and children at home, he said.

“These customers, above all, are who food companies are chasing,” Bryant said, since they often shop for the whole family and aren’t as limited by price.

People are generally eating more tree nuts, which is good news for hazelnut growers because consumers also crave variety, he said.

Even if they have another favorite tree nut, consumers desire a change in flavor profile, Bryant said. “People get fatigued with almonds.”

Hazelnuts are seen as a high-quality product but not financially out of reach — 27 percent of consumers consider them “expensive,” compared to 48 percent for macadamia nuts, 40 percent for pistachios and 35 percent for cashews, he said.

Though hazelnuts are often associated with candy bars and other sweet products, consumers want to see them in “healthier applications,” such as salads and salad dressings, as well as ingredients in main courses, he said.

A majority of consumers prefer hazelnuts grown in the U.S., Bryant said. “It’s a vote for America. It’s a chance to identify with people like them.”

The popularity of hazelnuts is reflected the number of new “stock keeping units” — a measure of retail products — that include the crop, he said.

In 2013, manufacturers introduced 63 new SKUs with hazelnuts, followed by 51 in 2014 and 93 in 2015, Bryant said. Overall, the number of SKUs including hazelnuts grew 47 percent in that time.

“New products mean new demand to fill that supply,” he said.

At this point, the supply of U.S. hazelnuts is a major constraint on the development of new food products, said Larry George, president of the George Packing Co.

Oregon, the primary hazelnut-growing state, currently averages fewer than 40,000 tons of hazelnuts per year, he said.

Food manufacturers would need average yearly production to increase to about 60,000 tons per year before they significantly invested in new products, George said.

At the current rate, though, Oregon is likely to achieve this production level in two or three years, he said.

The sale of Nestle’s U.S. confectionery business to Ferrero is probably a positive sign for the domestic hazelnut industry, as Ferrero is very comfortable with the crop and its supply chain, George said.

While Turkey continues to dominate global hazelnut production, U.S. manufacturers want to see domestic production grow to ensure reliability, he said.

Oregon companies can supply manufacturers on the East Coast with hazelnuts within four days, compared to 45-60 days for orders from Turkish suppliers, which may get rejected, George said.

“It can disrupt the supply chain,” he said.