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After 2021, Shedd, Oregon grower Denver Pugh thought he’d seen rock bottom. Then came the summer of 2023.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d ever see anything as bad as 2021 when we had the drought and the heat dome,” Pugh said. “But this is worse.”
This summer Pugh said he was harvesting a little over 50 percent of a normal crop in his annual ryegrass and doing worse in other species.
“Orchardgrass was horrible,” he said. “We had fields that in hindsight we shouldn’t have even harvested. We spent more money getting it in the barn than we’ll ever make. It was less than 200 pounds to the acre.”
In the Silverton hills, Doug Duerst of Ioka Farms characterized the summer of 2023 as a once in a lifetime event.
“I think it’s a lifetime event that we’ve never seen before,” Duerst said. “The stars all lined up negatively for us.”
Duerst said Ioka had several fields that were yielding less than a third of expectations. “We’ve got some that we got 200 pounds of seed off an acre,” Duerst said.
“Some of our firstyear fields weren’t hit as badly,” he added. “I would say they are 20 percent off. But I would say we’re getting only about onethird of normal yields on anything that is older than three years old.”
Troy Hadley, who, like Duerst, farms in the Silverton hills, said he was having a hard time keeping his spirits up after leaving fields with trucks half full.
“Yesterday was extremely hard,” he said. “You drive all day long and you get half a truckload when eight to ten truckloads are normal.”
After talking to his father and others in the area, Hadley said he believes there’s never been a year this bad.
“Everybody I’ve talked to, my dad included, said they’ve never seen this terrible of a crop,” Hadley said.
Valley wide, Scott Harer of Columbia Seeds estimated that dryland seed yields were off about 40 percent and irrigated fields were coming in 20 to 25 percent off of normal.
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“It kind of depends on where you were farming,” Harer said. “From the growers I’m talking to, the South Valley and the Silverton hills certainly have poor yields compared to the rest of the Valley. Some of the irrigated is coming in okay, but still not at normal levels.”
“The fine fescue especially is off,” said Mike Baker of Willamette Valley Assured. “Perennial ryegrass is off as well. And I’m hearing some annual ryegrass is off, but probably not as bad as the other species.
“Tall fescue is a real mixed bag,” Baker added. “It’s maybe 10 or 15 percent off at the least, but we won’t know that until enough seed is cleaned to see what these clean outs are.”
Producers able to get water on crops reported yields about average. And even some dryland producers said they fared okay.
“In our little neck of the woods, we were pretty pleased,” said Karl Dettwyler, who farms in the flat lands near Silverton.
Dettwyler said his turf type tall fescue, his primary grass seed crop, came in about average. “It really wasn’t off too much,” he said. “Now the perennial ryegrass, that’s a completely different story. We only had about 100 acres in it, but we were at 900 pounds on one field, 1,300 on another and 1,800 on another. So, it was definitely off.”
Dettwyler added that he was pleasantly surprised with the tall fescue yields, particularly given that the crop looked bad going into spring.
“The way the crop was standing up, it just looked thin,” he said. “But when we combined it, the seed was there.”
KC Coon of Shedd also said he came out of the summer in decent shape. And he too was surprised.
“It looked like it was going to be a train wreck,” he said on August 1. “One-hundred days ago I would have told you we were going to be off 30 percent. But today, other than a couple of things that were down 10 to 15 percent, everything is pretty normal.
“Overall, I can’t complain,” he said.
Pugh also said his tall fescue fared better than his other crops. “But it wasn’t great by any means,” he said. “I had one field that was 600 pounds to the acre, and I’ve heard of some 200 pound tall fescue fields, too.”
His best field was off “only about 25 percent from average,” he said.
“It’s just bad,” he said of the 2023 crop. “I mean it’s horrible.”
Pugh, like others, pointed to the weather as the main culprit of the 2023 crop, and particularly the shoulder seasons of spring and fall, or lack thereof.
“We only had two seasons,” Pugh said. “We had winter and we had summer. Last fall was horrible. We went from hot and dry for so long, then by the time we got moisture it was freezing. It got so cold that things barely took off.”
“We went from Sahara to Siberia in a week,” Hadley said. “We had desert conditions clear until the 25th of October. And then I had fields with snow on them by the 6th of November. The plants just never got a chance to get roots underneath them and come back from last year or even get started.”
“We probably should have taken more stands out in the fall,” Duerst said. “We know now that they were damaged at that point. There weren’t enough plants that recovered well enough to produce seed.
“We had one new planting of perennial where we lucked out,” Duerst added. “We got it planted just at the right time, but everything else seemed to have fits with the conditions.”
In addition to grass seed stands, Duerst said Ioka suffered big losses in brassica seed crops. “We lost our brassica seed to frost-heave. We lost our turnips, our forage brassicas and our fall-planted radish,” Duerst said.
“And then the rain stopped in the spring, and that didn’t help either. We were already set up for a poor
KC Coon Mike Baker Scott Harer Karl Dettwyler
yield and then the (grass) plants just seemed to go into survival mode,” Duerst said.
“It was just an odd year,” Hadley said. “I have a field of oats that I didn’t get planted until the 15th of April and they had snow on four times after I planted it. And that’s not an exaggeration.”
Making matters worse, seed company executives said with supply channels full, the poor yields aren’t expected to have much of an effect on the price of seed, at least not in the short term, and possibly not until the fall 2024 market.
“The key is what is going to happen in the next ten weeks,” Harer said in early August. One positive sign, he added, is that activity was picking up as the market entered August. “So, that’s a good sign,” he said. “Hopefully it continues through August, September and the first part of October. But a lot of that is weather dependent and consumption dependent in the Midwest and the East Coast.
“But prices seem to have stabilized because of our smaller crop,” he said. “We’ll see what the demand is this fall and how that affects prices going forward.
“There seems to be adequate supply for today’s market,” he added. “The effects of this short crop won’t be felt until spring 2024 at the earliest, and probably not until fall of 2024.”
Baker, too, said he didn’t think the short crop was going to affect price in the short term.
“The truth is, and I think many growers recognize this, there’s enough seed in the trade, in warehouses and storage to supply the fall business or the majority of the fall business,” Baker said.
He added that it is fortunate the industry was able to establish the Oregon Grass Seed Bargaining Association prices for tall fescue and perennial ryegrass this year. “If there hadn’t been a price, with the low yields, it could have been really unstable,” he said.
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“I think we would have been tempted to have an argument about where the price should be if it wasn’t set,” he said.
One positive regarding the short crop is it could help stabilize the markets over the next year, he said.
“We could go from a sizable carryover to a very tight carryover next spring, depending on the actual size of this crop and the demand, particularly out of China and Europe,” Baker said. “So, I think we’re set up for good supply and demand factors to play themselves out.
“But in the context of Oregon grass seed, I always try to remind people that it isn’t just the supply of the
actual seed and the demand of the actual seed,” Baker added. “It’s the supply and demand for cash and the supply and demand for space. Last year’s annual ryegrass market was a good example. We had a very good balance between supply and demand of the seed but there were two factors that went against the stability of the price. Growers needed cash and they kept selling it cheaper and cheaper to raise more cash to make payments. And there was a demand for space, for places to put annual ryegrass.
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“And because of the drought in the Southeast last year, we saw the sales slow down,” he said. “It wasn’t that they weren’t going to use it. It’s that they couldn’t take anymore. Buyers in the consumption areas were out of space and we were out of space in Oregon. So, the price just dropped and dropped as farmers tried to get seed moved.”
This year, he said, given normal fall weather conditions in the Southeast, annual ryegrass demand should be high. “Cattle prices are high and that helps our market,” Baker said.
“We hope we don’t have a repeat of last year,” he added. “We don’t want a big drought in August and September. We need the Southeast to take a lot of annual ryegrass seed.”
Another potential plus for Oregon growers is projections of a poor European grass seed crop. But Europe, too, seems to have a lot of carry-over from two years of bumper crops.
Stayton seed grower JR Beitel, who visited Denmark in June as part of a Young Farmer Seed Production Tour, said he was talking on the phone to a grower in Denmark a few weeks after returning and learned that the drought in Europe was expected to drop the grower’s bluegrass yields to about half of a normal crop.
“It’s funny,” Beitel said. “Halfway around the world and we’ve got similar weather issues.” F
JR BeitelAmanda Spoo grew up around agriculture and has more than a decade of experience working with agriculture organizations. That combination helped make her a perfect fit for Executive Director of the Oregon Seed Association (OSA).
Spoo started in the position July 1, replacing Angie Smith, who served as Executive Director for the organization for 12 years.
“We are very pleased to welcome Amanda Spoo as OSA’s new Executive Director,” said OSA President Lucas Solis. “This marks a key milestone in the next chapter of OSA providing value to its membership.”
Spoo holds a bachelor’s degree in agriculture communications and journalism from Kansas State University and a master’s degree in public relations and corporate communications from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Her professional experience includes working with the Kansas Pork Association in communications and consumer promotion and eight years in export market development with U.S. Wheat Associates in Arlington, Virginia.
The goal is to create a sustainable and consistent structure for OSA that does not change from year to year and assures we all remain marching toward progress.”Lucas Solis OSA President
Spoo said she is happy to be back in Oregon, working for Pac/ West Lobby Group and contracting with Oregon ag organizations. “My family still lives here and that is what brought me back,” she said. “I decided I wanted to be closer to home. I’ve always loved Northeast Oregon and the stars aligned for that to happen.
“I’m really excited to have the Oregon Seed Association as my client,” she added. “I like working with people who are taking the time to improve their industry. That is something I am really drawn to.
“And I enjoy working in agriculture. I didn’t grow up on a farm, but my dad was a high school ag
teacher for many years, and farming and ranching is part of my family’s history,” Spoo said. “And I grew up taking market hogs to the county fair and was really involved in FFA.”
OSA has also brought on Karen Withers of AgCultured Consulting to serve as the organization’s new Technical Director. As Technical Director, Withers is responsible for advising the OSA Executive Board of new and ongoing technical issues affecting the industry, as well as overseeing OSA committees and providing the organization a conduit to other organizations that impact OSA’s members, according to Solis.
“The goal is to create a sustainable and consistent structure for OSA that does not change from year to year and assures we all remain marching toward progress,” Solis said.
