Lewiston-Woodville, NC (May 18/TheState) North Carolina’s peanut belt got the kind of rain in 2013 that three decades ago could have wiped out the peanut crop.

The deluge of precipitation was ideal for nurturing devastating diseases for the harvests, but farmers had a defense: Most of them had planted protected peanut varieties that N.C. State University’s Tom Isleib and his staff developed to fight off the rain-fueled fungi, blights and viruses that can be the difference between a farmer making money and taking a loss.

A change in state law aims to make sure plant breeders such as Isleib and his fellow crop scientists get a return on their investment, too. This growing season, any purveyor of a protected variety caught selling unlabeled seed to avoid paying royalties to the plant breeder can be fined up to $10,000. That’s up from the $500 fine violators have risked since the 1940s.

The 20-fold increase reflects the rise of agricultural research as intellectual property, and it highlights the growing importance of royalties as a way to pay for innovations that guarantee a stable food supply.

Isleib — pronounced ISS-lub — believes patenting seeds tends to reduce the genetic diversity of crops by discouraging researchers from trading plant material. But he says it’s no longer feasible to place new varieties — known as cultivars in peanut research — into the public domain.

Without patents, there are no royalties, he said. “And without royalties, this kind of research would dry up.”

With only about 1.2 million acres across the country planted each year, peanuts are a relatively small crop. So private companies don’t have much incentive, Isleib says, to invest the years and the millions of dollars it takes to create new seed varieties, then test, purify and multiply them, and get them into the hands of farmers.

That leaves most of the work to publicly funded labs such as those of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and university programs like the one Isleib runs out of his office and half a greenhouse off Method Road in West Raleigh.

Isleib’s program performs traditional plant breeding. Plant breeders have intentionally crossed different plant lines to emphasize desirable traits since at least the 1800s.

While the state pays his salary, Isleib needs $350,000 to $400,000 a year to pay for his staff, materials, equipment and rental of sandy state-owned test fields like the one in Bertie County where he was planting last week. Grants and royalties paid to NCSU, which holds the rights to the seeds he develops, are his major sources of funding.

Researchers do similar work for every crop in North Carolina that’s grown from seed, including wheat, corn, and soybeans.

“There’s somebody like me for just about everything you eat, except for a few wild mushrooms you might gather up out of the woods, and fish you take out of the ocean,” Isleib said. “The general public doesn’t see the value of that. They rely on it, but they’re not aware of it.”

Peanut research star

In the world of peanut researchers, Isleib is a rock star, even if he’s a stocky, graying one whose voice sounds like a friendly cartoon character’s, the result of a severe stroke a few years ago.

Since 1990, Isleib has taken 17 new peanut seeds to market, including Bailey and Sugg, the ones that saved North Carolina growers last year. This year, Bailey is expected to account for 80 percent of the 85,000 acres of peanuts that will be planted across the state.

So far, N.C. State has received $4.5 million in royalties from Isleib’s work. The university’s Office of Technology Transfer disburses the money, as it does for hundreds of other commercially successful discoveries NCSU has fostered.

Farmers may need peanuts that are more drought-tolerant, or have a bigger, lighter-colored pod. In general, they’re moving toward peanuts with higher oleic-acid content, because it extends shelf life. They may want types with a sweeter flavor.

Once Isleib has the traits he wants in a variety, he raises many generations of it, taking careful measurements of how plants respond to field conditions, pests and pathogens, how they look and how the peanuts taste. He gives the seed a name, usually honoring someone who has worked in peanut research, and when it’s ready, he delivers several hundred pounds of the seed to NC Foundation Seed Producers Foundation, which grows additional generations and checks to make sure it performs as promised.

Finally, it’s packaged, labeled, sold to distributors and offered to farmers, who pay about 85 cents per pound, including a 3-cent-per-pound royalty. Farmers plant from 100 to 130 pounds of peanut seed per acre. North Carolina has about 1,500 peanut growers producing 85,000 acres of peanuts. That’s at least $255,000 a year in peanut seed royalties in this state if farmers buy new seed every year.

