2017 Ag Journal - Spring

Changes in agriculture

Embracing the ranching life

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Ag Journal Editor Joanna Markell

Publisher Heather Hernandez Advertising Contact us: Ag Journal 401 N. Main Street Ellensburg, WA 98926 509-925-1414 The Ag Journal is published three times a year by Kittitas County Publishing LLC. Contents copyrighted 2017 unless otherwise noted.

On the cover:

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Erin Eaton tosses hay over the fence to her hobby herd of Texas Longhorns.

Table of contents Family sees changes, challenges

Fertilizer prices looking good for farmers

Page 4

Page 18

Couple shares the ranching life

Woman finds a welcoming home in Kittitas County

Page 8

Page 20

Battling the bugs

Farmers losing DNR leases may get vacation extension

Page 14

Page 26

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Seeing changes in agriculture

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Fred Schnebly and his wife June, at right, pose with their daughter Erin and a portion of their beef cattle herd. The family’s Bar Balloon brand, registered in the Washington Territory on June 11, 1868, is the oldest state-registered cattle brand in Washington.

Family sees challenges over the years, Fred Schnebly honored with award

By MIKE JOHNSTON For the DAILY RECORD

K

ittitas Valley farmers and ranchers Fred and June Schnebly are quick to explain a lifetime achievement award Fred received from county cattle ranching groups earlier this

year is not just about them.

They say it’s a reflection of the Schnebly clan’s past work and the challenges of the present.

It’s the family heritage to better the wider agricultural community that has helped spur on his own involvement, said Fred recently.

He sees the award also as a reflection of his and his brother Todd and their partner Rick Sample’s ongoing commitment to meet the ever changing market, regulation and natural resource challenges that face agriculture nationally, in Kittitas County and throughout the greater Yakima

4 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

River basin.

The award was presented earlier this year by the Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association and the county CattleWomen’s group.

“What I like best is the constant change,” Fred, 68, said about his lifetime work in agriculture. “Each day presents a new challenge

and the potential for new rewards. Each year is different in the combination of factors that affect our operations and those of agricultural producers in our region and around the nation. And new factors can arise anytime.”

He added that his livelihood gives him the opportunity to see the results of his hard work, watching his timothy hay and other crops grow, getting a successful harvest and raising a healthy, new calf crop.

“This all gives me a sense of accomplishment,” Fred said.

Fred’s degree from the University of Washington was in business economics, an education he could immediately apply to the financial challenges of agriculture. During his senior year at the U of W, he spent considerable time weighing his career options.

“My four years in Seattle helped me realize that fresh air and wideopen spaces were of high value to me,” said Fred, adding he put his

Fred and June Schnebly

Kittitas Reclamation District (countywide irrigation service) and Midstate Co-op; longtime member of Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association, and Ages: Fred, 68; June, 66 about 15 years as an officer (president Married: In 1972 and secretary). Past service in adult Years in the Kittitas Valley: Fred 4-H leadership and fives years on the all but four (college) years of his life; county planning commission.

June since 1968 June: Past volunteering in classResidence: No. 81 Road rooms and with parent and youth sport Children: Daughter Erin, developing clubs; support of youth football camps, sport dinners and school-related her own beef cattle herd; son Alex in fundraising; hospital volunteering, college, seeking a nursing degree. social director for racquet club.

Currently works at CWU Bookstore. Past Community service work as a receptionist.

Fred: Serving on the boards of degree to work.

Because local producers are also tied to global export markets, this means the changes that occur in another part of the nation and elsewhere in the world can reach out and affect valley ranchers and farmers, he said.

At the same time, there’s much that doesn’t change: plenty of sometimes exhausting work managing livestock who have a mind of their own. Fred’s wife, June, learned this the hard way and nearly all at once soon after marriage.

Right-hand man

June, 66, and originally from Renton, met Fred while she attended Central Washington University after being introduced

by Fred’s sister. For the first six years of marriage June was Fred’s “righthand man on the ranch,” she said.

That stretch of early married life was before Fred’s brothers returned to the operation, Jim from military service and Todd from WSU. “(I was) doing all the cowy things ranch hands do,” said June.

“Branding, chasing, being chased, being kicked, sorting cows, pulling calves and tractor field work. Before I married Fred the closest I had ever come in contact with a cow was from a car window going down the freeway heading to the mall … Every experience was new and sometimes more exciting than I bargained for, for instance, being chased by a cow, which happened on occasion.”

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Operation Then: In the 1970s and 1980s, the Schnebly family beef cattle operation peaked at up to 1,200 mother cows to produce calves, with some hay grown for feed.

Now: Ranch and farm focuses on large tracts of timothy hay and rotation crops, and about 150 head of mother cows for calf production, sold when they Calving time

For several winters early on, Fred and June alternated living in a camper for two weeks at a stretch in pastures of the Columbia Basin with Fred’s brother, Jim, and his wife, Becky.

The couples took turns watching over mother cows from the home ranch giving birth to their calves in all kinds of winter weather.

Joining them in the work in later years was another brother, Todd, and ranch partner Rick Sample.

Times when Fred brought cattle down from the hills alone on horseback during driving snowstorms have also provided memories of hard, cold ranching work, June said.

