Changes in Gardening Tool & Business Assistance Grant. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A well known gardener and landscaper planting tool has received an on line update. Peter Bretting of USDA's Agricultural Research Service talks about what is different about the new USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map.

BRETTING: The technology that we’ve used in the new map is different from that of the older map. Secondly, it’s a different source of data. We have data from more than 8-thousand weather recording stations in the new map and it was recorded over a longer period, 30 rather than 15 years.

Yesterday, Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA has approved a conditional commitment in the amount of $232.5 million to ZeaChem Boardman Biorefinery through the Biorefinery Assistance Program. ZBB will operate a 25 million gallon per year biorefinery, which will be constructed on an industrial site in Boardman, Oregon, along the Columbia River. The biorefinery will use high-yield cellulosic fermentation technology to produce advanced biofuels (cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels). The Obama Administration is working to promote domestic production of renewable energy to create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, combat global warming, and build stronger rural economy.

Now here’s today’s Washington Grange report.

(Grange)

That’s today’s Northwest Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.