Solis said he wanted to thank Smith for her many years of service to the organization. “We really appreciate what she accomplished in her tenure as Executive Director and want to thank her for her wonderful service,” he said. F
Oregon farmers have expressed concern over the prospects of a proposed large-scale solar project taking prime Willamette Valley farmland out of production, while Qcells, the project developer characterizes the project as a win-win for landowners looking for long-term security while keeping legacy farms intact.
If completed as proposed, the project, dubbed the Coburg Hills Solar Project, would encompass approximately 1,100 acres of farmland in Linn County about eight miles south of Brownsville. It would carry a generating capacity of up to 199 megawatts, enough to power more than 34,000 households.
The proposal includes plans to graze sheep on the site for the project’s 35- to 40-year life before returning the land to its original use.
“Qcells is excited to bring this dual-use project to the Linn County community,” said Brian Tran, development manager for Qcells. “This project allows the ability to not only keep this site in agricultural production, but also return the land to the landowners at the completion of the project lease. Our research shows that soil health increases following the decommissioning of a properly designed solar project.”
The developers filed a notice of intent to pursue the project with the Oregon Department of Energy in May of this year. Paperwork obtained by Oregon
OSU is reportedly planning to research the viability of combining sheep grazing with solar panels at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora.
Seed shows the developers have been planning the project since at least late 2021, based on a letter to a landowner located in the project’s footprint dated December 14 of that year.
In the letter, Western Land Services contacted the landowner on behalf of Ellwood Land Holdings, LLC, to discuss the possibility of purchasing or leasing “your real property for a solar project in Linn County, Oregon.”
In a previous letter, dated November 29, 2021, Qcells offered to pay the landowner $400 an acre during construction and $800 an acre once the project is up and running, with annual increases of two percent.
The landowner wishes to remain anonymous. Tran said plans are to have the project up and running by the fourth quarter of 2026.
The project is by far the largest solar project ever proposed for the Willamette Valley, according to Todd Cornett, Siting Division administrator for the state Department of Energy. In fact, it is the first project in the Valley requiring state siting approval under the Energy Facility Siting Council, a jurisdictional threshold that includes any project over 160 acres on high-value farmland. Projects under 160 acres are generally handled by counties, Cornett said.
The fact that the state is superseding the county in the siting process is one of the issues farmers have objected to.
“One of my main concerns is the issue of the state superseding the EFU (exclusive farm use) zoning laws,” said Shedd, Oregon, seed farmer and Linn County Farm Bureau President Denver Pugh. “If a state department can overwrite the EFU for this, what other departments can do the same for something else?”
Projects permitted under the state’s Energy Facility Siting Council must meet 16 standards, according to Cornett, standards that can be increasingly difficult depending on a project’s location. “If the project is in an industrial zone, it is probably going to be pretty easy to meet that,” Cornett said. “But if it is in an area that has pristine natural habitat, there could be a lot of impacts to different species or habitat.”
The permitting process will include a public comment period and a public information meeting in the vicinity of the project, he said. “We seek a lot of input,” Cornett said. “We absolutely encourage public participation. We want people to know, be aware of the projects that are within our review.”
As of July, the department was just beginning its review of the Coburg Hills Solar Project. Ultimately, he said, the Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council will decide whether to approve the project. A public meeting July 25 in Brownsville was held to determine the “project order,” Cornett said, which involves developing mitigating steps the developers must take to gain project approval.
According to interviews conducted by Oregon Seed, several entities are expected to comment on the project during the permitting process, including the Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW).
Jim Johnson, land use and water planning coordinator from ODA, said in July that ODA was reviewing the project proposal and that he expected the department ultimately will want to provide comments, particularly given the Oregon State Board of Agriculture’s resolution on the siting of energy transmission facilities on agricultural land.
In the resolution, the Board states that it is “concerned about the conversion of high-value and productive farmland and the implications to ongoing and future agricultural operations by energy facility development on lands zoned exclusive farm use.” Also, the Board states that it “supports land-use regulations that afford greater protection for highly
productive farmland, including land-use requirements that preclude the location of energy facilities on highly productive or less valuable farmland when otherwise reasonable alternatives exist.”
Johnson noted that the project has several steps to complete before gaining approval, but he cautioned that it is easier to gain an exception for siting energy projects on farmland in Oregon than for other nonagricultural uses.
“When you go through the Energy Facility Siting Council, the exceptions process is easier than it would be if you had to go through the regular exceptions process through LCDC (the state Land Conservation and Development Commission),” Johnson said.
Johnson added that in general, when evaluating energy projects proposed for farmland, ODA is less concerned about the amount of acreage a project encompasses than its site. “It is not so much how many acres it takes out,” Johnson said. “It is what acres it takes out.”
Jeremy Thompson, a biologist with ODFW, said that the Fish and Wildlife Commission is generally supportive of renewable energy development “as long as it is properly sited, adequately mitigated and responsibly managed.”
“We recognized that Oregon Fish and Wildlife has a climate change policy,” he said. “The key is making sure that we’re picking the right spots to put these energy development projects that minimize impacts to anything of community benefit, whether that is wildlife resources, fishery resources or ag resources. All of those need to come into play and we need to think about where to place those projects.”
Thompson noted that to date, other than “a couple of big solar facilities in Lake County that have been permitted,” most large-scale renewable energy projects in Oregon are in the Columbia Basin.
Thompson said that going forward, he expects to see more applications for solar projects on the west side of the state, and particularly in the Willamette Valley. “That’s according to some of the industry folks that I work with, because we are transmission-limited coming from Eastern Oregon to Western Oregon,” he said.
“The solar resource obviously is not as great in the Willamette Valley, given that there are more cloudy days than what they see in Eastern Oregon, but that is where the energy is being used, so putting the
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source closer to the point of use reduces that need for transmission,” Thomson said. “And when you look at the state’s energy portfolio standards and some of the aggressive decarbonization targets that have been laid out, one of the biggest barriers is transmission. Most of the major transmission lines are at or above capacity in Oregon right now.”
Based on its stated policy on solar siting in EFU zones, the Oregon Farm Bureau is expected to oppose the proposal. Among other provisions, the Farm Bureau policy states, “We oppose siting of non-agricultural solar panel facilities on productive agricultural lands when alternative sites are available.”
Further, Pugh noted that the developer’s contentions that sheep grazing around the panels will provide an agricultural component to the project are questionable.
“Grazing between solar panels is a relatively new concept,” Pugh said, “and we don’t have any evidence that the sheep are going to gain just as well as in an open field. We don’t know about weed control, if it is going to control noxious weeds that the sheep don’t eat. And what kind of damage are they going to do to the ground.
“The developer claims it’s a very minimal footprint, but yet there’s a provision for a gravel driveway that goes through the operation,” Pugh added. “They say that everything can be reverted back to high value farm ground, but we question that big time.”
The developers state that the project will bring several benefits to the community, including an expected $1.6 million in local tax income and 100 construction jobs. Also, Qcells said that sheep and solar production have shown to be compatible and that the project will be a benefit to the area’s agricultural portfolio.
“Based on our experience and local experts,” Tran said, “we believe sheep and solar are excellent partners in dual use projects.”
He added that Oregon State University professor Chad Higgins, who has studied sheep grazing around solar panels, is advising on the project. And, he said, “We are also doing outreach to local sheep grazers with the goal of identifying a local grazing partner or partners to join the project.”
Derek Godwin, Oregon State University Extension Watershed Management faculty, noted that Tran is right to state that agriculture and solar panels can
coexist. “The challenge,” he said, “is to fine tune the relationship to profit both energy production and ag production, with the latter being more challenging.”
Godwin noted that OSU Extension irrigation faculty Maria Zamora Re is studying blueberry production under portable arrays at the Lewis Brown Research Farm in Corvallis. And, he said, Higgins has an articulating array of panels at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora and has been studying sheep grazing and various crop production under static panels for the past few years.
“Researchers and industry have no doubt they can be integrated to maximize both given time for research trials,” Godwin added, “but we are not there yet.”
Further, Godwin noted, “The catch is that ag land is for ag use as the primary use. My understanding of Oregon’s land-use laws is that solar panels as energy production are supposed to be secondary to ag production. The integration of these two puts energy first and ag second unless the solar design doesn’t limit production.”
ODA’s Johnson added that the development of solar panels on farmland precludes the use of many types of farm equipment and the production of many perennial and field crops on the site.
“Given that much of the subject property is highvalue farmland, including areas of prime farmland soils, the agricultural capability that is available for farm use could be used for much more intensive, higher value crop production than is afforded by livestock grazing,” Johnson said.
“These higher value crops are land and soil dependent,” Johnson said. “Solar development is not dependent on quality soils.”
Troy Jones, who owns land near the proposed project, said his main concern with the project is that it is “taking away” land zoned for exclusive farm use. And he wonders if it is the start of more such projects.
“My primary concern is the taking away from the EFU land and where do we draw the line on this,” he said. “Because we have housing shortages, do we start subdividing all this and start building homes? Where does it stop?”
Cornett said the Oregon Department of Energy plans extensive outreach to ensure adjacent landowners and others are aware of informational meetings and public hearings on the project.
He noted that the applicant has two years from the time they submit their notice of intent to submit their application. F
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Imagine beginning three or four days after an application needing to search for carcasses over an entire application area every other day and continuing that for at least two weeks.
Imagine being required to wear a respirator and chemical-resistant gloves during a rodenticide application.
These draconian label changes for zinc phosphide are part of the most sweeping changes in use patterns proposed for rodenticides since the products were first labeled for use in agriculture in the early 1970s.
And, according to Katie Swift, chairperson of the Rodenticide Task Force, which represents 13 rodenticide registrants, they “absolutely cannot go through as proposed.”
The effects in grass seed alone would be devastating, according to Steve Salisbury, research and regulatory coordinator for the Oregon Seed Council.
“If further regulation was implemented (on zinc phosphide) … then our growers would be left with no viable option for vole management,” Salisbury wrote in a letter to an EPA chemical review manager. “The use of zinc phosphide is a critical need to grass seed production.”