Like most ranchers with cow-calf operations, calving time often means being awake for 24 hours at a stretch, she said.

On some occasions Fred and June would get a call in the middle of the night about some of their cattle getting out and walking down the old Vantage Highway.

The couple would drive out, accompanied by a county sheriff deputy, to safely corral the strays until morning when they would be trucked back to the ranch.

“Back then we wouldn’t see any other cars on the road the entire time,” June said. “Those were different times.”

Despite the ranching way of life being completely foreign to her in the beginning, she later was surprised how much she enjoyed it.

reach 750-850-pound range. Partner operation involves Fred Schnebly, his brother Todd Schnebly, and Rick Sample.

Fred and Todd’s brother Jim is retired.

Cattle pioneering: Fred’s father, the late Henry “Hank” Schnebly, was one of the first beef cattle producers to introduce the Simmental breed to the Pacific Northwest and headed the statewide Simmental association for several years.

She said having an opportunity to raise the couple’s children in a ranch setting has been fulfilling, and she has enjoyed the work of branding and sorting and moving cattle to spring pasture.

Footsteps

Fred said his late father, Henry “Hank” Schnebly, instilled the value of hard work in his children at a young age. He and his brothers were paid a penny per rock to clear fields starting around the age of 6, about the time his father purchased a tractor that was small enough for Fred to operate.

“When I was 7 or 8 years old I raked (with a tractor) 500 acres of hay at 25 cents an hour,” Fred said. “When I was 9 to 14 years old I worked in our cattle camps in the hills helping move cattle from the spring range in the Skookumchuck to the summer range on the Colockum. Later childhood was spent irrigating and stacking hay.”

Fred followed in his dad’s footsteps in community service and being part of keeping irrigation water flowing to farmers and ranchers. Fred currently is a Kittitas Reclamation District and Midstate Co-op board member and was an officer for many years in the county cattlemen’s association.

Advocating for agriculture

In earlier years Fred traveled often to Olympia to testify and

Marty Stingley photography

Fred Stingley poses for a photo with his award at the Cattlemen’s banquet with his family — wife June, son Alex, and daughter Erin. speak with state legislators about measures to protect water and property rights and made common-sense observations on new land-use and environmental regulations.

Fred said the Kittitas Reclamation District board has worked to respond to repeated drought years in Kittitas County through the long-term Yakima basin integrated water plan.

He said the plan is the best hope for implementing measures to meet the long-range water needs of all major water users in the Yakima River basin. Until major components of the plan are funded and become reality, droughts likely will periodically hurt the county’s agriculture economy and other natural resources for years to come, he said.

Future water needs aren’t the only challenge Fred sees in the Kittitas Valley for agricultural producers: rural land values are increasing (along with property taxes) and the available amount of land for grazing is shrinking. Costs of farm and ranch operation are constantly rising and often prices farmers get for their products are not keeping pace with those increasing costs.

“This makes it particularly hard

6 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

for young ranchers to get into the business in a bigger way or to expand herds to increase income to better pay their bills,” Fred said.

The diminishing of rural lands, particularly for livestock grazing, likely will keep on hurting agricultural producers’ future business, he said.

“Kittitas County is too close to a major metropolitan area, and there is constant pressure to convert land to other uses,” Fred said.

Satisfaction

Despite these constant challenges, Fred said he continues to get deep satisfaction from life as a farmer and rancher in the outdoors of the Kittitas Valley.

During the cattlemen’s association banquet earlier this year when the award to Fred was announced, a narrative about him was read and, in part, said: “Fred is a good neighbor, father, brother, husband, son and steward of the land. If you need help, he will be there. You will not find a more patient or kind individual.

“Fred loves what he does. If you happen to be out in the Fairview area, you may see him out in the fields when the sun comes up and when the sun goes down.”

Family uses the oldest brand in the state

Years of quiet strength

By MIKE JOHNSTON

T

he oldest stateregistered cattle brand is held by the Schnebly family of the Fairview area northeast of Ellensburg in Kittitas County.

The family’s Bar Balloon brand was registered in the Washington Territory on June 11, 1868. It was handed in by David H. Schnebly to territorial officials in Walla Walla.

It was burned onto on a piece of leather when submitted.

The old brand is used in the cattle operation now run by brothers Fred and Todd Schnebly and fellow partner Rick Sample. Fred said he doesn’t know if the shape of the brand — a balloon-shaped bulge going up from a horizontal bar — is symbolic of something, although it is distinctive and can be easily seen at a distance.

“I would definitely say, though, we have a sense of pride in its longevity in the family and in the cattle industry,” Fred said.

“It shows family survival through some tough times and change.

It also reflects ownership and pride in the quality of product we produce.”

Fred’s great-great-grandfather, David H. Schnebly, was living in the Oregon Territory and the Willamette Valley when he married into the Painter family, which had come from Missouri in 1848.

In 1860 he sold his newspaper at Twin City, Ore., and moved to the Walla Walla to put together a cattle herd.

“It’s believed the Bar Balloon is

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Scott Sacket, records management consultant with the Washington State Archives, holds a piece of branded cowhide bearing the Bar Balloon brand.

