Recycle the Fall & Northwest Weather

Recycle the Fall & Northwest Weather plus Food Forethought. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. We have already had snowfall in the mountains and rains over the coast. Weather forecasters are looking at a la Niña weather pattern that should be influencing our weather according to meteorologist Tim Creek. CREEK: It is a la Niña type of pattern. It's a situation where we tend to see colder than average weather conditions and I do think that's going to happen. We can see shots of cold air dropping in the area. Sometimes they stay east of the Rockies and drop into the upper Midwest, sometimes they drop down into the northwest. I just think for the west coast we are going to see a cooler than average weather. Boise is taking a different view of raking and collecting all those leaves that are currently invading your property. Now, you can "Recycle the Fall" to make your fall yard work environmentally-friendly. Starting November 1, Boise residents can leave their paper leaf bags by the curbside for pick-up. Residents received $10 coupons in the September and October trash bills for the purchase of compostable paper leaf bags. Boise is also encouraging residents to reuse leaves at home by chopping them with a mower or shredder and adding them to your compost pile or directly to garden beds as mulch. Using shredded leaves as mulch adds nitrogen in the spring to replenish what was utilized for decomposition. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Lacy Gray. It appears California's Judge White, who's overseeing hearings involving the planting of genetically engineered beet crops, has already made up his mind which way the ruling is going to go, and it doesn't look good for conventional beet growers. Being that earlier this month he stated the litigants in the case, organic beet growers and conservation food safety groups, were more than likely to succeed in their complaints against the continued planting of GM sugar beet seed, any arguments brought before Judge White by the USDA will more than likely fall upon deaf ears. Judge White's rejection of arguments from GM sugar beet seed firms over the necessity of the limited planting permits they received from the USDA to do further research and development for possible authorized gm beet planting in the future seems to indicate that the USDA will be unsuccessful in producing a plan which would allow growers to plant Roundup Ready beets next year. If that's the case, U.S. sugar production will be reduced by an alarming twenty to twenty-five percent, a reduction that would undoubtedly result in a severe sugar shortage, the likes of which haven't been seen since World War II rationing. Thanks Lacy. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.