In her comments to EPA regarding the proposed label changes, Oregon State University Assistant Professor Dani Lightle wrote that voles can cause upwards of 75 percent crop loss in some fields and stated, “Grass seed producers do not have any other options for vole control other than zinc phosphide. There are no other rodenticides available, trapping is not effective and field burning, which had some control value for rodents, is no longer legal in Oregon.”
Further, in a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, 30 members of Congress, including Representative Lori Chavez-DeRemer, R-Oregon, stated that if implemented as proposed, the label changes “will result in crop damage and livestock
loss, jeopardize the safety of the food supply, weaken public health protections and make it more difficult for people to protect their homes and property from rodents.”
“Rather than protecting the public health and the environment,” the letter stated, “limiting access to vital rodenticides would harm America’s food supply and infrastructure.”
The sweeping label changes, which Swift characterized as by far the most significant label changes EPA has ever proposed for rodenticides, include cancellations for many uses of diphacinone and chlorophacinone, and additional mitigation measures on labels of all other rodenticides, including zinc phosphide, the go-to control product for graytailed vole in grass seed.
The cancellations, proposed last November, are based on ecological and human health concerns, according to Swift, who has been discussing these issues with EPA officials since 2016. Mitigation measures surrounding zinc phosphide are being proposed for the protection of endangered species and other non-target wildlife.
Swift said the Rodenticide Task Force views the proposed mitigation measures for zinc phosphide as “very concerning,” particularly the provision requiring a carcass search after application.
“Obviously, that would be a huge burden on time and labor for an applicator, especially if you’ve applied zinc phosphide over a very large area,” Swift said.
In his letter to the EPA, Salisbury noted that the current mitigation measures in the existing zinc phosphide labels for Oregon, such as the elimination of above-ground applications between September and May to protect migrating geese, have proven effective. “These restrictions, SLNs, and mitigation measures have proven to be highly effective at preventing substantial impacts to geese for several years.”
In her comments, Lightle asked EPA officials to “reconsider whether the cost of implementation of carcass search, collection and disposal outweighs the benefits, especially given the scavengers in this region are not endangered species.”
Further, Salisbury wrote, vole populations have risen in fields over the last several years and to restrict the use of zinc phosphide will have dire economic impacts. “In 2020, vole populations were incredibly
high and caused production losses ranging from 20-75 percent. These are significant economic impacts to farms. In addition to seed yield losses, the damage was so extensive in many cases that growers had to take the grass crop out of production after harvest.”
Lightle wrote that the monetary loss to the vole in the grass seed industry in 2020 was estimated at $100 million. “And despite the fact that vole populations have declined since then, the damage in 2022 was estimated at $30 million,” Lightle wrote.
Swift said the Rodenticide Task Force has been in discussion with EPA officials to amend the mitigation measures as well as repeal its proposal to cancel uses of diphacinone and chlorophacinone. But, she said, “ongoing discussions with EPA are not yielding any workable solutions.”
She said the registrants have offered to conduct residue studies though the IR-4 program to show that no residues are detectable at the agency’s required limit, but that EPA has said it will only accept radio tracer studies, studies that are extremely expensive and studies that the registrants believe will not address the agency’s concerns of human health given that there is no uptake by plants of firstgeneration anticoagulants.
“We are not getting any indication from the agency that they are going to be changing their position from what they proposed,” Swift said.
The EPA has told the task force it expects to finalize its proposals in December, Swift said. At that point, registrants are expected to submit labels with the changes, and then, once approved, be given a year to implement the new label.
Swift urged growers and grower groups to get involved and be vocal in their opposition to the proposed label changes.
“We absolutely need stakeholders and grower groups to get involved to discuss their concerns with their members of Congress,” Swift said. “Because this absolutely cannot go through as proposed. The impacts will be devastating across so many different crops.” F
The Oregon Department of Agriculture has brought on a new Seed Regulatory Outreach Specialist.
Teresa Nicholson, who holds a bachelor’s degree in fisheries and wildlife sciences from Oregon State University, started March 1. She replaced Nathan Miller, who has moved to the department’s Market Access and Certification division as a certification specialist.
Nicholson’s position is a combination of two former positions, encompassing responsibilities in field-burning smoke management along with the seed regulatory and outreach work. Her position has more enforcement responsibilities than Miller’s old position, according to Elizabeth Savory, program manager.
What we heard from the industry is that they wanted us to help educate them about what the laws are.”
Teresa Nicholson
“What we wanted to do was combine a couple of positions we had at ODA,” Savory said. “So have someone doing seed regulatory work, such as licensing investigations, and a lot of outreach about what the rules and regulations are around seed labeling law. And then the fieldburning program came into our program, so we decided to combine those positions and just have one person who would be like a one-stop shop for the seed industry.”
Teresa Nicholson started March 1 as the new Seed Regulatory Outreach Specialist for the Oregon Department of Agriculture.
Savory said the department sought to include a strong outreach component in the position to address a concern that the industry isn’t up to date on seed law, a fact borne out during an investigation into mislabeling Kentucky 31 seed, an investigation that ran for several years beginning in January of 2018 and resulted in fines and other penalties.
“I think one thing the Kentucky 31 issue taught us is that there was a general lack of knowledge amongst the industry about what the rules are and what the rules aren’t, and that is part of the reason why this position was reworked the way it was, to help fill that need,” Savory said.
“What we heard from the industry is that they wanted us to help educate them about what the laws are,” Savory said.
Nicholson previously worked for ODA in the invasive pest management program and in the produce safety program. She has also worked for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
She graduated from the OSU College of Agricultural Sciences in 2019. F
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Oregon State University Seed Certification Service is expecting to increase certification fees by ten percent beginning in January, a reflection of fewer acres being certified and increased fixed costs.
Andy Altishin, seed certification manager, broke the news at the Oregon Seed Association’s Annual Summer Convention. “Just a heads up, I am in budget meetings and discussions with our people,” Altishin said in a presentation on June 15. “It’s been five years since we’ve had to increase fees and I would say that as you get into your fall planting and scheduling season, and spring contracting season, I would strongly urge you to consider there might be a fee increase for seed certification as our costs continue to go through the roof.”
Altishin outlined several steps OSU Seed Certification has taken to keep costs down in recent years, including reducing personnel through technological efficiencies. But, he said, fixed costs for things like fuel, lodging and other travel costs for field inspectors, have gone up considerably.
“We have trimmed what we can trim at this point,” he said. “We’ve put efficiencies in place to help us out. But, again, it is just the way things go. I hate to do it. I don’t want to do it, but we can’t operate without it.”
Also, Altishin said, the fact that fewer acres are being certified in recent years has decreased revenue.
The service certified 215,444 acres in 2022, down from 229,047 in 2021 and 236,485 in 2020. As recently as 2016, the service was certifying more than 245,000 acres annually.
The biggest drop in certified grass seed acres among grass seed species occurred in perennial ryegrass. Certified perennial ryegrass acres went from 58,347 in 2016 to 34,957 in 2022. An increase in certified tall fescue acres was not enough to make up for that decline. Tall fescue acres went from 97,183 in 2016 to 101,580 in 2022.
In an interview with Oregon Seed, Altishin went over some of the cost savings Seed Certification has implemented in recent years in an effort to keep costs down while maintaining the integrity of the service’s offerings.
The service’s biggest savings in recent years has been in its embrace of technology, he said. For example, he noted that the service used to have two full-time staff dedicated to inputting inspectors’ reports. Further, they used to print off the reports and mail them to growers and seed companies. Today, that is all done online, a change that eliminated up to $100,000 in personnel costs and many thousands of dollars in paper and mailing costs.
“There are 15,000 reports that are generated,” he said. “When you are talking about scale, it’s pretty costly to mail all those.”
Other efforts to cut costs have not panned out, he said. Altishin noted, for example, that the service has tried to find locally based field inspectors to conduct certification in Eastern Oregon, a fact that could save on fuel, lodging and other fixed travel costs. But, he said, finding capable field staff has proven difficult.
“It’s hard to find people that want to work seasonally in those areas and you get a higher quality product with the inspectors we have,” Altishin said. “For example, all of our inspectors have degrees in science and they’ve been trained to do this.”
Altishin said OSU Seed Services administrators have discussed whether to automatically implement a smaller annual increase, rather than a ten percent increase every five years or so. But, he said, to date they have rejected that idea.
“That is something we struggle with,” he said. “I hope we don’t have to do it (implement an annual increase). It is nice for planning, but it seems like when those get put in place, it never changes.”
At the end of the day, Altishin said, his goal is to balance the budget and provide a highly reputable operation for growers. “Being based at the university, we are a nonprofit type of organization,” he said. “Our goal is to do this as cheaply as possible and to provide high quality.
“Every day, the financial sustainability of our program is on my mind,” he said. “So, we have to maintain a budget that supports what we’re doing and try to do it at the best cost for our customers.” F
OSU Seed Certification Service Manager Andy Altishin in his office in Corvallis with a print out of a map generated by seed certifiers.
For years certified grass seed in Oregon has sold for a two-cent premium over non-certified seed. For many growers, that prompted the question, “Is it is worth it to certify a seed crop?”
Oregon State University Seed Certification Service Manager Andy Altishin said he couldn’t possibly answer that question for growers, but he has worked out one aspect of the formula to determine whether the economics pencil out.
Speaking at the Oregon Seed Association Annual Convention June 15 in Redmond, Altishin noted that based on average yields, the actual certification cost works out to a half-a-cent a pound for tall fescue and perennial ryegrass and just over that, or six-tenths of a cent a pound for bluegrass and fine fescue.
From there growers will need to calculate their costs to produce certified seed, including how much
extra work and how many more inputs go into a certified field, Altishin said. And growers will likely need to look at their yields to help analyze the economics.
Altishin noted that he’s had growers tell him they don’t treat a certified field any different than a noncertified field. Others have told him they may add an extra herbicide treatment or do some extra prep work before planting.
There is also extra paperwork involved when certifying a field. And, if in a flyover inspection the certification service determines a field needs some extra work to qualify, there may be some extra inseason work involved.
But, Altishin said, as for what the growers pay Seed Certification to certify a field, that works out to really only about half-a-cent a pound. F
Dustin Herb, who grew up in Lebanon and began working in the grass seed industry in high school, has joined the USDA Agricultural Research Service Forage Seed and Cereal Research Unit as a research geneticist.