Dating back to the 1860's, the Bar Baloon brand is considered to be among the oldest in the county. a very old Painter family brand that came West with the Painter family,” Fred said.

In 1871, the sons of David Schnebly, Philip and Charles, came to the Kittitas Valley to establish a cattle operation and brought the brand with them. Their father joined them in the valley in 1883.

David Schnebly established the Kittitas Localizer, the forerunner of the Daily Record newspaper.

“A brand can be something handed down generation to generation,” Fred said.

“It’s something that can be a tangible link to the generations who came before us. It can recognize their hard work.”

Fred said the same brand, but inverted with the balloon bulging down, is used in cattle operations in the valley by his cousin, Bob Schnebly, and his son Rob.

7 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

If someone wants to know the kind of people Fred and June Schnebly are, it might be a good idea to ask their longtime friends and neighbors.

In the case of Fred, you might ask fellow Fairview area rancher Sam Kayser who said he’s known Fred since Kayser was about 10 years old.

“There’s a lot quiet strength in his (Fred’s) life,” said Kayser. “In both of them there’s real honesty. I guess you could call it a consistency of character. You can rely on them.”

Kayser’s family came to the Kittitas Valley in 1960 and later purchased property from another ranching family to expand their ranching operation. That other ranch family had appointed Fred’s father, the late Henry “Hank” Schnebly, executor of the family’s estate, a responsibility which included land sales. Kayser said it was a reflection of Henry’s recognized integrity that the other family made Henry, their longtime friend, their executor.

“My dad said Henry was wonderful to work with,” Kayser said. “That same integrity and fairness was passed down.”

As neighboring ranchers, Kayser said the families have helped each other out when needed. “(Fred’s) not easily flustered; he’s thoughtful, and he values not only doing his own work well, but serving the agricultural community in efforts outside of just doing something for yourself.”

Kayser said Fred isn’t the kind of man who’s always throwing out his opinion.

“You usually have to ask him his opinion, what he thinks about some situation,” Kayser said. “Then you really listen closely because you know it’s coming from a lot of reflection and experience.”

Sharing the ranching life

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Barb and Don Weber pose with a few of the cows and calves on their Fox Road ranch. The couple have been ranching in Kittitas County for more than 51 years.

Don and Barb Weber enjoy God’s creation all around them

By MIKE JOHNSTON For the DAILY RECORD

I

t’s a frosty wet morning in midMarch in the Kittitas Valley, and Barb and Don Weber again head for the soggy pasture where their 22 Hereford-cross mother cows are giving birth, one after another and

at all hours, to new calves that are both the couple’s future income and a joy to watch.

The hungry moms out in the cold, wet ground need to be fed twice a day with hay, a task the Webers have done together through much of their 58 years of marriage, especially when their

beef cattle ranch 10 miles east of Ellensburg had up to 450 mother cows.

Those years don’t include the years before they were married when they were growing up on their on their respective family farms and ranches and those of relatives: Don in Walla Walla

8 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

County and Dayton areas, and Barb in Wyoming, Alaska and north of Spokane.

The couple, now in their late 70s and early 80s, will sell their new calves this fall, but now it’s the middle of calving time, a crucial 30- to 45-day window when mother cows and their calves

have, according to Don, “only one chance to have a safe, healthy birth in weather that can be really bad. We have to do all we can to help them survive.”

To that end Don still gets up in the middle of the night to slog out into the field to check on the welfare of those ready to give birth and those in the process. They both keep a close eye during the day on the health and vitality of newborn calves who are nursing and their moms.

The couple recently had loads of dry straw brought in to their Fox Road ranch to make warmer bedding areas for the new calves, including inside a covered, barnside shelter.

Rob and Louise Acheson of Riverbottom Road, longtime friends of the older couple, say Don and Barb do nearly everything together on their ranch, including daily feeding, whereas many ranch families often have separate duties among themselves.

Don and Barb Weber

cattlemen association leadership since 1963; served on the county FFA advisory committee, the county FHA board, Midstate Co-op Board and many years a Residence and ranch: Fox Road county 4-H Club leader and an Elmview Years in Kittitas County: More than board member.

51 years Barb: Active in county, state and national cattlewomen groups (including Grown children: son Rick and the early Cowbelles group) for 56 years; daughter Donna; and nephew (“just co-chair of the 1999 National Beef like one of our kids”) Robert; seven Cook-Off in Bellevue; member of Junior grandchildren.

Women, Happy Homemakers and CattleFox Road ranch at its peak: 640 Women groups to benefit various Kittitas acres, additional 100 leased acres, and Valley causes, public libraries, public leased summer range pasture; 450 schools and youth character developmother cows. ment programs, and to promote the beef Community service industry in partnership with cattlemen’s Don: Active in county and state level groups.

Barb, 78, wearing insulated coveralls and ear warmers, drives a battered pickup very slowly through the field while Don, 81, shoves hay from the back of the truck’s flatbed and then also pulls

hay off the bed while walking along with the truck. The cows bunch up to get at the hay on the ground and one follows the truck to snag bunches from its side.

“I can’t see doing anything else

but to be with Don out here on the ranch,” Barb said.

