January 1997 News Releases

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January 30, l997

4-H'ERS WILL VIEW GOVERNMENT IN ACTION AT BOISE CONFERENCE

MOSCOW, Idaho -- Idaho 4-H members attending the Know Your Government Conference in Boise Feb.15-17 will have opportunities to see how the state's government works.

Gov. Phil Batt, judges and state legislators will help 4-H'ers understand the government decision-making process and judicial system, according to Mary Jean Craig of the Idaho State 4-H Office.

Legislative and judicial workshops are scheduled. Delegates attending the legislative workshop will tour the Capitol and hold mock committee meetings. In the judicial workshop,

4-H'ers will stage a mock trial after touring the Idaho Supreme Court building. Early Monday

morning, delegates will attend a breakfast with legislators and judges from the Boise area. At 11:30 a.m., they will observe the legislature in action.

Four third-year delegates will attend the Reporter Workshop featuring talks with local media professionals. Also they will produce a newsletter and a video about the conference.

Conference speakers include Gov. Phil Batt, Speaker of the House Mike Simpson, Supreme Court Chief Justice Linda Copple Trout and Supreme Court Justice Charles MeDevitt. LeRoy Luft, director of the University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System, will also address the delegates.

Sponsors of this year's conference are Albertsons Inc., Al Silva, Avenmore West, Inc., The Chevron Companies, Holiday Inn, Idaho Barley Commission, Idaho 4-H Endowment Fund,

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation, Idaho Grain Producers Association, Idaho Potato Commission,

Idaho Law Foundation, Idaho Pork Producers Association, Idaho Power Co., J.R. Simplot Company, KeyBank, N.A., Land O'Lakes, Potlatch Corporation, Purple Sage Cowbelles,

TCBY, The Country's Best Yogurt, United Dairymen of Idaho, UI Extension System and

U.S. Bancorp.

For more information about the conference, contact Mary Jean Craig at the State 4-H Office in Moscow, (208) 885-6321.

January 27, 1997

IDAHO'S NET NECROSIS OUTBREAK IN POTATOES PROMPTS UNIVERSITY RESEARCH INTO EFFECTS OF PESTICIDES ON LEAFROLL-SPREADING APHIDS

By Marlene Fritz, Communications Specialist

BOISE, Idaho--The green peach aphid populations that exploded last summer in Idaho potato fields left more than the discoloring potato defect "net necrosis" in their wake. They left questions in Idaho growers' and agricultural scientists' minds.

Net necrosis, spread by green peach aphids and capable of severely compromising potato quality both in storage and in the field, is currently plaguing the state more extensively than it has in nearly two decades. Phil Nolte, University of Idaho extension seed potato specialist in Idaho Falls, says it's been an "unmitigated disaster" for some growers.

Tom Mowry, a University of Idaho entomologist at Parma, wonders whether there's a connection between green peach aphid population flare-ups and fungicides sprayed preventively to protect fields from late blight. He says other states have experienced green peach aphid outbreaks in years when they treated potato fields with fungicides for late blight. Because green peach aphid numbers rose during both of Idaho's two late-blight years--1995 and 1996--Mowry says "we have reason to suspect a relationship."

This year, Mowry and several colleagues plan to study possible associations between late blight fungicides and green peach aphids. "We need to know if this is really operational in our potato fields," he says. "We want to make certain that we are not merely in the midst of a natural green aphid population outbreak."

At the University of Minnesota, scientists have documented 7- to 20-fold increases in green peach aphid populations exposed to weekly sprayings of some late blight fungicides. They say the fungicides incidentally destroy beneficial fungi that infect green peach aphids and that normally limit their numbers. But they also say it's unlikely the fungicides acted alone in Idaho.

What caused Idaho's 1996 potato leafroll virus epidemic probably "is not any one thing," says Minnesota entomologist David Ragsdale. "Fungicides are playing a part, use of insecticides for other insects is playing a part, weather is playing a part--and it looks like you've had the worst combination of all three of those."