Some don’t; they save money by saving seed from one year’s crop to plant the following year, which is allowed under the seed law, although it can result in an uneven crop.

Penalties for brown bagging

Across the state, the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services has nine inspectors in its Plant Industry Division whose duties include making sure seed conforms to the N.C. Seed Law, whether it’s sold on a shelf in the garden center at Walmart or moved by the truckload through a farm supply store. If inspectors find a violation, they can stop the sale of the seed and, if the situation warrants, invoke a fine.

Phil Farmer, past president of the N.C. Seedmen’s Association and a retired seed company employee, says distributors brown-bag seed with some frequency, though state officials can’t remember a recent prosecution.

By selling brown-bagged seed, and telling buyers it’s the brand-name product without paying the royalty, distributors gain an unfair price advantage over competitors. Sometimes, the competitors hear about the practice and report it.

If they were only fined $500 for a violation but could make thousands by selling uncertified seed, “They’d just keep on doing it,” Farmer said. “Even if they got caught and had to pay the fine, it was still worth doing.”

In 2012, when the Bailey peanut seed was in high demand and certified supplies of the still-new seed were not yet robust, Daryl Bowman, executive director of Foundation Seed, got a complaint that a distributor was brown-bagging Bailey. He went to the distributor, where he found several thousand pounds of uncertified seed for sale, but determined that the company official who had arranged it didn’t know it was illegal to sell saved seed from a protected cultivar crop.

“It was a matter of ignorance,” Bowman said. The company stopped the practice, paid the royalties it owed NCSU and, at Bowman’s urging, hired a consultant to train employees on the state and federal laws.

Bowman, the Seedman’s Association and state agriculture officials pressed for the change in the law the General Assembly passed last year. Besides the increased fine, it allows the state to revoke a distributor’s license to sell.

Without a meaningful penalty, Farmer said, there would be the temptation to cheat patent-holders out of their share.

“Then you end up killing the goose that laid the golden egg.”

The original article published in Seed Today on 5/20/14 can be found here.

SALEM — A new task force aimed at fleshing out the controversies over genetically modified organisms in Oregon includes members with strongly contrasting points of view.

The goal will not be to develop policy recommendations for the state’s legislature, said Richard Whitman, natural resources policy director for Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber.

“It’s not a normal task force we set up to develop a consensus,” he said during its first meeting in Portland on April 10.

Because genetic engineering is fraught with deep philosophical divisions, the purpose of the task force is to frame the issue and inform lawmakers, Whitman said.

The forum will allow members to air different perspectives “without the final struggle of trying to convince everybody in the room to go in the same direction,” he said.

The 13 members of the task force, appointed by Kitzhaber, include advocates for and against genetically engineering, as well as non-profit groups, business interests, university professors and a state government official.

The governor promised to convene the task force last year, after the state legislature approved a bill to preempt local governments from regulating GMOs.

The bill was part of a broader legislative packaged of pension and school reforms backed by Kitzhaber.

The task force is expected to draft a report to advise lawmakers about potential conflicts between GMOs and conventional and organic crops.

The first meeting was co-convened by Dan Arp, dean of OSU’s School of Agriculture, and Jennifer Allen, director of Portland State University’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions.

It’s rare to have people on different sides of the issue in the same room together, said Steve Strauss, an Oregon State University professor who studies biotechnology in forestry.

However, it remains to be seen how much they can illuminate the GMO controversy, given the large amount of attention the topic has received, he said.

“I’m concerned we may not develop new things that are tangible,” Strauss said. “I’m worried whether we’ll be able to do something consequential. I hope so.”

Frank Morton, who farms near Philomath, Ore., said he wants the task force to better define some of the language that gets thrown around in the debate.

A leading example is how cross-pollination is characterized. Organic growers view it as “contamination” while GMO proponents call it “adventitious presence,” Morton said.