Pointing out a newborn calf with big, dark eyes that gets up slowly as the truck approaches and then prances and bounces away with back legs joyfully kicking, Barb says, “What can’t you not love about witnessing the miracle of new life every year, and helping it along, and with God’s creation all around us?”

She steers the pickup slowly out of the field and quietly says this is the lifestyle they chose together when they were younger, the place where they decided to raise a family, and the daily way of life they want to share for as long as they can.

“This is home, this is our life,” she says with a broad smile, then honks the truck horn to make sure another frisky calf gets out of the way.

See Weber, Page 10

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Integrity, perseverance, true friendship

A

helping whoever and whenever she can,” Louise said. “She just gives and gives and gives.”

Rob said Don is older than he is, and Don has become a kind of inspiration to him.

“If I can do what he’s doing when I’m that age then I’ll be doing real well,” Rob said. “It’s really a challenge, at times, just to keep up with him.”

Through the years, the two couples have helped each other in working their cattle and have taken several trips and vacations together.

Louise said Barb is a creative writer and often uses that ability to send notes, cards and letters of encouragement to those needing a lift or to mark a special occasion or date.

“They really complement each other,” Louise said.

sk Kittitas Valley ranchers Rob and Louise Acheson what words come to mind when they think of Don and Barb Weber and their response is nearly instantaneous.

“Integrity, perseverance and they’re both creative thinkers, just very intelligent,” Rob said recently.

“They give true friendship and are hard working and committed to doing as much as they can together as a couple,” Louise said.

Louise and Rob became friends with the Webers in the early 1970s when Rob met Don through their involvement with the Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association. Louise and Barb struck up a friendship through volunteering together with the county CattleWomen’s group.

“Barb just has a lot of compassion for

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Weber Continued from Page 9 This might not have been their life but for a decision they both made in the mid-1960s, a decision they say has made all the difference for them, their children and the community where they put down roots.

Sharing life

Don and Barb Weber in early 2016 were honored by the Kittitas County Cattlemen’s Association and the county CattleWomen group with an award recognizing their lifetime contribution to the livestock industry and to the wider community.

Don and Barb’s service may have gone in another direction in 1966: he to a longer career as an officer in the U.S. Army and Barb to following Don’s military service wherever it took him nationally or internationally. There would likely would have been long separations and moving often to different posts.

They met while attending Eastern Washington University, each pursuing a teaching degree.

Don was in the Army ROTC program and looked forward to serving his country through the military as an officer.

“It was a blind date set up by Don’s friends,” Barb said about their first meeting.

They quickly recognized their similar backgrounds: a love of the open land and working with livestock and farming.

Don grew up in the Touchet area of Walla Walla County on a family farm with cattle, row crops and hay. He also has good memories of summer stays near Dayton with his uncle and aunt, John and Florence Harting, on their cattle ranch.

Barb was born in Wyoming and grew up there and then near Kodiak, Alaska, and later on her family’s farm in Stevens County.

They both were born into large families, Barb the second of six children (three boys and three girls), and Don the second of six boys. Don had a Catholic Church upbringing and Barb’s family attended a Methodist Church.

They both grew up with daily

10 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

chores as they learned to get along with each other and help one another. Taking on family farm responsibilities and being held accountable for carrying them out was a big part of their lives.

After that first date and a few others, Don said he was “sure hoping she was in my future,” and Barb said “he was my kind of guy.”

They married Dec. 20, 1959, and their shared life began.

Don later finished his degree and was commissioned an Army lieutenant. He was sent to Georgia for more training and then on to his first duty post. Although Barb didn’t finish her degree, her college education and training up to that point allowed her to teach public school in Georgia.

Don, after attaining the rank of captain, was nearing his three years of service and was encouraged by his commanders to continue into a lifelong career in the military.

It was decision time.

Back to the land

Don said he and Barb both agreed it was time to get back to the land. “It all kind of fell into place,” Don said. “I couldn’t see myself spending eight hours a day inside a building, which was what I was doing.” A working partnership with his uncle and aunt in their ranch operation near Dayton seemed a good direction for their lives.

Barb said at that time they had a little boy, and she was looking ahead to her deepening relationship as a wife and mother.

“I didn’t want to spend my life as a kind of absentee wife to Don while he was gone a lot of the time, away on assignment somewhere,” Barb said. “We wanted our family life together.”

As Don puts it, he went from the Army straight into full-time ranching with John and Florence Harting near Dayton. They had a 250-head cow-calf operation along with large tracts for wheat farming.

Move to Ellensburg

Ellensburg was well known to

the two families as they had been sending cattle to the Kittitas Valley during the summer because of water shortages in the Dayton area.

The partnership decided to grow their business, and the Fox Ranch in the valley was purchased knowing it had the capacity to meet the needs of both families.

“The area was ideal cow-calf country with cool nights and abundant irrigated grass in an agriculture-based community,” Don said. The operation at its height at 450 mother cows.

They moved to the Ellensburg area in July 1966. The Harting and Weber partnership continued until 1980 when John Harting died.

The Harting half of the operation was then sold, and the Webers continued their family ranching ways.

“Our son Rick drove feed truck when he was 5 years old,” Barb said, and kept at it with no mishaps as he grew. Rick, as an adult, has worked with an agricultural company since graduating from

Washington State University. A daughter, Donna, is a partner in a CPA firm and also graduated from WSU. The couple said a nephew, Robert, was “finished being raised” by their family as one of their own.

