Voigt gives potato progress report

KENNEWICK, Wash. — The American border is expected to open today to Canadian seed after a potato pest called the golden nematode caused the closure.

Chris Voigt, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission, addressed a group of roughly 120 growers at the Washington State Potato Conference in Kennewick Tuesday, where he provided an update on key issues for the potato industry.

The conference concludes today.

The reopening of the American border is important because Washington state receives about 20 percent of its potato seed from Canada.

Voigt said extensive soil testing was done on two infected farms as well as tracing back work with high sampling rates.

Seed was tested at 1.1. pounds of soil per acre and in 2010, crops will be tested at 5 pounds of soil per acre, he said.

“We have relatively good confidence seed supply is safe,” Voigt assured growers.

Washington state seed fields were sampled last fall and so far, the fields are clean and look good, he explained.

“We have good confidence we won’t find that pest here,” he noted.

Voigt also talked about the work the commission does, including research, trade and market access, public and industry education, legislative and regulatory, covering 111 agenda items in prior commission committee meetings and spending time in Washington, D.C. and Olympia.

Voigt said he was proud of the relationships they had with legislators and added they’ve found legislators are tracking them down.

Voigt recognized commissioners and staff for their work.

He also addressed the U.S. Environmental Association’s required reregistration of the soil fumigant metham sodium.

If new buffer zones are required to apply metham sodium to fields, the removal of 100 feet comes to $74,000 of lost farm gate value and $371,320 of lost economic value, he said.

He spoke of research regarding larger buffer credits and said the commission wants to spend money on research to fill in the data gap to better reflect what buffer credits should be.

Voigt also provided an update about water availability in the Odessa subarea. He said the commission secured $10 million from the state and $2 million from the federal government to build the Potholes Supplemental Feed Route.

The feed route is an alternate method of delivering water to the South Columbia Basin Irrigation District by using an outlet structure to spill water into Crab Creek, then Moses Lake and onto the Potholes Reservoir, he said.

 A recent Ground Water Management Area study shows deep wells are pumping old water between 10,000 to 50,000 years old, he said.

There’s no new groundwater and at some point, the deep wells will go dry, he said.

“We’ll start seeing construction on that quickly,” Voigt noted.

He also talked about efforts to fix the “lose it or use it” clause regarding water use by accounting for rotational crops and conservation.

He called the effort a fine line, as they didn’t want Californians speculating on water, buying it and not using it in hopes water prices would increase.

Voigt also mentioned the deteriorating Quincy main canal, climate change bills and a new smolt survival study.

The study, involving smolt survival on the Columbia River and Frasier River, showed rates were higher on the Columbia, which has dams. The Frasier River does not have dams, he said.

He called the study controversial, but “a bit of good news that will help us out.”