Some scientists here suspect Idaho's unusually mild winters of 1994-95 and 1995-96 may have played the dominant role by allowing more aphids to survive the first year and to thrive the second. They note that green peach aphid populations blew up statewide in 1996, while fungicide sprayings were targeted primarily to the Magic and Treasure valleys.

"Even if there was a relationship in some fields, that didn't cause the aphid populations to explode over the whole state," says Dennis Corsini, a plant pathologist for the USDA Agricultural Research Service in Aberdeen. "I think we're grasping at straws trying to look for something to blame it on."

Unfortunately, "we don't have enough information to say ah, yes, or boo about it," says Nolte. But because a 1977 leafroll flare-up was not followed by another in 1978, he says a "one-shot deal may be what we're looking at (again) here: that we had perfect conditions for aphid populations to explode."

According to Nolte, it's likely to be early summer before 1996 industry fungicide application records can be compared side-by-side and site-by-site with losses to leafroll and net necrosis.

The University of Idaho scientists also want to examine the possible confounding impacts of insecticides commonly used to control potato pests. By destroying the predators and parasites of green peach aphids but leaving the aphids themselves untouched, some insecticides are known to fuel aphid outbreaks.

And, they plan to re-examine the applicability of current green peach aphid "economic threshold" levels--trigger-figures indicating to growers when the per-leaf population of green peach aphids in their fields reaches a level that is economically worthwhile to spray.

What is already perfectly clear is that growers will need to be more vigilant about controlling green peach aphid populations in 1997. Last summer, "they were absorbed with late blight and figuring out how they were going to control the mice in their fields," says Dave Barton, the university's extension educator in Jerome County.

"Leafroll hadn't been a problem since the 1970s--and it just sort of snuck up and bit people."

January 21, 1997

BLACK CURRANTS GAIN FOLLOWERS AMONG GROWERS AND CONSUMERS

By Diane Noel, Communications Specialist

MOSCOW, Idaho--They've got four times the vitamin C of oranges. Fanciers call their rich, purplish juice--as popular in parts of Europe as orange juice is in the United States--"aromatic," "very fruity" and "great stuff."

Now, black currants are making a ripple in U.S. markets with the November release of Ocean Spray's CranCurrant black currant cranberry juice drink. The release has stirred excitement among the scattering of currant growers who tend pint-sized plantings of the pungent black berries across the northern United States and southern Canada.

"They're very popular in Europe, but almost no one in the United States knows anything about them," says Danny Barney, superintendent of the University of Idaho Research and Extension Center at Sandpoint. "If they've tasted black currants fresh, they probably never want to try them again. The flavor is strong, almost obnoxious."

But, as U.S. consumers are starting to discover, "once they're processed, they're delightful."

At Homemade by Dorothy in Boise, Anna Baumhoff sells a black currant jelly made from Idaho-cultivated berries. "People try it and they fall in love with it," says Baumhoff. "I can honestly say it's one of the few I do enjoy....It tends to have more flavor than a lot of the other jellies."

So far, Ocean Spray buys its currants from Europe, where Poland and Germany produce much of the world supply. That should continue until U.S. growers can produce comparable volumes, quality and price for juice concentrate, says Ocean Spray's principal food scientist Jay Dravenstadt. In the meantime, he is discussing variety selection with interested growers.

"We're not at the stage where we would advise growers to go out and start planting huge quantities," says Dravenstadt. Still, the drink could cue smaller juice manufacturers to black currant's potential.

"I do see a window of opportunity for getting some small-scale operations going," says the UI's Barney. "Idaho has some of the best currant-producing ground in the country."

The best potential may lie with half-acre or acre operations selling fresh berries or high-end value-added products such as jams, jellies, juice or syrups, Barney says. Nurseries offering newer, disease-resistant varieties should also find eager markets, he predicts. Packed with vitamin C and other healthful compounds, currants should also appeal to the health-food market.