“My question for people in this room is, when does one turn into the other?” he said.

The Northwest Food Processors Association wants to ensure the task force doesn’t lose sight of broader issues beyond Oregon’s borders, said Connie Kirby, vice president of scientific and technical affairs for the group.

Labeling of foods with GMO ingredients would force companies to use different packages than in other states, for example, she said.

“We don’t want to constrain interstate commerce or intrastate commerce as well ,” Kirby said.

Members of the task force are:

Barry Bushue — A farmer from Boring, Ore., and president of the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Katy Coba — Director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture.

Connie Kirby — Vice president of scientific and technical affairs at the Northwest Food Processors Association.

Greg Loberg — Manager of the West Coast Beet Seed Co. and board member of the Oregon Seed Trade Association.

Ivan Maluski — Director of the Friends of Family Farmers, a group that opposed GMOs.

Frank Morton — An organic seed grower from Philomath, Ore.

Jim Myers — Vegetable breeding and genetics professor at Oregon State University.

Marty Myers — General manager of Threemile Canyon Farms.

Paulette Pyle — Director of grassroots at Oregonians for Food and Shelter, a group that supports genetic engineering.

Chris Schreiner — Executive director of Oregon Tilth, an organic certifying agency.

Lisa Sedlar — CEO of Green Zebra Grocery.

Steve Strauss — A professor of forestry at Oregon State University who ran its biotechnology outreach program.

Sam Tannahill — Director of viticulture and winemaking at A to Z Wineworks.

Click here for the original article at Capital Press.

Eric Mortenson/Capital Press; Published April 9, 2014

Student Travis Heiple rolls a putting green at Oregon State University’s turf grass research site.

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The legendary course at Augusta National Golf Club is so lush, it’s no wonder they give the Masters Tournament winner a green jacket.

The Georgia club is an exclusive place, with membership limited to the high and mighty — not to mention wealthy — of American business, political and celebrity circles. But as the Masters unfolds on television this week, Oregon grass seed growers and turf management students can feel a connection to the proceedings.

The incredible green of Augusta’s fairways comes from being overseeded each fall with perennial ryegrass grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

At least, that’s what everyone says. Augusta National is private with a capital P, even secretive, and its media handlers didn’t respond to emails asking about its groundskeeping practices. The Augusta Chronicle newspaper reported as recently as 2012 that Augusta overseeds with perennial ryegrass, however, and it’s a matter of faith in Oregon that the seed comes from the state that leads the world in production.

Augusta’s Bermuda grass is a warm-season grass, and goes dormant during the winter, explains Alec Kowalewski, director of the turfgrass program at Oregon State University. Perennial ryegrass, on the other hand, is a cool-season variety that does just fine in winter.

“They seed it over the top of the dormant grass,” Kowalewski said. “It’s one of the big overseeding grasses they use in the south.”

The result is a lush green appearance when other courses, athletic fields and lawns might look patchy or brown. Perennial ryegrass is favored on golf courses in particular because it’s deep green, germinates relatively quickly, grows upright to give golfers the fluffy lies they prefer to hit balls from and tolerates low mowing heights. Fairways typically are cut to a half-inch height, and greens to a tenth of an inch.

The conditions at Augusta, site of professional golf’s first major of the season, draw studied looks from Kowalewski and the students in the turfgrass program. It’s a niche area of study within OSU’s horticulture department, with only about 20 students, but it counts more than 300 graduates working as golf course superintendents or at athletic complexes, parks and lawn care companies, according to a program website. About 90 percent of graduates find work at golf courses, Kowalewski said.

The program’s research site is off campus at OSU’s Lewis-Brown Farm. There, students tend and do research projects on three over-sized putting greens. Groups of students are put in charge of sections of the greens for a term, and must roll it, mow it and manage the “speed” of the putting surfaces — how quickly a golf ball will roll.

“The idea is to get them into the mindset of a superintendent,” Kowalewski said.