Herb, son of Matt Herb, former Oregon Seed Council Chair and long-time research director for OreGro Seeds, received his Ph.D. in plant breeding and genetics from Oregon State University, working under College of Agricultural Sciences professor and barley breeder Patrick Hayes. And Herb received his master’s in plant breeding from Texas A&M University, working under William Rooney, sorghum breeder and professor in Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A&M and the Borlaug-Monsanto Chair for Plant Breeding and International Crop Improvement.
“He had two very solid professors in his graduate programs,” said the ARS Research Unit Leader Ryan Hayes. “And he comes in on day one able to handle crops that are not trivial to work with. They are a challenge.”
Herb said he intends to develop genetic and genomic resources for the seed industry, both for distribution to breeders in the form of improved germplasm and to growers as publicly available varieties.
“My intention is to develop a pre-breeding program that allows us to collect and screen germplasm, focusing on abiotic and biotic stress traits, seed shattering and yield and then provide the resultant germplasm to industry plant breeders to integrate into a forage or turf framework,” Herb said.
“I also intend to update our public varieties available to growers and develop new varieties with improved seed yield and efficient utilization of resources as to require less inputs,” Herb said. “In some cases, we’re producing varieties that are 20, 30 years old and older and we need our varieties to meet the challenges of today, not yesterday.”
Herb said he is looking forward to collaborating with the other scientists in the FSCRU and USDA-ARS,
as well as plant breeders and researchers at Oregon State University and within the seed industry.
He also hopes to work closely with growercooperators.
“I very much want this program to be visible,” he said. “I don’t want to just be working on an experiment station. I want to set it up to trial new material on growers’ farms. We want to ensure that the material we intend to release not only perform in our research plots, but also on a commercial scale.”
He added that he hopes to have regular and consistent feedback from the industry. “We don’t want to get to the point where we’re chasing a trait that is not as critical to the industry, we want our research to be relevant to the industry.”
Herb said he intends to develop and implement advanced breeding techniques in his program. “There are definitely some tools and techniques that are not traditionally used in cool-season grass breeding that I will be employing,” he said. “I will be adapting techniques that are used in other crops into grasses, which will allow us to evaluate larger populations and detect phenotypic and genotypic variability in germplasm that we wouldn’t have been able to detect using traditional methods.”
Herb received his Ph.D. in 2017 and has since worked in private industry, including with Nutrien Ag Solutions as their cool-season turf and forage grass breeder, and for DLF USA as their North American forage breeder, before joining the ARS Research Unit on February 13.
Herb’s addition means the unit is now fully staffed, with eight researchers working in grass seed at the Corvallis unit.
“It feels great,” said Research Unit Leader Ryan Hayes. “It feels like we now have people working on things that matter to stakeholders. There is some firepower here that can actually get some stuff done. So, yes, it is pretty awesome.
“And it is a diverse group,” he said. “It’s soils, entomology, pathology, weeds, breeding genetics. I mean, there aren’t very many aspects of seed crops production systems that we don’t have some kind of expertise in. So, that’s pretty amazing.” F
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Oregon State University College of Agricultural Sciences Dean Staci Simonich told participants at the Oregon Seed Association’s Annual Summer Convention, June 15, that the college plans to use additional funds from the Oregon Legislature for new hires, both in Corvallis and at Experiment Stations around the state.
Speaking before the Oregon Legislature had finalized the budget for the OSU statewide public services, Simonich said the expected increase of up to $5 million per year in state funding, an increase the Legislature subsequently authorized and the first increase in several years, means the College can reverse a trend of losing staff.
“It’s been four or five years since we have kept up with inflation for the statewides,” Simonich said, referring to the OSU Forest Research Lab, the Extension Service and the Experiment Station. “What that has meant is that for every two or three people we’re losing, we could only replace one.”
Simonich said plans are to “shore up and hire positions throughout the state that help to make our food system stronger, not only in Oregon, but the U.S., and let’s not forget globally, given all of the export that we do as a state.”
Simonich’s keynote address was a highlight of the convention, held at Eagle Crest Resort in Redmond. During her 30-minute talk Simonich highlighted the contributions the College of Agricultural Sciences provides to the state’s economy and to the agricultural industry and spoke of the success of the college. She noted that Universities.com ranked the college the second best college for agricultural sciences in the nation last year for students, behind only Texas A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
“That means recruiting students and retaining students and getting them fully employed when they leave,” she said.
She added that the college brought in about $100 million in research funding last year, including from federal grants and from Oregon commodity commissions, up about 20 percent from a year ago and double what it was three or four years ago.
Simonich also noted that the college is one of the few agricultural colleges in the U.S. that saw an increase in enrollment. “If you look at WSU or some of the other colleges, such as UW-Madison, you actually see enrollment is going down,” she said. “Ours is going up.”
Simonich said the increase is in part due to the fact that OSU has a strong “e-campus” presence. “So, you can stay on the ranch in Eastern Oregon and get a degree,” she said. “That has really been a benefit.”
Simonich also talked about the diversity of crops the college serves in Oregon, noting that it has 14 branch Experiment Stations in 14 locations that serve different regions and different cropping systems common to the regions. And she spoke about the extensive resources the college devotes to the seed industry.
“One of the first things I did (upon being named Dean of the College last year) is to start to meet regularly every few months with the grass seed industry and once I knew the importance of some of the positions needed in the Crop and Soil Science Department, I said, ‘We have to do this,’” Simonich said. “So, I immediately told them to go ahead and start hiring.”
As part of the college’s dedication to the seed industry, Simonich said the college puts extensive resources into OSU Seed Services, which includes Seed Certification and the OSU Seed Lab.
“We need to be accurate, timely and be at the lowest cost possible,” she said. “That is something we are always working on.”
She added that the lab is working on developing a new PCR technology (polymerase chain reaction) to distinguish between annual ryegrass and perennial ryegrass, and that Seed Services recently received two grants, one for $15,000 and one for $175,000 to
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develop convolutional neural networks, a computer network tool to better distinguish grass seed from weed seed.
Finally, Simonich thanked the grass seed commissions for contributing toward buying a new combine for the college’s researchers this year.
“We are so thankful for that partnership,” Simonich said.
Other highlights from the June 15 open session included a presentation from the new Oregon Seed Council Executive Director Megan Chuinard. Asked to present her vision for the Council, Chuinard, only a month into her position at the time, noted that working together with industry partners is a key she plans to focus on.
“In order to best elevate the industry, we have to work together,” Chuinard said. “Everyone needs to be at the table.”
In addition, Chuinard talked about the importance of sharing the industry’s story with regulators, legislators and local communities, including highlighting the billion dollars in economic activity the industry brings to the state and the environmental benefits grass seed provides.
Chuinard said she hopes the Oregon Seed Council also can provide a forum for the industry to come together and talk about issues affecting each part of the supply chain, from the grower to the end user, and collaborate on how to best impact policy decisions that affect the industry.
“We have an opportunity to be not just reactive but proactive,” Chuinard said. “So, I really want to work closely with you to make sure that we are doing the best we can to help advance the industry.”
Peyton Englert, director of federal government affairs for the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), spoke on advocating for the seed industry before Congress. Specifically, Englert addressed ASTA’s work on behalf of the industry ahead of the Farm Bill, which is expected to be reauthorized this fall.
She noted that while House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson, R-Pennsylvania, has said he is confident that Congress can pass a new Farm Bill by the September 30 end of the federal fiscal year, ASTA staff is “not holding out too much hope.”
“A Farm Bill has not been passed on time in decades,” Englert said.
Also, Englert noted that the partisanship playing out in the nation’s Capital could hamper efforts to
pass the Farm Bill on time. Englert noted that in the struggle to raise the federal government debt ceiling, which Congress was able to do at the eleventh hour in early June, eleven members of the House were able to gridlock that vote.
“It is a little bit scary that eleven members out of 435 have that power,” she said.
“Given the political climate that we are in right now, we really need this Farm Bill to be bipartisan,” she said. “It’s also estimated to be the first ever trillion dollar Farm Bill, so the stakes are pretty high.”
Fortunately, Englert said, the seed industry seems well poised to have a voice in the Farm Bill, noting that as of the OSA meeting, ASTA had already been asked to provide witnesses to two different Senate Ag Committee hearings.
“They haven’t had that many hearings so far,” she said, “so it’s been quite an honor.”
On the negative side, Englert noted that Senate Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, has stated there is no new money coming into the Farm Bill. “So, in order for certain programs to get funded, money is going to have to come out of another pot,” Englert said.
Two areas ASTA has focused on in discussions with Congress are the importance of agricultural research and use of conservation funding for cover crops, Englert said. F
The Oregon Seed League meets annually in December to discuss matters of importance to the Oregon seed industry. More than 500 growers and industry representatives attend the two-day event.
In addition, a trade show runs concurrently with the education program. Approximately 55 to 60 exhibitors are expected each year.
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Be sure to inform reservations you will be attending the Oregon Seed League Meeting. Reservations received after November 10, 2023 may not be available at the convention room rate.
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In the mid-2000s, when Dan Towery started with the Oregon Ryegrass Commission promoting annual ryegrass as a cover crop, very few Midwest farmers were utilizing cover crops in their operations.
“There were a few really early innovators in the Midwest that were already doing it,” said Towery, a crop consultant from West Lafayette, Indiana. “But you could probably count them on one or two hands.”
Today, according to 2021 figures from the University of Illinois, cover crops are grown on 140 million acres of Midwest cropland, or more than seven percent of the acreage, up from less than two percent a decade earlier. And Oregon growers are selling millions of pounds of cover crop seed into the Midwest, including upwards of 20 million pounds of annual ryegrass seed annually.
When Towery started with the Oregon grass seed industry, cereal rye was about the only cover crop being planted, Towery said. Bringing annual ryegrass into the mix was not easy.
“Let’s just say we were really low on the learning curve on managing annual ryegrass,” Towery said. “So, we seeded these very small plots and that worked out fine even though we didn’t know exactly what dates they needed to be planted and, in some cases, we didn’t get any growth. And then it was, ‘Well, how do we kill it?’
Dan Towery is a name that did cover crops a lot of good.”
