Spring fling

Capital Press advertising staff members from four states gathered in our Salem, Ore., office this week. Staff members meet at Capital Press HQ twice a year for a planning and training session. One of the big topics of conversation at this week's meetings was how advertising representatives can help clients reach their customers in print and online.

Technology now allows the Capital Press to serve clients and readers in a variety of ways beyond our best known medium of ink-on-paper. In the future, you may even see video used on Capital Press websites.

As a little demonstration, today I shot some photos and a snippet of video using a cell phone camera. You probably won't hear the audio, and the video is bad, but I just wanted to demonstrate what's possible with simple tools widely available to the public for the Capital Press staff.

Entering our third spring planting

Two years ago, on March 15, 2006, a little experiment began. This blog site was created on that date. If you read the post I wrote on that date, it's apparent I was anything by convinced that the blog would have a long life. Back then, I wasn't sure it would last a month, let alone two years.

Some of the things that we tried on this site have gone on to be included on the Capital Press website. This as been a fertile test plot for our staff to try new things.

I'll leave it up to others to measure how much success we can claim here. But the site has been going for two years now. It has grown into something of a team effort, with 6 members of our staff signed on as contributors. And we are closing in on 21,ooo visits to the site. That's pretty tame in blog terms. It's also just somewhere north of half the readers we reach every week with our print newspaper, the Capital Press. But we've learned a lot in those two years.

For one thing, the people who visit our blog come from a wider national, and international, base than our print readership. We've also learned that some of the people who find our blog or our main website come here because they are interested in the issues that affect agriculture and how that it affects the food they eat. They want to know more about how their food is grown, even if they are not commercial growers of food and fiber. So our blog and our website allow us to reach people we would not ordinarily reach.

Whatever your reason for visiting Blogriculture, we want to thank you for your role in taking what was an experiment for a season and helping turn it into a perennial crop.

Urban farming

As urban sprawl takes over farmland, some people are trying to bring the farm downtown.

AeroGrow is attempting to bring a niche farming technology to the kitchen for people who love fresh herbs and vegetables but don't want (or can't have) a full garden. While it may not offer a lot of opportunities for the average farmer or nursery (it's proprietary and marketed via TV), its success shows there is a segment of urbanites willing to spend for a touch of fresh flavor.

The plants are greener on the other side of the wall too, as vertical gardening demonstrates. It's expensive, at $900 to $1,800 a square meter, but if environmentalism gets more popular, more people and companies will pay a lot for a green facade.

It shouldn't be that surprising that kitchen tomatoes and jungle walls are growing in popularity — people are even raising chickens in New York City.

Gilligan’s Island actress in hot water

Most people when they think of Dawn Wells, they think of the perky Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island.
However, in the ag community she is a perky spokesperson that helps promote Idaho potatoes and gives great cooking tips in commercials and on YouTube like how to peel a potato with just hot water and some ice cubes.

However, now Wells might be too much a hot potato herself: The Idaho Potato Commission might want to stay away from using her to promote their healthy, wholesome product.

Seems there was more cookin’ lately with her…

An Associated Press story this afternoon said Wells will “serve six months’ unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car.” (Click here to see related AP video.)

More from AP:

“She was sentenced Feb. 29 to five days in jail, fined $410.50 and placed on probation after pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving.

Under a plea agreement, three misdemeanor counts — driving under the influence, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance — were dropped.

On Oct. 18, Teton County sheriff's Deputy Joseph Gutierrez arrested Wells as she was driving home from a surprise birthday party that was held for her. According to the sheriff's office report, Gutierrez pulled Wells over after noticing her swerve and repeatedly speed up and slow down. When Gutierrez asked about a marijuana smell, Wells said she'd just given a ride to three hitchhikers and had dropped them off when they began smoking something. Gutierrez found half-smoked joints and two small cases used to store marijuana.

The 69-year-old Wells, founder of the Idaho Film and Television Institute and organizer of the region's annual family movie festival called the Spud Fest, then failed a sobriety test.

Wells' lawyer, Ron Swafford, said that a friend of Wells' testified that he'd left a small amount of marijuana in the vehicle after using it that day, and that Wells was unaware of it. Swafford also said several witnesses were prepared to testify that Wells had very little to drink at the party and was not intoxicated when she left. He said she was swerving on the road because she was trying to find the heater controls in her new car."

Little moth stirs up big controversy

I got an e-mail this afternoon from Amber Dance, an intern for California public radio station KQED's science program, Quest. Amber was kind enough to share a link to a recent report on the program about efforts to eradicate the light brown apple moth in California.

We've been covering that issue rather extensively in our California edition of Capital Press, with much of that reporting coming from staff member Elizabeth Larson. As if the moth itself weren't enough of a pest, in recent months the efforts to get rid of it have gotten pesky too.

Overall, the Quest report, which originally aired Thursday, March 6, does a good job of explaining a complex and controversial issue. One part of the broadcast that's likely to draw grumbles comes near the end of the report where the light brown apple moth is compared to the Medfly. James Carey, a professor of entomology at the University of California-Davis, draws the comparison and the report cites Carey's experience related to the Medfly eradication efforts using Malathion in the 1980s. The report may give the erroneous impression that the pheromone used to disrupt the mating of the apple moth poses a similar toxicity exposure as does Malathion, which is a pesticide designed to kill -- not just confuse -- insects (click here for the pdf of the consensus statement on possible health effects of the pheromone). And, to be clear, the story does not say the pheromone poses those health risks, but it does quote people who believe the pheromone is, or could be, harmful and don't want it applied near them or their families.

One thing is for sure, this issue is stirring up controversy, and the Capital Press and other media outlets are not anywhere near done reporting about it and the views of people in agriculture and urban areas who have a stake in the outcome.

Portland-area market promotes 'buy local' philosophy

The folks at New Seasons Market want to give consumers a change to meet the folks that raise their food. They've done a nice little video to promote a lamb-tasting event they've got going on this weekend.

I stumbled upon it this week on YouTube, which was pretty exciting to see something about agriculture right here on the West Coast in an online video. In this case they are promoting the whole "buy local" philosophy.

I've been toying with the idea of highlighting agriculture related videos here on the Blogriculture site. So I thought, as something of a test drive of that idea, I'd share the New Seasons video with Blogriculture visitors. It's interesting to see how those in and around the ag industry are using the Internet.

New Seasons also has some videos on its YouTube channel to introduce people to farmers and ranchers who grow for their markets.