War on Weeds Helps Agriculture

War on Weeds Helps Agriculture

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.
 
This week has been proclaimed by Oregon’s Governor Kitzhaber has Oregon Invasive Weed Awareness week. The awareness of and response to noxious weeds is important to all of us in the Pacific Northwest, especially agriculture and natural resources.

Tim Butler supervises the Oregon Department of Agriculture's Noxious Weed Control Program. He says the state really started dealing with invasive weeds back in the 1970s when horses and cattle began dying from the poisonous tansy ragwort in pastures.

Butler: "It's evolved into where we are working on 117 state listed noxious weeds statewide. Agriculture is where it all started and it is still a key component to protect the 5.1 billion dollar agricultural industry from invasive noxious weeds. But it goes beyond that as far as these have far reaching effects on all of our natural resources in Oregon.”

Butler says the key invasive weed week message is early detection and rapid response that is a good reminder for any Pacific Northwest resident including farmers and ranchers.

Butler: "These new invader weeds, if you can find them early on, that is certainly what we are all striving for and before they become a significant problem. That's where the ag community and growers can be very active to let us know if they find new weeds.”

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.