"I think this is a real coming industry," says Ed Mashburn, whose 200-member International Ribes Association deals with currants and gooseberries. Mashburn has seen interest in currants swell among commercial and backyard growers over the past three years, particularly among blueberry and raspberry growers who use existing equipment on this season-extending crop. While he can count only "a few" growers with 5 to 10 acres of currants, "most of them have the crop sold before they ever pick it"--mainly to wine, jam, and jelly makers.

At Vancouver Island's McGinnis Berry Crops Limited, propagator Dick McGinnis expects sales of his black currant plants to double this year and at least double the next as growers test them out. Orders come from Alberta, British Columbia, the Midwest, the Northwest and especially from Quebec.

At Weeks Berries of Paradise near Logan, Utah, a berry farm and processor 30 miles from Idaho, Mervin Weeks has planted 2,000 black currant bushes over the past three years. This winter he plans to cook his first harvest into juices, jams and syrups.

Calling the black currant juice he tasted in Europe "really good, striking good" he doesn't expect consumers' lack of familiarity to stall his sales. "I'm more concerned about raising them and getting good yields than I am about the product."

Barney considers currants easier to grow than raspberries. The bushes take three years to produce a crop, last 15 years or more and require little besides fertilization and pruning while yielding 5 to 8 pounds of berries per bush. Harvest is by hand or mechanical. Hardy to about -40 degrees F, the plants languish when summer temperatures break 100.

Idaho once banned currant production because the bushes spread white pine blister rust, which felled the state's white pine industry in the early 1900s. Only resistant pines are planted today. Currant varieties resistant to blister rust and to powdery mildew--currant's other important disease--are increasingly available.

Currants are so comfortable in the Pacific Northwest climate that they grow wild over much of its woods. "It's a potential crop," confirms Barney, "but it's like any other: There are tremendous opportunities and tremendous risks."

January 16, 1997

GROWERS INVITED TO U.I. SUGARBEET SCHOOLS AT FIVE LOCATIONS IN JANUARY

Marlene Fritz, Communications Specialist

BOISE, Idaho--Sugarbeet growers from throughout the Snake River Plain will have five opportunities this month to learn the latest in sugarbeet management at the 1997 University of Idaho Sugarbeet School.

Beginning at 9 a.m. and concluding at 3:15 p.m., the annual event has been scheduled for the USDA Plant Materials Center at Aberdeen on Jan. 27, the Best Western Burley Inn at Burley on Jan. 28, the Best Western Canyon Springs Park Hotel at Twin Falls on Jan. 29, the Nampa Civic Center at Nampa on Jan. 30 and the Ontario Elks Lodge at Ontario, Ore., on Jan. 31.

On the agenda are stand establishment--including the use of soil polymers and other techniques to reduce crusting--as well as early-season vole control, herbicide-resistant transgenic sugarbeet varieties, hand-labor free and late-season weed control, and water management to minimize such plant diseases as rhizomania, rhizoctonia and erwinia.

Participants at Aberdeen, Burley and Twin Falls will be eligible to receive one Idaho pesticide re-certification credit, while those at Nampa and Ontario may also receive three Oregon pesticide re-certification credits.

For more information, contact University of Idaho extension sugarbeet specialist John Gallian at 736-3633

January 13, 1997

NEW PESTICIDE LEGISLATION COULD PUT "MINOR USE" CHEMICALS AT RISK

By Marlene Fritz, Communications Specialist

BOISE, Idaho--Within the next 10 years, 30 to 50 percent of the agricultural chemicals currently used to control insects, weeds and diseases in Idaho's so-called "minor" crops could be limited or lost, says the director of the University of Idaho's Analytical Sciences Laboratory.

Clearly, the much-heralded, unanimously passed 1996 federal Food Quality Protection Act could ease consumer concerns and boost exports, says Greg Moller, a food science and toxicology professor and Idaho Food Quality Assurance Institute commissioner. But its short-term impacts on Idaho agriculture are "potentially devastating."