On-going experiments include a “wear” test, in which Kowalewski and students put on spiked golf shoes and tromp around on the greens to see how they hold up. A more sophisticated project involves testing alternative treatments for a common winter pathogen called microdocium patch, which leaves dead spots on greens.

Kowalewski and Clint Mattox, a graduate research assistant, are testing combinations of a crop oil, sulfur and potassium phosphite. The work is noteworthy because regulatory agencies take a dim view of heavy fungicide applications — the current method of controlling microdocium patch. Some course superintendents believe fungicides may eventually be banned for ornamental use such as golf courses, and want to find an alternative treatment.

Such intensive management is par for the course. “When you take it down to mowing heights, it becomes more susceptible to disease,” Kowalewski said.

Even at Augusta National, considered a showcase — maybe an unrealistically expensive and time-consuming one — of golf course management.

“It’s an anomaly,” said Dave Phipps, Northwest regional representative for the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America. Course superintendents everywhere else take their lumps when Augusta National goes on display during the Masters.

“That’s what people want,” Phipps said. “Every year at this time of year we get pounded on: ‘Why can’t we have fairways like at Augusta?’”

Click here for the original article at Capital Press.

The recession knocked down Oregon’s grass seed industry, but the 2012-13 harvest report shows it is recovering and finding economic balance.   

Oregon’s grass and legume seed industry continued its recovery in 2012-13, reaching a value of nearly $462 million, according to a report from Oregon State University.

The 13.6 percent increase in production value over the previous year came despite only a 2 percent increase in grass seed acreage, which accounts for 90 percent of the combined crop value. That indicates strong seed prices, said William C. Young III, professor emeritus at OSU’s Department of Crop and Soil Science.

The value increase is good news for growers, but still falls well short of the record $550 million recorded in the pre-recession years of 2007-08, Young said.

In addition, Oregon’s grass seed acreage last year, 415,916 acres, was 21 percent less than was harvested in the peak years of 2004-05.

“Perhaps, however, this two-year plateau of between 408,000 and 415,916 acres presents a better balance in supply and demand economics,” Young wrote in his annual report.

Legume seed crop acreage actually declined slightly from 2011-12, but the $44 million production value was a new record, Young reported.

Click here for the original article at Capital Press.

By Eric Mortenson
Capital Press–

In a contiinued modest recovery, Oregon grass seed plantings increase slightly from 2013.

A survey of Oregon grass seed growers shows they’ve planted more perennial and annual ryegrass than in 2013, according to the National Agriculture Statistics Service.

Tall fescue plantings for turf also are up slightly from last year, NASS reported. Forage and K-31 lawn type tall fescue plantings are the same as 2013.

Roger Beyer, executive director of the Oregon Seed Council, said the increased acreage available for harvest in 2014 is evidence of a continued modest recovery of the grass seed industry, which like nursery plant production is linked to development and fell hard when the housing market collapsed five years ago.

“I’m pleased it’s up, I’m also pleased it’s up only slightly,” Beyer said. “In the past we’ve had a habit of over-production.”

As things now stand, growers are looking at a “pretty positive market” and are cautiously optimistic, Beyer said.

Grass seed production of all types was Oregon’s sixth most valuable crop in 2012, worth $411 million.

Annual ryegrass plantings total 129,000 acres this year, up from 128,000 harvested in 2013. Perennial ryegrass plantings are at 112,000 acres, up from 99,000 last year. Tall fescue turf plantings are at 118,000 acres this year, compared to 110,000 in 2013. Forage fescue and K-31 and other fescue types remain stable at 15,000 acres and 13,000 acres, respectively.

Beyer said annual ryegrass plantings have held steady at about 120,000 acres a year, but in peak years growers planted 180,000 to 190,000 acres of perennial ryegrass.

Growers reported overall crop conditions to be “fairly good,” according to NASS, although some stands have browning due to freeze damage. Some growers reported having trouble establishing new plantings due to slugs, cutworms and voles.

Click here to read the original article from the Capital Press