“We had some success and some failures, and then we got hooked up with Mike Plumer (former University of Illinois Extension agent) and that second year we knew a little more about the basics of when we needed to plant it and some guidelines on how to terminate it, and we had a little more success,” Towery said.
Eventually, Towery said, the growers and the advisors learned together. “We all learned together when to plant it, how to plant it and how to kill it,” he said.
“Then the question was, well, does it work? The growers weren’t necessarily looking for a big yield increase, but it had to be on par with what they were getting previously,” Towery said.
“Then we had to adapt what we knew to different regions, especially as we moved north,” he said. “And then there were some disappointments because of winter kill, and we learned how important snow cover was. And really our learning curve still hasn’t stopped.”
Towery grew up in a small town in Fulton County, relishing the time he spent on his grandpa’s farm. He went into agriculture after earning a degree from Western Illinois University. While working with the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), no-till started taking off as a crop production practice in the Midwest.
“Then it was basically, ‘Well, what else can we do to improve the soil?’” Towery said. “And that was when
Dan Towery attending a trade show on behalf of the Oregon Seed Commissions.
Nick Bowers
cover crops came into the picture.” He formed Ag Conservation Solutions after leaving NRCS.
In addition to his work on small plots and fieldscale trials, Towery arranged dozens of grower meetings over the years where he spoke on the benefits of cover crops and provided instruction on how to seed, grow and terminate annual ryegrass. Towery also wrote articles for trade journals and worked with the Howard Buffet Foundation to spread the word about cover crops.
“So much of what we see in publications and discussions today can be traced back to people like Dan Towery and Mike Plumer as well as the Oregon growers that were involved in this program,” said Bryan Ostlund, administrator of the Oregon Ryegrass Commission. “And Dan will never be fully recognized for the contributions that he made, but for those of us
who have had a front row seat to it all, we certainly recognize that he is part of the A-team and that we wouldn’t be where we are today without him.”
“Dan was very instrumental in helping people get started in cover crops,” said Nick Bowers, who worked with Towery for many years in bringing annual ryegrass to the Midwest. “Dan was always willing to challenge people to try new things and he has a personality that isn’t afraid to call people’s bluff when they say things like, ‘I can’t do this.’ He wasn’t afraid to have a serious conversation to get people to change their philosophy on how to farm.”
He is part of the A-team and that we wouldn’t be where we are today without him.”
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Bryan Ostlund on Dan Towery
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“Dan was a real advocate for complete systems of no-till and cover cropping that worked for the farmers,” said Dan Perkins, a Certified Crop Advisor from Demotte, Indiana, who is known as the “cover crop guy” in Midwest circles and who now contracts with the Oregon Ryegrass Commission. “Everyone I met seemed to know Dan Towery and respect his thoughts and ideas. He had a vision for what success looked like that the typical farmer could grasp. And he had a way of not selling cover crops, but advocating principles and practices that worked.”
Dan was not only the key to getting cover crops a good reputation across the Midwest, but he mentored and trained the next generation of cover crop advocates.”
Dan Perkins
Today many Midwest growers have discovered the benefits cover crops can provide a corn and soybean system, including improved soil health, better water retention and, in many cases, a significant boost in yields, particularly in dry years where annual ryegrass roots help create pathways corn and soybean roots can follow to water. And annual ryegrass is being used to break up fragipan, a cementlike layer of soil that inhibits crop growth on millions of acres in the Midwest and Southeast U.S.
Cover crop production practices, meanwhile, have evolved to where growers are utilizing a variety of strategies to plant and terminate the crop, including overseeding cover crops into standing corn to give it a head start and planting green, a term for planting the corn or soybeans into a standing cover crop before coming back to burn down the cover crop with an herbicide or a roller crimper. And growers are using cover crop mixes comprised of different species of seed produced in Oregon, including radish, turnips, clovers and annual ryegrass.
According to sources, Towery had a critical role in this evolution.
“Dan really did a nice job,” Ostlund said. “He hung in there for a long time, making sure that the program really had a broader perspective, both in terms of geography and in terms of research into how to use cover crops and the benefits they provide.”
“Dan spent a lot of time working with growers in their fields and at meetings on how to utilize cover crops in their systems,” Bowers said. “Dan Towery is a name that did cover crops a lot of good.”
“Dan was not only the key to getting cover crops a good reputation across the Midwest, but he mentored and trained the next generation of cover crop advocates,” Perkins said. “He took me under his wings early on in my career and taught me a lot of the dos and don’ts of cover cropping.
“I owe my success in my ag career to many of our long phone calls, field days and visiting with farmers together over the past ten years,” Perkins said.
Looking back on his career, Towery ranks his work in cover crops and with no-till as the two biggest contributions he’s made to agriculture. And, he said, working with the Oregon industry was rewarding and enjoyable.
“I can’t say enough about the relationship I’ve had with Bryan Ostlund,” Towery said. “He and the Oregon growers I’ve gotten to know were just awesome to work with.”
Today, Towery, 71, lives with his wife, in West Lafayette, Indiana. F
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Samuel Whitmer of Keithly-Williams Seed traveled from Arizona to Salem in April to learn more about grass seed at the first of what the industry hopes is a yearly grass seed workshop. “It is important in being a seed analyst to be able to recognize all types of seed,” said Whitmer, who is based in Yuma.
Olivia Selleck, who regularly analyzes grass seed at the SGS Brookings, South Dakota Laboratory, came to Salem to learn more about performing purity and germination tests. “I am just trying to be more helpful in the lab back home,” she said.
Wil Mullins, a chemist for the West Virginia Department of Agriculture, said he came to Salem to bone up on grass seed analysis to help in the tests he conducts on seed imports. “I am trying to get information from people a lot more experienced than me,” he said.
Whitmer, Selleck and Mullins were among the 38 participants in the first Mega Cool Season Grass Seed Workshop, held April 24-28 at Chemeketa Community College’s Agricultural Complex. The workshop, which included hands-on classroom experience and tours of a seed cleaning plant and a seed research farm, was put on by
the Pacific Northwest Seed Technologists and the Oregon Seed Association in cooperation with the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Chemeketa Community College’s Agricultural Sciences Program donated classroom space.
“This was a natural fit for us to be able to host this workshop,” said Tim Ray, dean of agriculture at Chemeketa. “This aligns with what we want to do here as a college in terms of building this facility to support the broader ag industry and grass seed is certainly one of the larger crops here in the midWillamette Valley.”
Angie Smith, former executive director of the Oregon Seed Association, said the industry decided to hold the workshop for two reasons: to encourage more people to become registered seed technologists; and to train existing technologists on proper identification of Oregon-grown grass seed.
“The Pacific Northwest Seed Technologists recognized that there is a shortage of technologists,” Smith said. “And there is also the need to teach other regions about Oregon grass seed so that when seed is shipped to other parts of the country, they have the knowledge needed to properly test it.”
“Since we are the people who grow it and know
it, we should be teaching it,” said Sharon Davidson, owner of Agri Seed Testing in Salem, who, along with Jane Penrose, also of Agri Seed Testing, did much of the heavy lifting in getting the workshop off the ground.
About half of the participants in the workshop came from close to home, which could help address the need for more seed analysts in the Willamette Valley, a need that is becoming more pronounced as many of today’s commercial seed analysts near retirement age.
“We are finding that many of our seed analysts are over 50 or even over 60,” said Dan Curry, director of Seed Services at Oregon State University. “So, it won’t be too long and we’re going to be aged out on some of our analysts.”
Participants in the Mega Cool Season Grass Seed Workshop at Chemeketa Community College on April 25. Thirty-eight participants from around the country attended the workshop.
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Jane Penrose of Agri Seed Testing has been named the 2023 recipient of the Society of Commercial Seed Technologists’ (SCST) Meritorious Service Award.
Penrose, who started at Agri Seed Testing in 1986, has been an active member of SCST for more than two decades, including serving on the organization’s Executive Board from 2006-2009. She has trained hundreds of people in seed testing over the years, according to Sharon Davidson, owner of Agri Seed Testing.
“She instills the same work ethic in them that she was raised with,” Davidson said. “They learn life skills as well as seed purity testing skills with Jane as their supervisor.”
Penrose also works with many of the seed conditioners in Oregon, Davidson said, teaching them how to identify contaminants and giving advice on how to pull problem seeds out of a crop.
Two years ago, Penrose was instrumental in helping Chemeketa Community College start a new curriculum in agriculture, Davidson said. “She sat on the committee that created what is now a wellrounded, two-year degree for people in agriculture, with exposure to seed testing.”
Penrose was also instrumental in putting on
a Mega Cool Season Grass Workshop, held at Chemeketa in April, and taught several topics at the workshop, as well as created a take-home binder with presentations, worksheets and quizzes, Davidson said.
“Jane is a true leader,” Davidson said. “Other supervisors with Agri Seed Testing and from other labs respect and look to Jane for help when they have a difficult situation. She has truly devoted her life to seeds and her enthusiasm about them comes through in all she does.”
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Curry added that, while there are no academic degree requirements to become a seed analyst, the training requirements are substantial and a workshop can help prepare future seed analysts.
“It takes a lot of training to become a competent seed analyst,” he said. “It takes years of training, of identifying seeds and looking at literally millions of seeds. So, the seed industry has been taking steps to address that. We can’t just expect new people to come in and want to work in the same areas we do. We have to encourage them.
“We hope to start alerting students (at Chemeketa Community College) to consider seed analysis as a potential career path, that they could go to school there and also work at some of our labs and get training,” Curry said.
The effort to bring new, young people into the profession faces several challenges, Curry said, including low entry-level pay – many seed analysts start at $15 an hour – and not all young people are interested in peering through a magnifying glass at grass seed for multiple hours a day. At the OSU Seed Lab, for example, the first step managers take in determining if a person is interested in becoming a seed analyst is to check their tolerance to the position’s demands.
“We do something called pre-picking,” Curry said. “We might get ten people to start right before harvest, maybe a month before. And the first thing we do is
to have them look at seeds through a scope or a magnifying glass for a couple of hours to see if they can stand it. And some people can’t.”
Once an analyst is hired, an experienced analyst will review their work and train the new analyst on what is correct identification and what is not correct, Curry said. Separating grass seed from weed seeds, or the purity analysis, is by far the hardest part of the job to master, Curry said, and the most demanding.
