State trade mission leaves for Asia; spring wheat, stripe rust and fungicides

Washington Ag Today September 13, 2010 A delegation of nearly 80 business, agriculture and education leaders led by Governor Chris Gregoire leave for a trade mission to China and Vietnam today.

The delegation, which includes Department of Agriculture Director Dan Newhouse, will spend 11 days meeting with industry leaders in agriculture, aerospace, clean energy and education, promoting Washington products. The group will also share the advantages of doing business in Washington at the Shanghai World Expo.

A recent USDA Economic Research study looked at Japan’s beef market. The island nation has not fully reopened to U.S. beef since BSE was discovered here in 2003. USDA research economist Mike McConnell says Japanese beef consumption is still sensitive to prices changes and income.

McConnell: “With constrained supplies there has been a pretty high price for beef over the past couple of years. So as beef supplies increase the price could potentially drop in the future which could really benefit U.S. exporters as they market to Japan.”

An aging Japanese population and what it means for beef demand is another key factor.

This was a bad year for stripe rust particularly in spring wheat. USDA Agricultural Research Service scientist Xianming Chen at Pullman says nursery studies conducted this year show that without the application of a fungicide the rust in spring wheat would have caused an average of 18 percent yield loss. He says highly susceptible varieties could have had losses of up to 47 percent. Chen says some spring wheat treated with fungicide had low yields due drought conditions in early July.

I’m Bob Hoff and that’s Washington Ag Today on Northwest Aginfo Net.