More federal funds for incentives to landowners for hunting and fishing; spring wheat and stripe rust

Washington Ag Today July 11, 2011 The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has received a new federal grant of nearly one million dollars to provide incentives for eastern Washington land owners to open their lands to hunting and fishing. The money was authorized in the 2008 Farm Bill.

Department private lands coordinator Don Larsen says the funding will be used in three ways;

Provide incentives to land owners to allow hunting on forested properties in Kittitas, Klickitat, Pend Oreille, Spokane, Stevens and Yakima counties.

Work with landowners in Columbia, Garfield, Lincoln, Walla Walla and Whitman counties to improve habitat enrolled in both the federal Conservation Reserve and the Fish and Wildlife access programs.

And to initiate a “Feel Free to Fish” program in southeast Washington, paying private landowners for shoreline access to river fisheries.

USDA-Agricultural Research Service scientist Xianming Chen at Pullman says the state’s winter wheat has developed to a point that nothing more can be done to address stripe rust but it is a critical time to control the disease in spring wheat, even in varieties that normally have shown good resistance like Louise.

Chen: “This year because the rust inoculum is so heavy that probably the early application of fungicide together with herbicide is worth it even on Louise. But after that it should be okay.”

Stripe rust was a major topic at Washington State University’s Spillman Field Day last Thursday where farmers toured viewed research plots and heard presentations from scientists.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.

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