He now has a small farm on Fox Road, his home since retiring from the computer industry.

“All learned the value of hard work and have been very successful,” Barb said.

The ranching life

Don and Barb now lease out all but 60 acres of their land and use that for their small cow-calf herd.

“We can’t seem to get out of the ranching life,” Don said with a smile, “and I guess we don’t want to.”

He laughed as he said that continuing to raise cattle in times of snow and ice and wind and heat “sure gets me away from that old TV.” More seriously, he adds there’s a quiet sense of family togetherness and love that he and his wife

Here’s Hoping For A Very Successful

2017 Hay Harvest

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Barb Weber helps her husband Don to redirect a wayward cow that wandered into the wrong pasture on their Fox Road ranch. have experienced as they grew their family, and it now continues between them alone on the ranch.

Barb says much of the time they don’t have to remind each other what

Stay Smart

needs to be done around the ranch.

It’s all automatic after years of being together.

See Weber, Page 12

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Weber Continued from Page 11 “We’ve had that closeness and the family life we wanted, what we chose years ago,” Barb said.

“We have no regrets. We were both brought up in small communities and that’s where we still are.”

Last fall the view of their future life together looked uncertain when they were told Don needed serious heart surgery.

‘You can’t just say let someone else do it’ When one looks at the list of groups and efforts that Don and Barb Weber have been and are still involved and active in, you get the idea they were brought up with the idea that if you can help out then you better do it.

“You can’t just say let someone else do it all the time if you have the time and it’s something you care about,” Don said recently. “Why not you be the one who steps forward?”

A helping hand

middle of the night might be more related to changes in his sleep cycle “and just waking up for no reason.

Might as well go out and check on things.”

“You can’t believe all the people who were concerned about us (after the surgeries) and came out to help us with chores; it was family, friends, neighbors, everybody,” Don said. “We’re still getting calls from people wanting to know what they

can do to help.”

“That’s what living and sharing your life in a small community is all about: giving a helping hand, giving that encouraging word or two and keeping in touch,” Barb said.

“You give back to people and try to improve things a bit for the future.”

Being together 24/7 can be challenging at times, they acknowledged, and of course there are times when they don’t

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Don had a heart valve replaced and two heart bypasses. During his long road to recovery, he fought off two bouts with pneumonia.

He slowly bounced back. Barb said Don’s been “pushing the envelope a bit” physically during this season’s calving time, but he’s still taking it somewhat slowly, although he’s still getting up at night to check the mother cows and their calves.

Don says his getting up in the

Barb said she shares with Don the value that being part of the community where you live also means to build relationships with others, and also means to join in efforts to help out in public schools or any one of several organizations and initiatives that help make life better.

“Don’t volunteer in name only and later drop out of what you said you’d do,” Don said. “If you have the time, energy and ability stand up and get involved.”

see eye to eye.

“If we have a bit of an argument, well, I just forget it later,” Don said.

“We, ultimately, have the same goal in mind.” With a little, sidelong smile and a quick look at Barb he adds he’s learned that if he doesn’t want to eat his own cooking, he wisely works to settle arguments quickly. She gently shushes him so you know he’s just teasing.

There are days, too, when nothing seems to go exactly right or things aren’t what you expected to happen, said Don, or you have to go out into the pasture at night in a howling storm.

“Just like anyone, there comes those days when you might think something like ‘why am I doing all this, why ranching?” Don said.

“Later you think of the family you raised, and the grandkids and all the support your family and community give each other; and it’s all good.”

Barb adds: “And there’s always the miracle of creation that keeps changing out here; it’s always getting your attention.”

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Battling the bugs

WSU Extension

The cranberry girdler or the subterranean sod webworm adult moth found in timothy hay fields in the Kittitas Valley.

Investigation of hay fields finds billbug and webworm culprits

By TONY BUHR staff writer

T

imothy hay growers in Kittitas County have seen areas of sparse or dead hay in fields caused by insects, and researchers are looking into the cause and best way to fight the pests.

Michael Bush, entomologist with Washington State University Extension, said Rocky Mountain billbugs and subterranean sod webworms may be the culprits behind the hollowed out corms and dead patches of grass found over the last several years. Bush got involved in 2014 after receiving

a call from the U.S. Department of Agriculture that timothy hay farmers in Kittitas County were finding dead patches of grass in their field and was sent some of the corms to review. A corm is a rounded underground storage organ at the base of the plant.

He could find plenty of hollowed

14 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

out timothy hay corms, but nothing inside. He emailed a colleague, saying, “maybe this mystery will have to wait until 2015. Perhaps we won't see this beast raise its head again. So I have to put that as infamous last words.�

See Bugs, Page 17

WSU Extension

The cranberry girdler or the subterranean sod webworm larvae. Scientists are continuing to investigate whether they are responsible for damaged hay in Kittitas County.

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The Rocky Mountain billbug adult found in timothy hay fields in the Kittitas Valley.

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Bugs Continued from Page 14 The next year hay farmers once again found dead patches of hay in their fields, Bush said. He suspected it might be caused by billbug larvae.