On the plus side, by driving pesticide residue levels on U.S. agricultural products comfortably below international tolerances, the FQPA is likely to open trade doors worldwide for U.S. producers and simultaneously close the U.S. market to less environmentally restricted foreign producers, Moller says. However, economics--more so than food safety--could take many pesticides off Idaho dealers' shelves.

That's because tolerances--or legally allowable residue levels--are expected to be established for many pesticides by class. Pesticides fall into classes based on their mode of action or toxic effect. To determine tolerances, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will be required to consider all sources of exposure--in food residues, in water, or in lawn or household chemicals--and determine the total risk from all pesticides that share the same toxic effect.

That means the risk allowed from a single insecticide may be 40 to 50 times lower than currently because 40 to 50 common insecticides have a common toxic effect. In many cases, tolerances for children--expected to be one-tenth that of adults--will set the standard.

Chemical manufacturers, each drawing from that total risk budget, will likely pit uses and chemicals against one another. "Corn and soybeans are not going to lose their registrations because somebody wants to register a use for peaches in Idaho," says Moller.

Crops grown on smaller acreages nationwide are considered "minor" by pesticide manufacturers and regulators. Among them are almost all Idaho crops, including potatoes, sugar beets, dry beans and apples. Nationally, only corn, soybeans, cotton and small grains are "major" crops.

Gene Carpenter, University of Idaho extension pesticide management specialist, predicts that within a decade Idaho growers will simply stop planting some minor crops. "I think that agriculture itself--the commodity groups, the producers--are going to have to pay more of the costs of registering pesticides if they want them," Carpenter says.

Moller says Idaho agriculture "may have to adopt a disaster 'triage' mentality of saving the most savable" chemicals first.

Which ones will be most savable is changing, too, as the FQPA requires new scientific understanding of potential endocrine and developmental impacts. Some guidelines will be several more years in development--and the basic implementation regulations for the FQPA aren't expected until mid-1997.

Meanwhile, Idaho farmers are holding their breath. "Some people say EPA is going to have a big hammer and others say they'll try to ease us into it," says Carpenter. "How much we're going to be hurt depends on which way they go."

Clearly, agricultural producers will need to minimize residues by moving towards integrated pest management practices and biotechnology, says Moller. He suspects that "we will be going further and further along towards prescription pest control."

Producers will also need to measure more precisely the amounts of residue their pest control practices leave behind. For the first time, the FQPA gives regulators the opportunity to base residue exposure calculations on cooked and processed products--typically lower in residues than raw commodities.

Also new: regulators' calculations can include the actual percentage of a crop treated with a pesticide, rather than assuming it was used on every acre. However, if producers cannot supply records to verify use, the exposure calculation defaults to 100 percent of the crop.

According to Ronda Hirnyck, chief of the Idaho Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Agrichemical Standards, Idaho pesticide legislation currently does not require private applicators to keep records of pesticide use. However, since the 1990 Farm Bill was adopted, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has directed all farmers to record their restricted-use pesticide applications. State inspectors spot-check these records to make certain that they are being kept in accordance with USDA requirements.

January 8, 1997

WOOL GROWERS HONOR EIGHT SKILLED 4-H'ERS

MOSCOW--Eight Idaho students won honors in the 1996 State 4-H Wool Scholarship Contest sponsored by the Idaho Wool Growers Promotion Division. The annual competition spotlights the achievements of 4-H members who are skilled in the construction of woolen garments.

Amy Grant, a senior at Culdesac High School, captured top honors with a pants suit outfit she constructed--vest and trousers of mulberry wine wool and a coordinated polyester blouse.After winning the northern Idaho district contest, she placed first in the

state and received a $500 college scholarship from the Idaho Wool Growers Association.

Anne Yankey, a high school senior at Weiser, won first place in southwestern

Idaho and alternate winner status in the state competition. Her prize-winning entry is a full

length, flared woolen cape.