A second approach the industry is taking to address a shortage of seed analysts involves the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve efficiency. OSU Seed Services is using two grants to develop AI that can distinguish between a weed
seed and a grass seed, including a $175,000 USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant administered by the Oregon Department of Agriculture, and a $15,000 grant from the Oregon grass seed commissions.
The approach started earlier this year with an effort to teach a computer to distinguish between tall fescue and ryegrass seed and the weed curly dock. That effort will balloon in the next phase to develop AI to distinguish between more weeds and more grass seed species.
The team behind the project includes a robotics engineer, two computer scientists, a statistician, an associate professor in the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology and Curry. The plan is to develop a convolutional neural network, or CNN, to provide the seed analysis.
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Jake Stockfleth, general manager of Oregon Seed Cleaning in Salem, never took a class in seed cleaning or attended a workshop. He, like probably every cleanerman working today, learned on the job, in his case, from cleaning his own farm’s seed.
In a profession that has no classes or other formal training, learning on the job is pretty much the only way to gain experience. And as seed analysts have started conducting workshops, seedsmen are wondering whether they need something similar.
“I think seed cleaners at least need a kind of an apprenticeship program to keep the workforce intact,” Stockfleth said.
At issue, Stockfleth said, is that many of today’s top seed cleaners are nearing retirement. When they leave, Stockfleth worries there will be a shortage of competent seed cleaners.
In many respects, there is no replacement for on-the-job training, Stockfleth said, but classes or workshops could help attract young people to the profession and weed out those who don’t have an aptitude for the job.
“It is something that you have to have a little love for and be in a lot of ways detail oriented, because you’ve got to get it right. And it does take a little bit of a creative mind thought process, where you might be changing the screens a little bit or
changing the speed,” Stockfleth said. “You can teach the basics, but then it starts getting to where you need experience to do it right and you’ve got to have an open mind to think outside the box.”
For those looking to get into the profession, Stockfleth said the best approach is to go to a seed cleaning operation and see if they need help. Once you get on, be inquisitive.
“Get a job at a cleaner and start asking questions or just let the individual you are working for know that you want to learn how to do it,” he said.
The pay isn’t great to start with, he said, but a cleanerman who shows interest in the profession can move up quickly. And, he said, there are a lot of overtime pay opportunities in the summer months.
The seasonal aspect of the job can be discouraging for those looking for full-time employment, Stockfleth said, but many operations now offer full-time, year-round employment.
Stockfleth, who has been cleaning seed for more than 40 years, said for the right person, the profession can be rewarding and fulfilling. And with many cleanermen nearing retirement, there are certainly opportunities available for those interested in the profession. F
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The technology could be utilized in multiple ways, including a pre-screening, which would cut down on the volume of seed a seed analyst would need to analyze, and even in eliminating the need to physically bring a sample to a testing facility.
“Instead of a conditioning plant taking a sample of the grass seed to a seed lab, you could take a picture of it, then send it to the convolutional neural network,” Curry said. “The CNN would then make some determinations and that image could go over to a seed analyst who could confirm the images and then all that information can go back to the warehouse operator, all within five minutes or so.”
Curry said the project principals hope to have a prototype available at the conclusion of the twoand-a-half year SCRI grant.
In the meantime, the first effort to entice new seed analysts into the profession and to educate seed analysts from across the country in a workshop went well, organizers said.
“I’m surprised at the number of areas we have represented here,” said Smith, who was on hand
April 24 to help organize the event. “We’ve seen attendees from all parts of the country, including Arkansas, Montana and West Virginia. And I’m surprised by the number of registrants.
“We were hoping for 30 and we were going to max out at 40, and we just about got to 40,” she said.
“I’m pretty excited because we have people from across the United States participating,” said Davidson, “Seed regulatory labs sent people and even the USDA sent two people.”
According to responses from participants, the workshop was hitting its goals, at least in terms of educating people about Oregon-grown grass seed.
“It’s been a great learning experience,” said Selleck, who was at the workshop with two of her colleagues from the Brooking’s SGS lab.
“This is providing me with so much information that I did not know,” said Mullins, the West Virginia chemist. “It’s great to learn from people so much more knowledgeable than me.” F
On a visit to Willamette Valley seed farms this summer, Southern Illinois research agronomist John Pike gained a better understanding of the sophisticated growing practices and customer service employed by Oregon seed producers. And he shared findings of some cover crop research being conducted in the Midwest.
“It was kind of a two-way street for me to learn and to share what we are working on in Southern Illinois and that would be applicable to the Midwest,” Pike said.
Pike, who contracts with the Oregon Ryegrass Commission to advance cover crop usage in the Midwest, had met several Oregon seed producers at events like the annual National No-Till Conference over the years, but had never been to Oregon.
“I came out here to get a little more in-depth view about what’s going on and meet more people,” he said. “I think just having a better idea of how things work in this area is really important.
“And I think it is important for me to strengthen my linkages with Oregon seed companies and explain
to them some of the work that we’re doing with the annual ryegrass in our fragipan remediation program, how we’re changing the soils and improving productivity with annual ryegrass in cover crop mixes,” he said.
Pike said he was impressed with several aspects of Oregon seed production, including the scope and intensity of operations.
“The growers I talked to, they’re not just there to grow a product,” he said, “they’re there to provide a service with their product and to put the linkages together to develop the markets accordingly.”
Pike has been working on cover crop adoption in the Midwest for the past 15 years as an independent consultant. Interest in cover crops has increased very gradually in that time, he said, but of late, he’s noticed a fairly significant change in grower attitudes toward cover crop adoption.
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“There is definitely some movement in the right direction as far as increased cover crop adoption,” he said. “I think it is never as quick as we would like to see it, but I’m seeing a growing interest in a lot of the field days and meetings that I do from a wider variety of farmers. I’d say probably six to eight years ago, it wasn’t uncommon that at the local Soil and Water Conservation District field day you would tend to be preaching to the choir, or people that were already involved in cover crop management in their fields who had seen it at work and were believers of the system. You didn’t see a lot of the nonadopters there. Now, when I do meetings, there’s more of a mix.”
Pike attributed at least some of the increased interest to heightened attention on nutrient management in the Midwest, including increased interest from conservationists on nitrate losses and phosphorus runoff into the Mississippi watershed and the benefits cover crops can have in reducing nutrient runoff.
“Farmers are more aware of the environmental implications of their practices,” he said. “And I think now more than ever, with the advent of the carbon programs and other conservation dollars that are in the mix right now, there are opportunities to get cost share to fix things on certain farms.
“Still, there is some perceived risk about taking that first step in cover crop management because the majority of our farm families and operations have been in business for years, if not generations, and they have made it to this point without doing that, and it’s not fair to expect those operations to change overnight,” Pike said.
“But I think people have their eyes open to the opportunities available right now,” he said. “It’s not a one-size-fits-all system like it is to adopt a new herbicide program in a corn or soybean system in our part of the world. But I think the support is there, both from the production companies in Oregon and the distribution network in our part of the world in the Midwest. So, it is just a matter of working together to make sure that we help people make the right decision.”
With several conservation cost-share programs ready to be rolled out, Pike said the next couple of years will be a key time for the cover crop industry.
“I think there is a lot of waiting right now to kind of see how these new carbon programs and the Climate Smart Partnership programs roll out, because there are a lot of federal dollars involved in that for either
cost share for cover crops, reduced tillage or changes to nutrient management plans,” he said. “I think a lot of operations are holding back to see what is going to be available.”
As far as what he shared with Oregon producers, Pike said he emphasized the importance of cover crop mixes during his visit.
“The key to a good cover crop program is to have a mix of different species to provide different benefits to the soil or the cropping system,” he said. “It’s not just a component of working with grass as a cover crop or clovers. It’s more of a synergy in the way that mix impacts the soil biology and the rooting characteristics of the plants. It’s putting pieces of a puzzle together.”
Pike also shared information on a research project looking at how the root exudates of annual ryegrass break up fragipan, a cement like layer of soil that affects production of millions of acres of crop land in the Midwest and parts of the Southern U.S. In the multi-year project, he and a team of researchers that include scientists from the USDA Agricultural Research Service station in Ames, Iowa, are investigating the dynamics of plant-available water in established cover crop strip trials. The hope is to better explain substantial yield advantages in some years where drought stress is encountered where annual ryegrass is used as a cover crop.
“We’ve been through eight years (in the trial), so four complete rotations of corn and soybeans, and in two of the corn years, we’ve seen a significant yield increase on the corn of 15 to 30 bushels,” he said.
The project is also trying to ferret out why the annual ryegrass plots outperform the non-annual ryegrass plots, Pike said. The research team is analyzing soil temperature and water infiltration differences between the two plots with sensors placed to depths of 40 inches at six-inch intervals. And the team is analyzing how fast water infiltrates the soil and how much available moisture accumulates after a rain event.
The team also is finding that the plot with annual ryegrass dries out faster in the spring than the nonryegrass plot, allowing growers to access land earlier in the growing season. “A better understanding of how cover crops can impact available soil moisture is a critical factor in timing the termination of the cover crop effectively, to pair with the weather of the season, rather than merely timing with the calendar,” Pike said.
“Water infiltration and water conservation and temperature moderation are very important in the
heat of our growing season,” he said, “but they can sometimes be disadvantages early in the season when we are trying to establish a crop. So, if we can find out how to better manage the cover crop as a watermanagement tool, that would be huge.”
Pike, who spent the better part of a week touring Oregon seed farms in the mid-August trip, said he was impressed with many aspects of the operations he visited, including the size of the Oregon seed operations. “It was eye opening,” he said. “We think
about the big equipment and things in the Midwest, but I’m seeing similar things out here in the size of the operations, the intensity of the management and all of those things. There are a lot of commonalities. And I think that is a good thing, because we’ve got people all over the country that are working to the same end. And to see the same mindset, no matter what type of agriculture we are dealing with, and the quality of people we are dealing with, it was just unbelievable. It’s just been a pleasure to be here.” F
s the summer comes to an end, it is hard to believe I have completed my third year as the South Valley field crops agent. It has been three unusual years of extreme heat, late spring snow, excessive rain and extended drought. I am hoping that this fall will bring rain at the right time for good crop establishment and weed control.