“My scientific approach to this was I was taking the billbug larvae and stuffing them in the holes.

They seemed very happy in the holes and they crawled around,” he said.

Pushing further, Bush began to take samples in the fields to see if he could identify the culprit.

Sampling

Bush tried four different types of sampling strategies. One method was a Japanese beetle trap with a yellow funnel shape that hangs on piece of wire above the ground.

“It looks like a bomb out there in the fields, with a little glass cylinder Mason jar at the base of it. The insects fly into that and they hit the yellow funnel and fall into the Mason jar of fluid,” Bush said.

These traps had to be taken down during hay cutting and they also filled with water from irrigation, which caused problems.

The other sampling method was a pitfall trap, he said. The trap was set into the ground and filled with a killing solution that contained salt water.

Insects would run over the trap, fall in and die.

Some of the pitfalls were damaged when run over by equipment and had to be replaced.

The pitfall traps managed to catch ground beetles, wolf spiders and a few billbugs, Bush said. The beetles and wolf spiders are predators and were not likely responsible for the timothy hay damage. The billbugs were not in alarming numbers and so didn’t appear to be responsible either.

The third strategy was net sweeping, where someone walked through the fields and swished nets back and forth collecting insects, he said. Bush and his associates had problems with the wind in Kittitas County with this strategy.

But right around the end of July the team started to notice a lot of tiny little moths in their net sweeps. The moths were identified later as cranberry girdlers, or subterranean sod webworms.

“These tiny little things not even a quarter inch long. When I say we saw a lot of them I mean thousands of them over these fields,” Bush said.

The final method was sod samples, which provided the best results, he said. The team was able to find adult billbugs near the end of the timothy season and sod webworm larvae in the middle of the season. The billbugs in particular were clearly feeding on the hay.

“But at these point we’re still not sure we have the culprit,” Bush said.

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The price of timothy has been down over the last few years and so many fields Bush was investigating have been replanted with another crop, he said. He needs new fields to track to double check his findings. Anyone with infected fields should contact him at 509-574-1600 or email at bushm@ wsu.edu.

Solutions

Both the Rocky Mountain billbug and the subterranean sod webworm have pesticides available that should work with timothy hay crops, Bush said.

“But the timing is going to be important because these are underground soil insect pests. And so if you want to beat these you want to target the underground not the above ground stage. So we’d like to get a better phenology to get a timeline of when best to use products to fight,” he said.

Journals on pesticides and timothy hay may not have a lot of suggestions for billbugs and webworms, Bush said. Instead farmers should look at crops like turf grass for billbugs and cranberries for the webworm. Another option could be bio-pesticides, which are a new product on the market.

“Because you guys put out so much water in timothy hay, it might be very good ecosystem to utilize these bio-pesticides,” he said.

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Fertilizer prices looking good

Contributed

Due to the production of fertilizer chemicals outpacing markets, farmers could benefit from a cheaper prices this year.

Farmers could benefit from high supply and low demand

By TONY BUHR staff writer

S

upply is high and demand is low for fertilizer chemicals this year, bringing down prices for farmers.

Tim Tackes, with CHS Agronomy, said during the annual meeting of Kittitas County Timothy Hay Growers on Feb. 14 the production of fertilizer chemicals has outpaced demand in most markets. Fracking and natural gas production have allowed the U.S. to produce 60 to 70 percent of its own nitrogen. Other

chemicals like sulfur, phosphates and potash are still imported in large numbers.

“There is a lot of economic pressure and it starts at the farm and permeates through the supply chain,” Tackes said. “We are seeing a lot of consolidation. We are seeing it at the manufacturing level, we're seeing it at the dealer level and we're also seeing it at the farm level.

Farms are getting bigger.”

Farmers should communicate their estimated fertilizer needs to their dealers early and often, he said. Together they can watch the

markets and decide when it is best to buy certain products. Farmers also have to decide whether to layer their buying by purchasing portions of a product at different times of year. Purchasing fertilizer at different times can even out costs, but also increase the risks to farmers.

Urea

China produces about 30 percent of all the urea, nitrogen and phosphorus around the globe.

China makes its urea from coal, which is more expensive to produce

18 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

than natural gas-made urea, Tackes said.

“We are going to see China shut down because they have a lot of higher cost of production,” he said.

“This just kind of correlates what I talked about coal. There is definitely a transition. As coal prices go down, so do nitrogen costs, as coal prices increase, so do nitrogen costs. “ The U.S. has started producing natural gas-made urea as the country has a lot more natural gas from fracking, Tackes said. Prices on urea should be good this year, he said.

When it comes to phosphates, the U.S and China are at a competitive disadvantage to countries like Morocco and Saudi Arabia, Tackes said. Both Morocco and Saudi Arabia can produce phosphates more cheaply. So in future years the domestic supply will probably decrease and imports increase.

Phosphate prices will probably improve later this spring as imports begin to reach the United States, he said. Prices are driven by other countries in Africa and South America, which may make purchases sooner.

Potash and nitrogen

About 60 percent of the global supply of potash comes from Canada, Tackes said. Demand for potash in recent years has been flat and so a lot of companies are not running their mines at all full capacity. The cutback in potash production has improved prices, but it also means potash production supplies might be tight this spring if

there is excessive demand.

