Farm Bill Funding Helps Local Research

Farm Bill Funding Helps Local Research. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

Senator Maria Cantwell recently toured several ag facilities including the Inland Desert Nursery in Benton City. Gary Grove from WSU-IAREC, was part of that group and he spent some time talking about how the recent farm bill has helped.

GROVE: One of the other areas the farm bill really benefits us is the Specialty Crop Research Initiative, both the specialty crop grants themselves and the block grants to the states. We have several projects in Eastern Washington from the specialty crop program looking again at perennial crops. We've received over $25-million dollars from the program since 2008.

Grove talks about how some of that money is being used.

GROVE: We have projects on mechanization, pesticide delivery without having to have someone sit on a tractor. Season long management of powdery mildew on cherries, the effective plant stresses on hop diseases such as hop stunt viroid. And now we can continue that thanks to the farm bill.

Grove says he is currently working with two of the specialty crop block grants that were a part of the previous farm bill and says it is nice to see the programs moving forward.

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