When I started this position, voles were one of the main challenges growers and field agronomists mentioned. Vole populations have continued to cause severe damage in at least some fields every year since then. To tackle the problem, I decided to start with some foundational work. To test vole management practices we needed a way to measure vole damage so we could compare different treatments. I used a drone to document vole damage and was able to differentiate between areas in a field with vole damage and those without. Damaged areas stood out because the crop was shorter and there was more bare soil visible between the rows.
With a way to measure vole damage, I have started using this method to test a new control practice. I am continuing the bait box work started by Nicole Anderson
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and Steve Salisbury. The ODA has agreed to consider an SLN label for some alternative rodenticide active ingredients applied in bait boxes with sufficient data that shows this would actually help control voles. With some timely funding from the Tall Fescue Commission, I started testing five baits in bait boxes in a tall fescue field in the spring (when we think this approach has the best chance of working). The bait boxes were able to measure when there was activity in the box and I weighed the bait to see if any was eaten. Overall, the voles appeared to like the baits at least as much as the chicken feed check. Between April and early June, there was activity in the boxes and bait consumption most weeks. The grass seed commissions have provided funding for me to replicate this study in three fields next spring. Please give me a call if you have a field that would be a good study site for this trial.
Another problem pest for white clover growers in the South Valley is the clover seed weevil (CSW). Growers and fieldmen have reported poor control with bifenthrin products for several years now. I am collaborating with Navneet Kaur (OSU Extension entomologist), Seth Dorman (USDA entomologist), Dani Lightle (OSU
IR-4 Project), Nicole Anderson (OSU Extension seed specialist) and Grace Tiwari (OSU graduate student) to find improved control methods for this pest. As of this harvest, we have three site years of data on several possible new insecticides. This is important because Navneet and Grace found clear evidence that CSW are highly resistant to bifenthrin. In the field studies we saw higher numbers of CSW in the plots sprayed with bifenthrin than in the check plots.
In addition to helping growers with problems, I think it is important to pursue opportunities to help make crop production more resilient in the Valley. I am collaborating with Jen Moore (USDA soil scientist) and Kristin Trippe (USDA soil microbiologist) on a Western Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education funded project to assess soil carbon in grass seed fields. Grass seed production fulfills many of the recommendations for increasing soil carbon. Perennial grasses keep the soil covered for several years at a time. Crop rotation increases diversity while growers prepare fields for a new grass crop and many fields are grazed by livestock. By better understanding how our production practices influence carbon in the soil we can tell the story of how grass seed production protects soil health. We can also use this knowledge to manage soil carbon in our production systems, possibly improving water holding capacity and increasing resilience to the unusual weather that has become more common in recent years.
My efforts to connect with growers when I started this position during the height of the pandemic included a virtual “Coffee Hour” program held over Zoom. I was surprised to realize that people wanted that virtual programing to continue, even when we were all ready for more in-person events. I am working on the schedule for the fourth year of Coffee Hours. These will be held once a month during the fall, winter and spring, so keep an eye on your email for the schedule. The
annual crop production growers’ meetings in the fall and winter will also continue as usual. The fall meetings will be over before you read this but mark your calendars for the winter meetings on January 9 and 10.
Visiting farms and chatting with growers and field agronomists is one of my favorite parts of this position. Please don’t hesitate to reach out if there is anything I can help you with. You can reach me on my cell at (541) 570-5642 or by email at Christy.tanner@oregonstate. edu. F
At ISG, we recognize the importance of commitment and dedication to each of our growers. We take our time, experience and knowledge to help each grower make crop decisions to better their business. Give us a call today, our staff is always available for questions, concerns and advice from planting to harvest or from cleaning to sales.
kpietrok@integratedseed.com
y work with Oregon Seed Council (OSC) began on May 8, and what an adventure it has been.
I’ve spent these last few months learning the ins and outs of the organization and industry, meeting with members and learning what the OSC can do to best support the industry as a whole, meaning everyone who touches seed from when the seed is planted, to when it’s harvested, to when the product makes it into the hands of the consumer.
A big part of my personal philosophy is that in order to best elevate the industry, all voices need to be at the table. Each of you know best what it means to do the work you do day in and day out. And opening a dialogue, hearing all perspectives, ideas, initiatives, concerns and thoughts of our partners will allow us to do more.
It’s not one person alone who can advance the industry, it’s a collective effort.
This philosophy is why I’ve been investing a significant amount of time in getting on the road and meeting members of the Council and industry partners.
In each of my talks with growers, cleaners, marketers, exporters, associations and partners in industry, one thing is clear: working together, we can make a difference and tell the story of the good the seed industry brings to our local communities, to the state and to our nation through our impact on the economy, our stewardship of the land, care for the environment and for the people we impact, employ and those who enjoy our products.
While I have some goals and a vision for the OSC, the map for the future will be shaped by the voices of the industry. What I’m hearing and seeing is a strong desire for collaboration, support, resources, understanding and partnership, both internally in the industry and externally with our elected officials, with agencies and the public.
Some core functions of the OSC and places where members see value are:
• Serving as a forum for industry members to come together, collaborate, share ideas and have discussions about issues impacting the industry;
• Representing the industry in legislative and regulatory matters; and
• Elevating the seed industry in the public, the media and with regulators and legislators.
Each of these are critical pieces of the puzzle moving forward. We have a tremendous opportunity before us to ensure our story is heard.
One of my goals is to shift our focus toward education. Over the years, we’ve seen a decline in connection to and understanding of the seed industry and agriculture broadly. I see this as a great opportunity for us. In order to be effective in the Legislature and with regulatory agents, I see each of our members and our industry broadly as important parts of that dialogue.
Walking into this role, one of the most helpful things for me has been meeting one-on-one, or in groups, seeing the operations and talking with you about how regulation has impacted you, your business and what you need. Being able to see and feel connected to the industry is a powerful thing and a great way to help regulators see the impact of policy.
Our industry is strongly connected and one costly policy can cause a ripple effect across the industry. But through you and through our partners, we can be proactive and united to shape policy that advances our work and works best for you.
When I look at the work of our members, the contributions they make to discussions, the innovation in the industry and work they do support one another, I see a great opportunity to bring this expertise and comradery to a table – to have meaningful discussions and shine a light on the positive work of our industry.
While the work of the Oregon Seed Council for the
next five to ten years is not yet penned on paper, the vision is becoming clearer. Together, we can share our message and help people understand what it means for the seeds they see growing into luscious grass on their favorite soccer field, the grains they have for breakfast, the oils that make up their cosmetics to get from start to finish in a production line and why what you do is so important.
I’m optimistic for our future and look forward to working with each of you to advance our industry.
One ask I have for you as members of the seed industry is to please consider volunteering for one of the OSC committees. We are re-activating our committees and looking for members to provide unique perspectives in our industry discussions.
The OSC is activating the following steering committees:
• Government Affairs
• Public Relations and Education
• Scholarship
• Seed Services Advisory Committee
• Smoke Management
If you are interested in participating in any of our committees or would like to provide any additional feedback, please be sure to reach out: Megan@MACConsulting-LLC.com
I am truly honored to serve you and the Oregon seed industry and hope to hear from you. F
The Oregon Seed Council (OSC) has been hard at work supporting the industry at the state and federal level, monitoring a myriad of policy concepts and budgets advocating for the interest of our members. Below are a few updates on OSC activities.
The 2023 Legislative Session started off fiercely political. Senate Republicans staged a walkout May 3, leaving the Senate without quorum for six weeks, making this the longest walkout in Oregon Legislative history.
The result: for the seed industry, well, it was relatively unimpactful, which says quite a lot. There were a number of policies the OSC carefully watched that could have significantly impacted the industry. Thankfully, however, agriculture generally walked out with two notable policy wins and a budgetary win.
One policy of note was SB 498A, which changed the estate tax law for natural resource lands. This measure, which went into effect September 23, now allows an exclusion up to $15 million of property value if the property is owned five years prior to death and owned by family members for five calendar years following the death. Please check with your tax advisor/attorney for more information on estate tax planning.
SB 955, signed by the governor in July, creates a new suicide prevention hotline for agricultural workers. The Legislature approved $300,000 to fund the implementation of an AgriStress helpline in Oregon, administered through the Oregon State University Extension Service.
A shining point of the session for the seed industry and agriculture broadly was the passage of the Oregon State University (OSU) statewide budget. During the session, the OSC and other industry partners helped OSU work on and secure additional funding. The outcome was current service level, plus. Initially, the governor’s recommended budget was $16 million below the current service level. In an email from Dr. Ivory Lyles, Lyles noted that he would be committed to fulfilling the grass seed production position. Dean Staci Simonich has also reiterated her desire to fill the position, with additional funding.
Additional bills of note include:
• HB 2073 - which adds processors to types of entities that do not have to pay the Corporate Activity Tax if shipping out of state. It defines a processor as someone who purchases and processes for first sale an agricultural commodity. This may have an impact on the seed industry but depends on structure. Often producers process seed before selling.
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• SB 530 is supposed to set up an office that manages all the carbon programs in the state. That bill did not pass, but this provision was moved into HB 3409. This will be managed under the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board (OWEB). OSC will be monitoring this legislation.
Members of the OSC attended the U.S. House Committee on Agriculture Committee Farm Bill listening tour and provided testimony to the committee on the IR-4 program, advocating grasses grown for seed be added to the IR-4 program through the Farm Bill to support OSC’s current projects. OSC submitted written comments on crop insurance accessibility, specialty crop grant access, support for $1.5 million investment back into western state universities, including OSU, and incentives for cover crops. The listening session was held at Linn-Benton Community College. From Oregon, Representatives Andrea Salinas and Lori Chavez-DeRemer were present. The Chair of the Committee, Glenn Thompson, and two Representatives from California were also present. We were grateful to have Helle Ruddenklau, Denver Pugh and David Mele also testify in support of programs for the seed industry.
I was fortunate to be able to visit Representative Shelly Boshart-Davis’s operations following the listening session with OSC President Kate Hartnell and Roger Beyer, OSC’s outgoing executive director. Representative Boshart Davis graciously hosted the visiting members of Congress and other industry partners. The tour was beneficial, providing insight to our elected officials on what the industry does and offered a great way to build relationships with the U.S. Representatives and staff on issues for the seed industry.