Nitrogen prices are higher now than they were last year, Tackes said. The United States has a lot of nitrogen production coming online, but it’s a slow process.

India will be a big factor on the nitrogen market, he said. The country has not bought their product for spring yet and they buy it in million ton blocks so the country will set a base level for market prices.

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Sulfate

Sulfate sales will be very right this spring, Tackes said. Many farmers bought sulfate early and filled their barns in the winter. Manufacturers are still trying to fill purchase orders. Also other countries, like Canada and the Netherlands, are retaining sulfate production for internal use.

“Primarily because of the exchange rate. It is just a better deal for them to sell that product in Canada,” he said.

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Embracing the ranching life

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Erin Eaton is all smiles as she talks about her horses in the late afternoon. Living on a small ranch off Canyon Road near Ellensburg, Eaton and her husband, Kyle, have six horses and 13 cows, 16 chickens, two dogs and several pigs.

Erin Eaton find a welcoming home in Kittitas County

By TONY BUHR staff writer

E

rin Eaton fed a small hobby herd of Texas Longhorns timothy hay on a clear winter afternoon. She tried to get two of the cows, Daisy Mae and Doodlebug, to

eat cookies out of her hand.

Erin and her husband, Kyle, live on part of the Eaton family ranch off Canyon Road near Ellensburg. The couple have six horses and 13 cows, 16 chickens, two dogs and several pigs. They live in a tiny house, only 330 square feet, which they built

in 2015 moved into it in May. Erin doesn’t see herself as a cowgirl. If she was working full time at the ranch she might, but she and Kyle cannot afford to do that right now.

“I guess I would just say I'm more of your average person playing with cows,” she said. “In some parts of

20 | 2017 Ag Journal - Spring

our country the old west is still very much alive. There are many people who spend their entire life ranching, moving cows. They'll spend days on end on horseback. They spend frozen nights in the saddle looking for calves in the winter. The west is very much alive.”

During the week, Erin is a part owner of a habitat restoration company, Central Washington Land Restoration Services. Kyle works as an IT specialist for a dental company in Yakima. They both help manage the cattle in the evenings and weekends. Their work never stops.

Kyle Eaton is the son of John and Cristi Eaton, part of a longstanding ranching family in Kittitas County.

The couple married two and a half years ago.

“You couldn't ask for nicer people in the world. Generally the most caring, nicest people I've ever met.

Everybody works hard and everybody is willing to pitch in a hand,” Erin said.

Childhood

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Erin Eaton urges cattle on from atop her horse during the annual Eaton Family cattle drive along Highway 821 in the Yakima River canyon.

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Eaton Continued from Page 21 for riding horses and always knew she’d end up working on a farm.

“My parents say I was just a baby when I started crawling around the house neighing,” she said. “They knew they were doomed from the start. I just always had a love and a passion for them.”

Erin started horseback riding at age 2 at her cousin’s house. She immediately knew she wanted to ride horses for the rest of her life.

“For some people they like horses and they want to be around horses.

But for so many like myself, from the first time you get on one you just can’t imagine your life without one,” she said.

See Eaton, Page 24 Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Erin Eaton offers a cookie to one of her cows, named Doodlebug.

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Eaton Continued from Page 22 At around age 10 Erin started taking riding lessons. Her earliest memory of horseback riding is her dad taking her to lessons.

“I was the child that my instructor sometimes dreaded because the weather would just be awful and I’d be there and ready,” she said.

Erin became a member of the Snohomish Hilltop Hay Burners 4-H club and would compete in equestrian competitions around the state.

“Weekend after weekend my mom would pack us up and haul us all around western Washington for shows,” she said.

Gunner was Erin’s first horse and she got him at age 14. She had him for eight years before he died. She used to board her horses at a pasture in Renton and has had 10 horses throughout her life. She has six of them today.

In high school, other kids would hang out at the mall, but Erin spent her time riding her horse, she said.

Brian Myrick / Daily Record

Erin Eaton sits astride her horse at Big Pine Recreation Area during a break in the annual Eaton Family cattle drive in the Yakima River Canyon. Living on a small ranch off Canyon Road near Ellensburg. In her childhood Erin didn’t raise farm animals, but she did have a love for riding horses and always knew she’d end up working on a farm.

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College

Erin went to Central Washington University for a pre-veterinary bachelor’s degree. She decided later that veterinary school wasn’t the right fit and switched to majoring in biology with a minor in law and justice.

“At one point I decided I wanted to be a game warden. Then I decided after a little bit of time that, that wasn’t quite going to be the job for me.

So I just ended up finishing up my degree,” she said.

While in college Erin met Kyle at a Sunny Ledfurd concert at the Brick in Roslyn. They immediately connected through their mutual interests, being outdoors and working with animals. Erin took Kyle horseback riding and was impressed with how easily he rode in a saddle.

“It was easy talking to him and I enjoyed spending all my time with him and gosh, here we are,” she said.

“We’re both busybodies so we’re always on the go, so it’s nice to have

someone with similar interests.”

Erin got a job at the habitat restoration company while in college.

