Stink Bug Visiting the Northwest

Stink Bug Visiting the Northwest. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The brown marmorated stink bug has caused lots of damage to ag crops in the east and has been spotted in Oregon. Peter Shearer with Oregon State University says they have been setting traps to monitor it’s progress.

SHEARER: This past year we increased our finds in to Polk County and Deschutes County. Now it’s been found in Hood River County as well. Jay Brunner oversaw the monitoring in Washington State along with Todd Murray and Doug Walsh, they had over 50 baited traps and this occurred from mid-September to late October and no stink bugs were found in traps but the were caught and seen in some of these sites mainly in the Vancouver metropolitan area.

Shearer says it is also beginning to spread up the Columbia River Gorge and has been found in Skamania County and is moving towards eastern Washington. He looks at the potential impacts.

SHEARER: Well if you look at the value of some of the crops that are at risk in Washington State whether they’re nursery crops or some important food crops, the bottom line is it’s at least $3-billion dollars just on these crops alone and that’s the Farmgate value. That has nothing to do with the transportation and all the other value added dollars that are grown with these crops but $3-billion dollars is quite significant.

He says while Oregon isn’t as large an ag industry as Washington just looking at container nursery and some other important ag crops put the potential impact over a billion dollars. This pest can have a significant negative impact on our ag industry.

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