Battling Pine Bark Beetles & Approaching CRP General Sign Up

The Mountain Pine Beetle is known to inflict severe damage to standing timber. The US Forest Service reported losses of over 588 thousand trees between 1990 and 92 in Washington state alone due to this beetle. In 2011 the USFS introduced a strategy to battle the expansion of the pine bark beetle, and in a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell requested funding in the proposed fiscal year 2013 budget to help continue the fight against this major pest. Outbreaks can last for more than ten years, and as mountain pine beetles are generally in an epidemic condition on at least one of their hosts somewhere in the west it is almost inevitable that any timber stand in the region will be affected by an infestation at one time or another.

Reminder - landowners, farmers, and ranchers who want to offer eligible land for the Conservation Reserve Program competitive general sign-up can enroll March 12 through April 6. In yesterday’s White House Conservation Conference Ag Secretary Vilsack announced additional opportunities for producers to enroll land in CRP.

VILSACK: We’re also going to increase the incentive payment on CRP to a hundred and fifty dollars an acre. So this million acre opportunity we think is a tremendous chance to continue focusing on the good work that CRP does, not only in terms of providing landowners, farmers and ranchers alternative income sources, but also focusing on the environmental benefits of CRP as well as the habitat benefits.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.