The 2012 Grinch is a Slug

             I love the holiday season, but I’m not a big fan of the Christmas tree shipping season. There is a shipping Grinch every year. This year, it is slugs on Oregon trees arriving in Hawaii.

            Oregon has over 700 licensed Christmas tree growers. Together they produce 8 million trees a year. Ninety percent of the trees are sold out-of-state, including 900,000 to customers in foreign countries. Every country and some states have import requirements, and Oregon Department of Agriculture Nursery/Christmas tree program staff spend October through early December inspecting  trees and certifying crop for export. There are no better Christmas tree inspectors in the world, but every year the Grinch slips through the system and ruins someone’s Christmas.

            This year, it’s the Hawaii Department of Agriculture inspectors that are working overtime and dreaming of a vacation from Christmas. On first arrival in Honolulu, 40 percent of the Oregon Christmas tree containers were found to have hitchhiking slugs. A smaller number had yellow jacket queens, root weevils, and other live critters. As the season progressed, the percentage of quarantined containers declined until only 12 percent of the last shipment of 54 containers were quarantined.

            What happened? Biology and reality. Christmas trees are living organisims grown in a verdant environment. Spiders, ants, slugs, tree frogs, and lots of other animals live in Christmas tree plantations – tree are, after all, homes for many kinds of wildlife. Inspectors can spot twig weevil or needle midge infestations in fields, but a slug on a Christmas tree, especially an immature tree like the ones uses in Hawaii to celebrate the holiday season, is virtually impossible to discover. Oregon Christmas trees, though of high quality, are not sterile. In fact, they are far from it.

            The reality is that the inspection and certification process only screens out trees from unhealthy fields; it doesn’t guard against hitchhikers.

            Hawaii’s inspectors are commited to their mission of protecting their islands from invasive species. They are doing the right thing by stopping infested containers. Unfortunately for them, the demand for Christmas trees is so great that they are working overtime and weekends to hot water-wash our trees before releasing them. I feel bad about that. This kind of invasive species issue should be taken care of at origin rather than at destination.

            I’ve had it with the Shipping Grinch. We need to kick this Grinch out of our holiday. We invest a great deal of time and resources protecting Oregon from invasive species because it is important. We also need to make sure we aren’t exporting potential invaders to our customers. After all, we would expect the same from them.

            We’re going to have to figure out a better system of preventing hitchhikers from leaving Oregon on Christmas trees. There is hope. Some growers haven’t had any rejections. They are using a combination of mechanical shaking, slug baits, stacking trees on pallets, or power-washing to discourage hitchhikers. We need to figure out what’s working and turn what we learn into best management practices that all growers can follow.

            Best of luck to you for a Grinch-free Christmas! And don’t forget to thump your Christmas tree in the driveway before bringing it indoors. All the little hitchhikers that fall out with the dead needles will thank you – and so will your spouse, your neighborhood, your county, your state . . .

Dan Hilburn     

            

Neighbor Problems

         Years ago, my wife and I moved from a starter house in a friendly neighborhood to our dream house on the hill. We love our new house, but we miss the friendly neighbors. Our relationship with the new neighbors is best described as strained. Neighboring states and countries don’t always get along either. Invasive species are a common source of friction. Here are some examples from Oregon’s neighborhood.

         The pet food cricket industry has struggled recently with a viral disease. Until recently, Acheta domesticus was the standard. The industry turned to Europe to find a ready replacement, Gryllus assimilis. Scientists that study crickets advised us that bringing in another exotic species was a bad idea, especially one in the genus Gryllus that could establish in the wild and compete with our native species. Luckily there was a better replacement candidate already in culture. Oregon refused to sign permits for G. assimilis and instead recommended Gryllodes sigillatus. The industry and other states have come around to our way of thinking -- Canada has not.

        

         Brand new draft regulations for importing insects into Canada list G. assimilis as “No Import Permit Required.” In other words, you can import G. assimilis into Canada without restriction. Sooner or later everything imported to Canada ends up in the United States - in other words, our back door is wide open. This is not the first time we’ve encountered this north-south pathway. Apple ermine moth, cherry bark tortrix, and boxwood blight all were introduced first to Canada, then spread south or were shipped south to Oregon.

         Canada’s regulations are different than ours. They are designed to protect Canada from invasive species that might impact their agriculture or environment. Naturally, they care about species adapted to their climate and environment. G. assimilis is a low risk for them. Protecting their neighbors to the south is not their highest priority.

         We have similar issues with our neighbors to the south. They have pests that we don’t want, and sometimes they aren’t concerned because the risk is low – for them. Light brown apple moth is a good example. It was introduced to California a few years back from Australia. To California, this species is a minor pest, and they dropped their eradication program after a public outcry over proposed aerial spraying. We were big supporters of their spray program. Getting rid of the pest in California would have been an excellent way to protect the apple industry of the Pacific Northwest.