OSC submitted a letter in opposition to the EPA proposed pesticide ban for its vulnerable species pilot program and has been working with a coalition to protect the industry. You likely saw an action alert with a template for member comments from OSC. If you did not, please reach out (Megan@MAC-
Consulting-LLC.com). These efforts require all the support we can get.
We are hearing that both the agricultural community and environmentalists have commented that the project goes too far. Our Congressional delegation is working with us to address this issue as well, and we are grateful for their support.
I’ve heard from quite a number of our members that yields are low this year. OSC is pursuing options for financial assistance and relief for the season and working with agency and federal partners. To get traction, we need your help to get some data. We are seeking the following information:
1. Crop type and overall yields this year.
2. Comparison to previous years.
3. What events led to the low yield (i.e. weather and approximate date of weather event).
Please share any information you have to: Megan@MAC-Consulting-LLC.com
There are a number of initiative petitions popping up across the state. OSC is monitoring the status and impact of these potential ballot measures on the industry and engaging in coalitions of opposition to those that negatively impact the seed industry.
The Lane County Watershed Bill of Rights: This initiative, at a high level, would essentially allow anyone to sue on behalf of the environment. It would create many complications for landowners and sets a dangerous precedent.
IP 3 seeks to change the animal abuse statutes which, for the seed industry, if the initiative made it to the ballot and became law, would impact pest management.
There are many more activities going on that impact the industry that we are monitoring or are engaged in.
If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.”
• Email: Megan@MAC-Consulting-LLC.com
• Phone: 503-585-1157
arly September saw the first board meeting of the season for the Oregon Seed Research Institute (OSRI), and it felt great to get the board back together and wrap up what took place out at Steve Salisbury’s research farm as well as his on-farm trials during harvest 2023.
It’s also great to report that in only OSRI’s second season, it is already up and running near full capacity. Steve has done a masterful job of developing test blocks in cooperation with the board and industry members. And the equipment that we purchased, the crown jewel of which being the brand new Zurn 160 plot harvester combine, worked flawlessly, as did the swather, which is an older piece of equipment, but which also worked without a hitch.
The marriage between the size of the swather’s windrow and the Zurn 160, in fact, couldn’t be better. Added to the other equipment that has been secured by the industry, the plot drill and the weigh wagon, it makes for a great investment and a success story for the industry.
I’d also like to express my compliments to Becky Berger, who continues to chair the Oregon Seed Research Institute Board of Directors and has done a great job of keeping people moving in a positive and productive direction.
Next up for the board will be additional meetings as we move into the Request for Proposal (RFP) process with researchers from USDA Agricultural Research Service, Oregon State University and other entities. This will be the second year of this new, retooled process for reviewing RFPs. As part of the new process, the Oregon Seed Research Institute will have a Research Roundup meeting likely in February where industry representatives can come hear researchers give their reports and interact directly with researchers on their efforts and proposed projects.
In the second half of this column, I’d like to acknowledge the Oregon Department of Agriculture for being very supportive of the industry’s efforts regarding cover crops. As part of its support of the
many seed crops that we produce here that are used in cover crop markets largely in the Midwest, the ODA will once again sponsor a reception at the National NoTill Conference, being held in Indianapolis in January.
These receptions are typically very well attended and offer a great opportunity to get our industry out in front of those who are clearly interested in cover crops in the Midwest. As part of the reception, we will have invitations going out to industry members who are marketing cover crop seed back in the Midwest to join that effort. We will also have our cover crop contractors, John Pike and Dan Perkins, at the event to work with the attendees.
Thank you to the Oregon Department of Agriculture, for stepping in and taking a leadership role in our efforts to expand cover crop usage in the Midwest. F
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Last spring, we were reporting on the anticipated above-ground zinc phosphide special local needs SLN labels and when we could anticipate seeing their approvals, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulatory decisions impacting zinc phosphide and rodenticides, the research on ZnP bait formulations and where all of this leaves us. Well, today we’re still talking about most all of that and some new not-so-fun regulatory challenges heading down the pipe at us, such as the proposed all-out ban on all outdoor pesticide use in a substantial area encompassing agriculture and forestry here in Oregon.
Let’s begin with our ZnP update. The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) approved our above-ground broadcast application labels on May 2, 2023. These SLN labels are critical to the management of voles in grass seed fields and we appreciate the efforts by the ODA and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) to approve those labels each year.
Typically, the end date on those seasonal aboveground broadcast labels is September 15. This year we made a request to the ODA and ODFW to consider extending the end date to September 30. Based on everyone’s field observations, especially last year in the extended warm dry fall, there are very few if any migratory geese present in the state through September. Having the opportunity to apply ZnP up to the end of September would prove quite valuable to growers in their battle against voles.
Well, it doesn’t hurt to ask, and after review our request was granted. That announcement was made in late August and we were given the approval to apply ZnP bait until September 30. Granted, if you see geese in the field within 14 days of application, you cannot apply. That is reasonable. Again, thank you to the agencies for considering our situation and granting approval. Very helpful.
I have heard from several growers that the voles are still out there, but not nearly as intense and high
in populations as we have experienced in the past few years. That said, there are hot pockets of activity and those acres were treated with ZnP. The battle continues.
As for research, I reported last spring about a study being conducted by the USDA National Wildlife Research Center to evaluate different attractants to the bait to improve palatability and uptake. We are pleased with the intent of the research, funded by the grass seed commissions, but the scientists are running into a challenge. The study is designed to evaluate treatments on the gray-tailed vole, “our vole,” so the research team is trying to live trap and transport voles back to their facility. This is much easier said than done. They are still attempting to capture live voles to proceed with the study. Thank you to all the grower cooperators who have assisted with field access for trapping. We look forward to this project progressing.
Now for the regulatory landscape regarding rodenticides. Let’s just say it’s not all roses in this garden. To date, the EPA remains unchanged in their stance regarding risk mitigation measures they want employed for rodenticides. Yes, they affect grass seed growers. In a brief summary, the mitigation measures include: 1) Zinc Phosphide products will all be classified as restricted use pesticide (RUP). For us, this is no change as all of our current labels and ZnP products are RUPs. 2) New Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) requirements. These include the mandatory use of chemical resistant gloves and the use of a half-mask elastomeric APF10 respirator including the necessary certified fit test, training and medical evaluation for use. This will be additional cost, paperwork and time to you. 3) Prohibits the use of ZnP in turf, lawns, golf courses, campsites and other recreational areas. This does not impact grass seed fields. 4) Applicators must utilize the EPA’s Bulletins Live! Two systems to find out if there is an endangered and/or threatened species listed in the area of application. This does impact everyone. If the EPA’s bulletin lists a species of concern, then
the applicator will be required to follow whatever mitigation measures are listed. These measures could prohibit you from making the application at all. 5) Post-application follow-up for carcass search, collection and disposal. This one is a head-scratcher, but yes it does impact grass seed production. According to the proposal, growers would need to begin searching for and removing carcasses four days after application and continue the search/removal in one to two-day intervals for two weeks. Lastly, 6) Removal of any leftover or spilled bait remaining at application site, which includes any bait that the rodent has pushed out of its burrow.
These measures are quite cumbersome and do not seem practical. And these are just for ZnP. There are several other rodenticides that have their own list of risk mitigation measures being proposed. Yes, they are just as harsh and possibly worse in some cases.
We have been working with the Rodenticide Task Force, a national effort, to support their efforts in addressing concerns with the EPA’s proposal. Unfortunately to date, there does not appear to be much productive dialogue to make any progress. This is a significant national issue affecting US agriculture, so the good news is that we in our industry have lots of company standing with us. We are hopeful that working through our Congressional offices may bring some favorable resolution.
Ah, but the fun doesn’t end there. The EPA has also announced their proposed pilot project for Endangered Species Act (ESA) assessments. This is the EPA’s attempt at addressing the Mega Lawsuit they are being sued with regarding their lack of compliance with the ESA. The suit more or less identifies every major pesticide registered for use in American agriculture. The ESA assessment pilot projects are supposed to assess impacts on endangered species and their critical habitat as a result of a pesticide application.
So, enter the Taylor’s Checkerspot butterfly. The EPA with the help of USFW has identified the approximately one million acres of farm and forest land in the Willamette Valley where this butterfly lives. The agency has proposed that there will be no allowed use of outdoor
pesticides applied within the butterfly’s habitat. Yes, you read that correctly…No use of any pesticide. Yes, that would be devastating to agriculture production.
What’s more frustrating, there is no scientific basis for that proposed action. We are not the only ones with strong feelings about this. There are ESA pilot projects all over the US that are having the same potential devastating impacts on ag. Many large national groups and regional groups, such as Oregon Seed Council, are voicing strong concern about the impacts on agriculture. It is clear that the EPA’s proposal does not consider scientific-based knowledge, nor does it rely on specific risk assessments pertaining to pesticide use, agricultural practices and the species of concern. It is unacceptable to propose risk mitigation measures that eliminate the use of conventional pesticides without considering the potential exposure or effects founded in actual scientific fact. The implications of this action will cause significant negative impacts on agriculture and likely provide no benefit to the endangered species of concern. So, who wins here? Not a good game plan. There are better ways to go about doing this that do not have such serious ramifications to farms.
So, what do we do about it? These ESA proposed projects are causing a tremendous uproar in US agriculture. The Oregon Seed Council along with many of our friends in the industry are making our voices heard. I encourage you to reach out to your Congressional delegation and voice your concern over this. If they are not aware, then they need to be. F
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DUO has a wheat based attractant package.
In replicated trials, both Slugger 4.0 and BioSul killed 50% of slugs by day 2, and over 90% were dead by day 5.
When you partner with Barenbrug USA, you can be assured that from our investments in research and development to our commitment to marketing and market education, you are planting more than just seed - you are planting a legacy. We believe in long-term relationships that bring stability to growers and value to our customers. Our team works to provide expertise, high seed yield, rotational crops, new and innovative varieties and exceptional value. From first planting to harvest to finished product you can be confident that your legacy is in good hands. Come grow with us. David
