Watching the Winter Cutworm & Hemp Applications
Watching the Winter Cutworm & Hemp Applications. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report.
Oregon is now accepting applications for hemp production. Licenses will allow you to grow and handle industrial hemp for the 2016 growing season and they will be issued on an annual basis rather than every three years. Currently agricultural hemp seed is hard to get but OSU is working to address that hurdle and has approved a hemp seed certification process, establishing a seed certification standard. One of the issues with the federal regulation of hemp, a cousin to marijuana, is that any seed or genetic material cannot be brought across state lines unless the carrier is registered with the Drug Enforcement Agency.
Oregon and Washington growers may be seeing more of a new pest Amy Dreves, ODA Assistant Professor & Sr. Researcher says these cutworms have a unique feature in that they are gregarious & highly mobile, similar to armyworms, and have the ability to cause heavy defoliation of above-ground parts and crowns.
DREVES: But also keeping a very close eye as to if activity increases in the Spring. There is a really great handbook out there, it's the Pacific Northwest Insect Management handbook that has lists of various chemicals perhaps if you do see a lot of them but the best is really targeting the young.
That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