Deena Hatfield of Burley, a high school senior, was named first-place winner in the central Idaho district. She constructed a wool suit.

The winner in eastern Idaho is Jessica Skinner of Dingle, a high school senior. She sewed a wool jumper and a matching polyester blouse.

Each of the district winners was awarded a $200 college scholarship by the Idaho Wool Growers Promotion Division. Second-place winners in the four districts each received a $50 United States savings bond.

The second-place awards were won by Relonda Hogaboam, Lewiston; Jennifer Aevermann, Caldwell; Julie Roundy, Oakley, and Annmarie Hancock. Rexburg.

January 8, 1997

MANAGING YOUR MONEY WELL THIS YEAR

Ivar Nelson, University of Idaho

If you made a New Year's Resolution to deep six your credit cards and start balancing your checkbook, then you will be getting the support of Idaho's Governor when Phil Batt proclaims January to be Financial Literacy Month. In a ceremony at his office at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, January 16, Governor Batt will support the campaign of the “Financial Literacy Coalition” to inform Idaho residents about the wise use of money.

Personal bankruptcy filings in Idaho are up 34 percent from last year and consumer debt is growing twice as fast as wage and salary gains. Linda Fox, University of Idaho family economics specialist, points out that in spite of a robust national economy, “many households are finding it harder and harder to achieve financial stability.” Although Idaho's personal consumer debt loan has dropped, moving Idaho from 6th to 12th in the nation, such debt persists as one of the biggest threats to people's financial security.

The Idaho Cooperative Extension System and the “Financial Literacy Coalition” are using workshops, financial management instruction, and publications to educate all residents in sound money management. A person's inability to pay debt hurts everyone and the irresponsible use of credit cards invariably leads to greater family and personal problems.

For further information, residents should contact their local office of the Idaho Cooperative Extension System, or contact the Agricultural Communications Center, Moscow, ID 83844-2332, telephone to 208 885 6436, fax to 208 885 9046, or email to cking@uidaho.edu. Request a catalog by mail, or find it on-line at http://www.info.ag.uidaho.edu.

Note: Linda Fox can be reached at the University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 84844-3188 or by calling her at 208-885-5778.

January 8, 1997

PREVENT BARK BEETLES IN STORM-DAMAGED TREES

Chris Schnepf, Kootenai County Extension Educator

With the interior Northwest strewn with trees downed in the recent storms, forest owners in areas with blowndown or broken ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, or Douglas-fir need to act to prevent insects from attacking the remaining trees.

The threat is bark beetles, insects the size of a match head that feed in the living tissue just underneath the tree bark. The pine engraver (also called “Ips” beetles) and the Douglas-fir beetle are bark beetles that particularly attack slash or trees damaged by ice, wind, or snow. Both of these beetles initially attack damaged green trees or slash and reproduce there. Later, their offspring emerge, looking for similar material. If they don't find it, they will attack standing green trees, often killing whole patches of trees. As Ladd Livingston, forest entomologist with the Idaho Department of Lands in Coeur d'Alene, emphasizes, “The danger is that people will lose not only storm-damaged trees, but their remaining good trees as well, if they don't act quickly to clean up their blowdown.”

To prevent bark beetles from attacking remaining trees, Chris Schnepf, the area forestry Extension educator for the University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System in Coeur d'Alene, advises people to remove the windblown and snow-broken pines before May, 1997, and Douglas-firs before the winter of 1997-98. “Focus on trunks three inches and larger in diameter. You can leave the smaller slash for forest nutrition as long as you don't create a fire hazard.” Debarking the downed trees would also remove the problem, but this is usually not feasible for more than a couple of trees.

When you have the equipment on site to take care of the downed trees, you might want to use it to catch up on thinning out overcrowded or otherwise stressed trees. There could be enough salvageable trees for a timber sale or you may need extra trees to help pay for the removal of the downed and damaged material. Contact a consulting forester to help you set up the sale and market the logs. As your representative, the consultant's success depends on keeping you satisfied by getting top prices for the logs while meeting your land management goals. Confirm the consultant fee before agreeing to the work, call references, and check credentials such as forestry degree and membership in the Association of Consulting Foresters or Society of American Foresters.