After graduation the owner of the company passed away and his wife decided to sell the business. Erin and a fellow employee bought it and became owners.

The ranch

Erin and Kyle started helping out at the ranch more last year as Kyle’s parents are getting a bit older. They are learning the ropes so someday they might be able to take over. It’s a family affair. Kyle’s sister and brotherin-law help out when they can as well.

Working on a ranch isn’t the easiest lifestyle, Erin said. The couple sometimes have to make sacrifices to help out at the ranch.

“Getting the call that cows are out on the highway again better go fix some fence. … You are getting ready to go out on the town that night, but cows always have another plan,” she said.

Erin loves working with cows almost as much as she loves working with horses. Kyle got her, her first longhorn, Humbug, for their first Christmas together. She has been working the Eaton family’s annual cattle Brian Myrick / Daily Record drive through Erin Eaton tosses hay over the fence to her hobby herd of the Yakima Texas Longhorns.

River Canyon for five years and has a natural connection to the animals. satisfaction you get putting in work “It makes for a little bit longer at the end of the day. You’re not just days especially when you get home punching in a time card 9 to 5. You from work and go to work,” she said. actually get to see the fruits of your “There’s nothing like it. The feeling of labor.”

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Farmers losing DNR leases may get vacation extension

By MATT SPAW WNPA Olympia News Bureau OLYMPIA — Legislation that would provide farmers more time to prepare for termination of their leases with Department of Natural Resources passed the Senate Feb. 26.

SB 5051 would extend the length of advance written notice for non-default termination of state land leases for agriculture and grazing land to 180 days. Lessees are currently given 60 days notice before the Department of Natural Resources terminates their lease.

The measure now awaits consideration in the House of Representatives’ Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

The Senate bill was drafted in response a dispute between five Benton County dry-land wheat farmers in Horse Heaven Hills

and DNR. One of the farmers — David Moon, manager of G&D Moon Partnership — said he heard a rumor of an irrigation project years before he received official word from DNR. In March 2016, Moon got a phone call from the agency asking him to stop applying chemicals to all 1,200 acres of his leased land. If he agreed, it would begin the three-year process to become certifiable as organic for future production of irrigated crops.

He and the other farmers involved refused after multiple meetings with DNR, Moon noted.

The farmers reached out to Benton County Commissioner Shon Small, who contacted Sens. Sharon Brown, R-Kennewick, and Judy Warnick, R-Moses Lake. After the farmers received their 60-day notices in August, the senators worked with them and DNR, eventually convincing the department to

provide financial compensation for early termination.

Moon says his compensation will cover half his $60,000 loss. Dry-land wheat farmer Chad Smith says he incurred losses of $300,000 and received $52,000. Those losses are due to not being able to harvest for the last four years he will no longer spend on the land.

State agriculture and grazing leases typically run 10 years. In most cases, a flat rate based on the crops grown by the lessee goes to a school trust as rent. As trust manager, DNR has an interest in leasing to tenants who produce high revenues to support the trust. The department can use a non-default termination to replace a tenant with a higherrevenue tenant.

The new bill requires DNR, when terminating a lease, to give the current tenant documentation showing that the land is part of a

plan for “higher and better use, land exchange or sale.”

Lease terminations affect the way farmers plan harvesting schedules and resource purchases, says wheat farmer Chad Smith. Farmers maintain their land’s productivity by cycling different crop types, as well as by allowing the land to remain unplanted for periods of time between crops. Farmers often choose to rent DNR-managed land adjacent to land they own because if they didn’t, the land they plant on would be inefficiently segmented, Smith noted.

Farmers use this knowledge to purchase necessary supplies such as seeds and harvesting machinery.

Darin Cramer, DNR Product Sales and Leasing Division Manager, said the farmers should have been notified earlier despite the official 60-day warning given.

“We screwed up,” Cramer said

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in an interview. “We were supposed to notify these lessees of termination plans well in advance of spring. Our intent was to provide them a crop-year’s time to finish regardless of what the lease said.”

The leases previously held separately by the five farmers go up for auction as one 3,000-acre parcel, called the “Paterson Project,” April 6. The land, previously used for dry land wheat, will be irrigated from the Columbia River to grow crops that require more water than dry-land wheat, according to the DNR. “While we have a good plan to turn this into irrigated land, it may not pan out,” Cramer said.

“But it’s our job to take informed risk and attempt to produce as much revenue as possible.”

Smith says he lost about 1,200 acres of land his family has rented for years. “My grandfather broke it out of sagebrush in 1949 when he rented it from the state,” he said.

Cramer believes that the legislation is reasonable and won’t be difficult for DNR to implement.

“I’m thankful DNR admitted that,” Brown said.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t help the guys who lost their leases.”

This story is part of a series of news reports from the Washington State Legislature provided through a reporting internship sponsored by the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation. Reach reporter Matt Spaw at matthewspaw@gmail.com.

Photo courtesy Wheat Life / Washington, Association of Wheat Growers

Chad Smith, a Benton County wheat farmer, stands in front of his farm equipment. He is one of five farmers losing a Department of Natural Resources land lease in the Horse Heaven Hills area. DNR is bringing in Columbia River water for irrigation that would help produce higher yield crops and more revenue from these state Trust Lands.

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