11/12/08 Oregon Water & Winter Wheat

Oregon Water & Winter Wheat plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. There are a lot of people who are still scratching their heads over bottled water. Buying water? Why not just turn on the faucet? There are issues with chemicals leeching from the bottles and the bottles themselves are under fire as they take up more and more space at the landfill. One water bottling company is looking at taking water from the Willamette River. Coca-Cola is planning a $35 million expansion of its Wilsonville plant to include their Dasani water. Of course they do plan on using extra filtering of the river water. Winter wheat planting is mostly on target and emergence is doing fairly well according to USDA Meteorologist Brad Rippey. RIPPEY: What we are seeing there is that nearly all the crops planted and the number for November 9th shows that the winter wheat is 94% planted, equal to the 5-year average. Winter wheat emergence has reached 83%; 1-point behind the 5-year average. The only real emergence problems are in the northwest where it was dry early in the season and it's now turned wetter but cool so that has hampered emergence. Oregon only 47% emerged; 5-year average is 72%. And the winter wheat condition, and again we focus on the northwest where Oregon winter wheat is 29% poor and Washington wheat is 32% very poor to poor. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. Sometimes a story comes along that just makes you feel good. Granted it hasn't happened a lot lately, which makes this one stand out even that much more. Children and many other spectators were treated to the rare sight of a wheat field in the middle of Manhattan, New York this fall. The quarter acre of wheat, which shared with visitors the growth journey wheat takes from emergence to maturity, was the brain child of the Wheat Foods Council and accurately called "The Urban Wheat Field." Thousands of people from all walks of life and areas of the country were treated by volunteer farmers from across the nation to a working exhibit of the history of wheat and what a staple of our lives it really is. And perhaps most importantly The Urban Wheat Field was visited by hundreds of school age children, hopefully sparking an interest in not only where their bread, pasta, or breakfast cereal begins its journey before they purchase it at the supermarket, but an interest and desire to be one of our nation's future farmers and food providers. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.