Finding Balance Between Elk and Landowners & Growing Degree Days Ahead  Of Normal

Finding Balance Between Elk and Landowners & Growing Degree Days Ahead Of Normal

Finding Balance Between Elk and Landowners & Growing Degree Days Ahead Of Normal

I'm Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

Landowners in the Enumclaw - Buckley area will have an opportunity to voice their concerns over that region's increasing elk population, which is damaging crops and decimating fields intended to support cattle grazing, at a meeting convened by Senator Pam Roach. Roach has invited state Department of Fish and Wildlife officials and WFB representatives to also take part, and says that she looks forward to bringing folks together for a constructive discussion on how to find a balance between the needs of the animals and the landowners. The meeting will be held at the Enumclaw Public Library April 8, beginning at 6:30 p.m..

BJ Thurlby with the Washington Fruit Commission reports that things are off to a good start for the 2014 growing season in the Pacific Northwest.

THURLBY: It depends on where your at but along the Columbia River there's a lot of bloom going on in apricots and cherries are swelling by the day. We're coming into that critical period where you want to see nice bloom, you want to have warm enough days where the bees will actually leave the hive, you want to see no rain, and you hope at night that the temperatures don't drop to the point where they have negative implications on the overall blooms. Right now the growing degree days are actually ahead of normal for all districts, which is good, because what that means is there's a chance we may end up with some volume for the 4th of July, which we haven't had in the last five or six years.

Tomorrow Thurlby will talk in depth about water supply concerns for Washington growers revolving around the damage sustained by the Wanapum dam.

That's Washington Ag Today.

I'm Lacy Gray on the Ag Information Network.

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