If you want someone to do a short site check of the property, contact a forest practice advisor from the Idaho Department of Lands. For more information on bark beetles, timber salvage, or consulting foresters, contact your local University of Idaho Cooperative Extension Office or Idaho Department of Lands Office.

Contacts: Chris Schnepf, Area Extension Educator - Forestry, University of Idaho Cooperative Extension System; UI Kootenai County Extension Office, 106 East Dalton Ave., Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814, TEL 208 667 6426; email cschnepf@uidaho.edu
Ladd Livingston, Forest Entomologist, Idaho Department of Lands, P.O. Box 670, Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816-0670; TEL 208 769-1525.

January 6, 1997

AG INDUSTRIES AWAIT POLITICIANS' RETURN TO WORLD TRADE ISSUES

By Clif Anderson, Communications Specialist

MOSCOW, Idaho--Besides their usual worries about insect pests, weeds and weather, farmers this year will be apprehensive about 1997 political decisions affecting free trade, Pacific Northwest university specialists say in a year-end report.

Programs for increasing international trade may fizzle in 1997 if political leaders fail to generate strong support, says Desmond O'Rourke, a Washington State University agricultural economist and one of two dozen educators authoring the 1997 Pacific Northwest Agricultural Situation and Outlook report.

In the report--issued jointly by land-grant universities in Idaho, Washington and Oregon--University of Idaho agricultural economist Larry Makus says wheat price levels will depend on "how aggressively the United States responds to competition for wheat exports."

"If U.S. wheat exports fall much below one billion bushels, additional downward pressure on wheat prices will likely result," Makus predicts.

O'Rourke notes that many nations--the U.S. included--are committed to reviving trade negotiations. However, he says, opponents of free trade still have political strength in countries around the world. They are so influential in Japan and Korea that "even talk of freer trade in agriculture is politically difficult in these countries."

Throughout the tri-state outlook report, the authors explain how international trade benefits the American economy. Some examples:

--U.S. agricultural exports reached a record estimated $60 billion in sales in fiscal year 1996.

--Export gains were greater in the grain sector, but robust gains also were registered in fruit, nuts and oilseeds.

--In 1996, export demand for pork was strong and exports to Japan and Canada rose sharply.

--Hay exports to Japan gave strength to 1996 prices for Pacific Northwest hay and forage products.

Nevertheless, during the 1996 Presidential campaign, neither Republicans nor Democrats made free trade a key issue. O'Rourke believes this was part of a strategy to "marginalize the stance of Patrick Buchanan and Ross Perot."

"Many major trade initiatives were on hold" during 1996 and can "either regain their momentum or fizzle in 1997," he says.

The North American Free Trade Agreement appears to have benefited agriculture in Canada and the U.S., O'Rourke says, while its third partner--Mexico--remains trapped in severe economic, political and social difficulties. But building "support for its vision of a Free Trade Area of the Americas" may be difficult for the United States "after abdicating leadership for more than a year."

"Much unfinished business" also remains in implementing World Trade Organization agreements, the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. "Tariffs are still high, quantitative restrictions are numerous, and phytosanitary barriers are endemic," O'Rourke says.

Imaginative leadership by the U.S. could encourage Asian Pacific nations to proceed with comprehensive trade agreements, O'Rourke suggests. Thus far, he says, American proposals for Asian cooperation have been "timid."

In today's complex world economy, U.S. exporters of agricultural commodities must be sophisticated in their targeting of specific markets and must be willing to adapt their products to meet customer preferences, O'Rourke says.

Unfortunately, "only the largest commodity groups in the Pacific Northwest have the personnel or infrastructure to carry out such a strategy," he says--pointing to an "urgent need to re-examine the role of public-private partnerships in strengthening Pacific Northwest agricultural exports."