In this podcast, editors and reporters explain why wheat growers are worried about talks between West Coast grain terminals and the International Longshoremen and Warehouse Union, how a Willamette Valley nursery is emerging from bankruptcy and why Washington state officials have shot six wolves from the Wedge Wolf Pack.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
Reporter Kelsey Thalhofer talks about the special report on the Farwest nursery show and reporter Sean Ellis examines rising optimism among Idaho onion growers.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
This week, the Capital Press has a special report on the nursery industry. Reporter Mitch Lies sat down with Jeff Stone, executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries, Kristin VanHoose, current president of the association, and Jerry Simnitt, president-elect of the association, to talk about some of the challenges facing the industry.
Subscribe to this podcast in iTunes or your favorite RSS reader.
To listen, click here.
Mark Rozin, photo coordinator for the Capital Press, put together a slide show today of the damage Western Oregon nursery growers have suffered from the winter storms and the weird weather that have hit the Pacific Northwest. It may be a little hard to find on our main site, so I though I would put a link here too. You can read the article here.
As an usually warm heat wave is predicted for the West later this week, people who may have already put up their hanging flower baskets may wonder what is the best way to care for them.
Capital Press reporter Cookson Beecher bought some baskets herself a few days ago and realized other people might also appreciate the tips she was receiving from Cheryl Loeb at Summersun Nursery and Landscaping at Mount Vernon, Wash.
Using her new small camcorder, Beecher taped some of the tips — and we've now posted the video on YouTube.
A community in Oregon of approx. 9,000 people is about to feel the impact of a national problem: The sales of new homes is down to a 13-year low, and analysts say this slump could last from 2006 to 2009, according to an Associated Press story.
Meanwhile, according to the Statesman Journal newspaper today, “Champion Enterprises notified Silverton's mayor that it would shut down its Redman Housing plant by May 23” in Silverton, Ore. When the company that builds manufactured homes closes, it will cost about 160 jobs to the community.
While the city hopes another business will buy the manufacturing facilities and generate other jobs, this may be a sign of bigger problems down the road: A recession on its way.
“Many analysts believe the (housing) slump could combine with a multitude of other problems including a severe credit crunch, soaring energy prices and plunging consumer confidence, to push the country into a full-blown recession,” said AP.
Large companies in small towns mean jobs, and when those businesses close down, their impact is huge, not just for those directly who are employed, but for all the other benefits and money injected into the community.
Outside of Silverton, other natural resource industries and businesses will also be watching closely what happens with housing across the country. For example, the slower sale of new homes will hit the timber and nursery industries that supply materials and landscaping to these new homes.
The Western states are supposedly not facing the housing crisis as badly as other states. “Sales dropped the most in the Northeast, falling by 40.6 percent. Sales were also down in the Midwest, dropping by 6.4 percent, but posted gains in the South of 5.7 percent and 0.7 percent in the West,” reported AP.
I’d be curious to hear from our blog readers in other parts of the country on what they are seeing in their communities, especially in how it may affect their rural areas and agricultural businesses.
Nursery owners are watching closely the weather forecasts during the next couple of days.
Unusually cool weather is expected Wednesday and Thursday, according to the National Weather Office, and the foothills and mountains of the Cascades and the Coastal Range are expected to get snow as low as 500 feet and possible accumulations of two to four inches.
That might not sound like a lot, but for nursery owners who have been moving their colorful stock out of the greenhouses to prepare them for shipping to markets, it has become a guessing game of whether their nurseries will escape the snow or not.
Bob Terry, Oregon Association of Nurseries president, said this afternoon that his nursery and others are busy preparing for “just in case” — if the snow appears to be heading their way, the nurseries will try to cover up as many of their more vulnerable plants as possible. While a hard freeze would cause serious damage, the nurseries don’t want to take any chances with unusual snowfalls this time of year.
This is the critical time for nurseries as they try to get their plants ready for the eager gardeners across the country. The calendar says it’s spring, even if there remains a lot of wintry weather in some areas; West Coast nurseries play an important role in helping meet the demand of retail and wholesale markets.
Hopefully, the weather office is wrong on how low temperatures will get and how low of elevations any snow will accumulate, and the snow will fall on the mountains where a healthy snow pack is always welcome.
