Good Fruit Grower / October 2008 / Quick Bites

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Quick Bites

Apple Artists

High-school junior Chloe Lyn Johnson of Spokane, Washington, won the grand prize in the Washington Apple Education Foundation's 2008 Year of the Apple art contest with an oil painting of Gala and Golden Delicious apples. She received a $1,000 savings bond, and her painting will be featured on the 2009 Dow AgroSciences wall calendar.

Winners were selected from about 400 entries from Washington students. Receiving honorable mentions in the calendar division of the contest were: Jonathon DeBartolo of Battle Ground; Laura Stewart of Selah; Nani Sasaki of Washougal; and Kateryn Kiryllshehenkoua, Jee-Yoon Lee, and Danica Wixom, all of Vancouver. They received $250 savings bonds.

Winners in the holiday card contest were: Makaylee Clark of Prosser and Cameron Kerl and Alexandra Kerl of Puyallup. They also received $250 savings bonds.

Winners in the pear art contest were Ezra Brand of Benton City; Estelle Kim of Vancouver; and Samuel Strain of Chelan. They received $250 ­savings bonds from the Pear Bureau Northwest.

Winners in the soft fruit category were Reilly Schoening of Cashmere; Kyuri Kim of Vancouver; and Riley Mackey of Renton. They received $250 savings bonds from the Washington State Fruit Commission.

The schools of the winners received $100 checks for the purchase of art supplies.


New Wine Grape Book

The Natural Resource, Agriculture, and Engineering Service in Ithaca, New York, is offering a new grape production guide at a special preprinting discounted price.

The Wine Grape Production Guide for Eastern North America, which will be published this fall, covers all aspects of wine grape production, including site selection, rootstocks, vineyard establishment, pruning and training, canopy management, nutrient management, pests and diseases, irrigation, and economic issues. The 300-page book is illustrated with color photographs and drawings.

For a limited time, advance orders can be placed for $44, plus shipping and handling for a single copy, or $39 for orders of 25 or more. The list price will be $65.

To place an order or to download sample pages, visit the Web site at www.nraes.org. For information by phone, call (607) 255-7654.


Farmers Paid for Storing CO2

More than 2,300 farmers and ranchers have received checks for capturing and storing carbon dioxide in their soil, through the National Farmers Union's Carbon Credit Program. Union President Tom Buis said in a press release that total earnings for 2006 and 2007 practices amounted to $5.9 million. The pool of enrollments sequestered carbon dioxide from 2.8 million acres by using no-till cropping practices and by converting cropland to long-term grass stands. That's enough to offset the estimated annual emissions of 320,000 cars. After third-party verification of the enrolled acres, the tons of CO2 were registered and sold on the Chicago Climate Exchange. More information about the program can be found at www.nfu.org.


Google Drought?

Imagine adding a thermometer to Google Earth. That's the vision of U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists Martha Anderson and Bill Kustas at the Hydrology and Remote Sensing Laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. Based on experiments over the past two decades, they see the potential to use thermal data from satellites for regional monitoring of evapotranspiration and drought on a daily basis. As with Google Earth, users could zoom in from the continental scale to a single field or irrigation operation.



100 Scholarships

The Washington Apple Education Foundation is inviting students to apply for scholarships sponsored by tree fruit industry firms and families in memory of former industry and community leaders. More than 100 scholarships, worth a total of more than $200,000, will be awarded next year.

A universal scholarship application is available at the Web site www.waef.org. Applications are due by March 1.

For information call (509) 663-7713 or e-mail waef@waef.org.