Wolf Attack & Sudden Oak Death

Wolf Attack & Sudden Oak Death plus Food Forethought. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Northwest Report.

A recent pathogen known as Sudden Oak Death has caused major problems for the horticulture industry on the West Coast and USDA Plant Pathologist Nik Grunwald says they have been tracking it.

GRUNWALD: We saw two major migration pathways, one from Southern California and one from the Pacific Northwest so clearly there were different migrations that happened with different nursery shipments.

The disease has created quarantines and travel restriction along the coast and resulted in the deaths of live oak and tanoaks in California. They are trying to keep the disease from spreading to East coast nurseries.

GRUNWALD: We have the genome available of this pathogen so we know exactly what genes it has and we’re studying which genes are expressed under what conditions especially when the pathogen reacts with the host and those genes can eventually become targets for development of specific fungicides that could kill this pathogen.

Wolves are being blamed for the death of four hound dogs near Elk River, Idaho last week. Bill Greenlee says he was bear hunting with Joseph Nelson of Elk River last week when their dogs ran into a pack of wolves. Greenlee said three of his Walker hounds and one of Nelson's red bone hounds were killed. This year marks the first wolf hunting season in Idaho and Montana since the animals were taken off the Endangered Species list. Wolves are still under federal protection in Wyoming.

Now with today’s Food Forethought, here’s Lacy Gray.

I have a confession to make; I have a weakness for cookbooks. I always have. My collection goes way back to my pre-marriage times. In fact my first cookbook I ordered from the grade school book club and was titled “The Peanuts Cookbook”, as in Charlie Brown. I still have it along with the several church cookbooks from my bridal shower. Apparently I’m not alone in my fetish for recipes. The famous Pendleton Roundup in Oregon has put together a centennial cookbook which includes 100 years of recipes. The team of volunteers who put the cookbook together was pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming response to their request for recipes from 1910 to 2010. With nearly 800 recipes to sort through and taste test the job of organizing the cookbook was no small feat indeed. To top it all off they even managed to have recipes submitted by a celebrity or two and a foreword written by the irrepressible Reba McEntire. Sure makes my “Charlie Brown” cookbook pale in comparison. Still, they should look just fine together on my kitchen shelf.

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