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.

PARIS (AP) — Lanvin and Paul Smith capped a masculine and utilitarian menswear season in Paris as Kenzo paid tribute to Irish singer-songwriter Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries, who died last week.

Hundreds of fans have paid respects to the late Dolores O'Riordan after her body was put in public repose in her hometown of Limerick.

iTunes Official Music Charts for the week ending January 18, 2018:

Dolores O'Riordan's children will benefit from the money made from Bad Wolves' remix of The Cranberries' hit song 'Zombie'.

The CMC met in Boston this past Wednesday to discuss the proposed Marketing Order as published in the Federal Register on January 2, 2018 for comment. This is the order for the 2017 crop. They reviewed this proposed order and compared it to the order that the CMC proposed in August.

First though, the committee reviewed estimates of the 2017 crop just delivered. I say estimates, because the handler reports aren’t due for a couple of days and those final numbers won’t be official until early next month. Mother Nature provided a significant supply correction with an estimated crop US crop of 8,260,000 bbls, down 880,000 bbls from the CMCs projection of 9,141,000 bbls. That is about a 10% drop. One handler told me that he thought this was the largest crop decrease since 1976! Every single growing area was level or down, both within the US and growing areas not covered by this order. Worldwide, the crop is estimated to be down 1,560,000 bbls. I can’t remember, and don’t know if this has ever happened that all growing areas were down.

When the CMC voted for an order in August, they had projected that a 15% order would reduce the US crop by 915,000 bbls. So poor growing conditions/weather did most of our work for us. Based on that information, the committee discussed the other items introduced in the Proposed Order by the USDA. The committee had recommended that every handler receive a 125,000 bbl exemption, so in other words the first 125,000 bbls of a handle is exempt. The USDA’s proposal is that handlers below 125,000 are exempt and those above are not exempt. This affects only 7-8 handlers out of the 60 total handlers and affects the smaller of these handlers disproportionately as they can’t spread the cost of disposal over as many barrels. There were many comments as to the fairness of the proposed changes. Take for example a 300,000 bbls handler. With the CMC proposal he would have had to dispose of 300,000 bbls – 125,000= 175,000 bbls x .15%=26,250 bbls disposed. Under the proposed USDA plan that same handler would have to dispose of 300,000 bbls x 15%=45,000 bbls. The difference is significant. If the proposed USDA plan is enacted it would take another 1,000,000 bbls off the market in addition to the 880,000 bbls that naturally came off the market.

Besides the 125,000 exemption, the other significant change made by the USDA was the addition of “Any handler who does not have carryover inventory at the end of the 2017-2018 year would also be exempt” and ” Further, only handlers who would have carryover inventory that is not sold or under contract and the end of the 2017-2018 fiscal year would be subject to the 15 percent restriction” to the order. There was much discussion on these provisions imploring the USDA to provide guidance on what is define what is “sold” and “under contract”. The industry needs a certain amount of “pipeline” that is in our projections to get the processors from one crop to the availability of the new crop, which allows the processing plants to run efficiently and continually. Do we have more than the necessary amount of carryover as an industry. Absolutely, hence the request for a marketing order. But to make handlers prove their sales or contracts to prove they are in balance without carryover seems like an exercise fraught with problems. The addition of this wordage was probably intended to have the handlers with the most inventory subject to the order, and has numerous problems in application.

In the end, the CMC could only review the Proposed Order and make recommendations. In consideration of the large amount of decrease in fruit provided due to growing conditions, the CMC recommended to the USDA that the Volume reduction be reduced from 15% to 5%. This amount is estimated to take another 320,000 bbls out of the supply.

The USDA representatives were engaged and listened intently to all of the presenters and commentary. It was by no means a negotiation or give and take. They suggested that everyone make these same comments to the Federal Register. The comment period is open until February 2, 2018

Just a reminder…I am not a member of the CMC and that I try to provide this information to other growers as a service. I try my best to be fair and accurate.