         Sometimes we face multiple problem neighbors. Hydrilla, an aquatic weed on our 100 Worst List, has been found in California, Washington, and Idaho. We’re surrounded! Zebra and quagga mussels also threaten to invade from both the east and the south. Saltmarsh cord grass is established on the West Coast both north and south of Oregon.

         It is easy to blame our neighbors, but least we get too smug, it is worth remembering that other states and countries look at Oregon as a source of headaches for them. We have species that they don’t want. A few examples: brownmarmorated stink bug is spreading out from its western beachhead in Portland;  German yellowjackets and Swiss needle cast in Oregon Christmas trees are a worry for Hawaii and Mexico; and sudden oak death pops up from time to time in Oregon nurseries causing alarm among regulatory officials in states that buy our nursery stock. It’s a 2-way street, or more accurately it’s a flat world (sorry Magellan).

         In the realm of plant protection, the National Plant Board is our “neighborhood association” where these issues get thrashed out. The meetings are always interesting and occasionally tense. 

         You’re part of Oregon’s invasive species neighborhood too – we all are. We’re all stuck with the neighbors around us, and what they do impacts us – and they’re stuck with us and what we do impacts them. It’s no wonder our neighbor-to-neighbor relations are sometimes strained – just like at home.

Dan Hilburn

Arundo – Your Turn to Comment

Do you see giant reed (Arundo) as a promising source of green energy or a threat to Oregon’s environment? It is your turn to weigh in. Public comments are now being accepted on the Oregon Department of Agriculture's (ODA) proposed regulation for Arundo. We need your input to get this right because what happens in Oregon over the next few years could impact the state for decades, even centuries to come. In fact, it could have worldwide ramifications. This is a big deal.

Portland General Electric (PGE) is proposing to use giant reed as a replacement fuel for their Boardman power plant after 2020 when coal is no longer an option. It is an interesting idea. From a green, sustainable energy point of view, it’s a winner. Arundo grows fast and produces as much as twenty tons of biomass/acre/year. That’s attractive if you’re in the biofuel business, but there is a potential down side. Arundo is also a serious noxious weed. In fact, it is considered one of the worst invasive species worldwide.

           

ODA is walking a tightrope. We’d love to see a source of homegrown, carbon-neutral energy, but we’d hate to be complicit in the introduction of a new noxious weed. So we’re proposing a regulation to allow biofuel production while minimizing the risk of escape. Here is a summary of what the regulation would do:

• Allow Arundo for biofuel under permit.
• Prohibit Arundo in floodplains.
• Growers/companies would pay a $2.00/acre/year assessment to cover the cost of monitoring.
• A $100/acre bond, up to $1 million, would be required to cover eradication, if needed.
• Wild-type Arundo would be phased out of the nursery industry. Variegated varieties would be allowed unless the State Weed Board declares Arundo a noxious weed.

I toured several of the Arundo trials near Boardman in late September. Compared to last year, the plants have grown a lot. They look like very tall corn. In the better fields, the Arundo is 15 feet tall and the stems are getting dense enough that that it isn’t easy to walk through the fields. Other plots are still sparse and choked with weeds. There is no evidence of plants spreading outside the irrigated fields, and there were no flowers or seeds.

Theoretically there should be a zone outside Arundo’s potential range where you can grow it with irrigation, fertilizer, and suppression of competition, but it won’t thrive and spread on it’s own. The evidence available today suggests Boardman is in that zone. Much of the rest of Oregon might be also. Riparian areas would be the exception.

The success or failure of this project for PGE is likely to hinge on economics and the availability of irrigated land. We wish them well and hope that our proposed regulations are not a significant impediment. ODA’s bottom line is to keep Arundo from becoming a noxious weed.

If this experiment works, Arundo would be an excellent complement to wind energy, and Oregon would be taking a huge step toward the use of clean, renewable energy. If Arundo doesn’t pan out and hasn’t become a weed -- oh well, it was worth a try. The only scenario we need to avoid is that it escapes and invades our riparian areas. Working together, we should be able to prevent that from happening. Help us get this right.

Check out the proposed rules at: http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/PLANT/Pages/index.aspx. Let us know if you think they would do what we need to protect Oregon. Comments can be submitted via email to: sgooch@oda.state.or.us until November 9, or you can come to one of the hearings and present your testimony in person (Oct. 30, 11:00 AM in Salem or Oct. 31, 4:00 PM in Hermiston). Or just post your comments below. We’re listening.

Dan Hilburn