The Californian from Salinas, California • B6

6B Wednesday, October 18, 2017 thecalifornian.com The Salinas Californian ROCHESTER, Vt. With a vigorous shake of a tree limb, small wild apples rain down onto a plastic tarp at an old farmstead in Vermont. David Dolginow, co-founder of Shacksbury Cider, and a colleague then collect the yellow-skinned fruit in milk crates. In their quest for the best apples to make hard cider, hunted for heritage wild apples on mountain road- sides, in the thickets of old pastures and in backyards with the per- mission, of course through the compa- Lost Apple Project. the search for the pinot noir of ap- ples, go far and Dolginow said.

As the craft cider industry continues its yearslong resurgence and with not enough commercial cider apples avail- able, some cider-makers are foraging old wild apples that have links to the coun- early cider-making past. Of the esti- mated 700 craft cider makers in the Unit- ed States, at least two dozen are using foraged wild apples in at least one of their ciders, said Michelle McGrath, ex- ecutive director of the United States As- sociation of Cider Makers. a growing that started in the last couple of years, she said. What cider-makers are seeking are tannins and acidity in the wild apples, which are no good to eat but add com- plexity to cider. They taste so bitter- sweet or sharp that called the in the cider world.

focus is founded on the belief that early Americans drank best according to the family- owned Aaron Burr Cidery in Wurtsbo- ro, New York, which uses its own cider apples as well as locally grown and for- aged wild apples to produce what it calls Wild apple cider is unfiltered, so, in general, a little cloudy, and the taste is diverse. It tends to be more floral, have a tartness and leave a drying sensa- tion in the mouth, said Andy Brennan of Aaron Burr Cidery. Wildcraft Cider Works in Eugene, Oregon, not only harvests wild apples it- self from farms and old orchards but also has an annual community apple drive where residents bring in their backyard fruit and get cider or juice in return. Wildcraft then produces a batch of community drive cider. Last year, about 46,000 pounds of fruit came in, was amazing.

So that was really said Amy Marx of Wildcraft. The goal for Shacksbury, which sells its ciders around the country and its spe- cialty ciders through its cider club, is to find the best wild apples and propagate their own trees from the wild ones. It has a registry for landowners to notify them of the flavors and number of trees. On a recent day, someone dropped off several paper grocery bags full of apples for Shacksbury to try, with a guess at what variety they were Baldwin. From its samplings, it produces a Lost and Found cider and fermenta- tions named after the areas where the apples harvested, as well as some single varietals.

already not a great way to make money shaking wild trees but, you know, a labor of love, and inter- said co-founder Colin Davis. BEVERAGE INDUSTRY Colin Davis, co-founder of Shacksbury Cider, loads wild apples into a cider press in Vergennes, Vt. PHOTOS BY LISA Cider makers forage for the perfect old wild apple flavor David Dolginow, co-founder of Shacksbury Cider, hoists a bottle of hard cider beside a bin of wild apples just harvested at an old farmstead in Rochester, Vt. LISA RATHKE ASSOCIATED PRESS BISMARCK, N.D. Hundreds of farmers in the Upper Midwest are re- porting damage from the controversial herbicide dicamba, and state officials are considering restrictions for the 2018 growing season that might sur- pass even new federal rules.

The state agriculture departments in North Dakota, South Dakota and Minnesota this fall all asked farmers to respond to informal surveys so they could gauge the amount of damage in their states. More than 200 farmers in each state indicated damage. whole dicamba situation, something I think about night and said Tom Gere, assistant director of ag services for South Agricul- ture Department. need the tech- nology, with all of the resistant weeds we have out there, but we need the problems that had this Dicamba has been around for dec- ades for use on crops such as soybeans and corn, but complaints surfaced across the country this summer over drifting of newly registered formula- tions onto neighboring crops. Officials in some states issued temporary bans on the herbicide.

The advocacy group Pesticide Action Network has estimated that more than 3 million acres of crops in at least 20 states were damaged by dicamba drift this year an area the size of Connecticut. The federal Environmental Protec- tion Agency on Friday announced a deal with the agribusiness giants Mon- santo, BASF and DuPont for new volun- tary labeling requirements for the chemical for next growing season. Di- camba products will be labeled as stricted requiring additional training and certifications for applica- tors and limiting when and how the her- bicide can be sprayed. States can go further, even banning the use. That option is a pos- sibility in Minnesota, said Margaret Hart, spokeswoman for that ag- riculture department.

take a look at what our investi- gations brought forth, what the (farm- er) survey presented, what the EPA is she said. take all of that information and use it in the process of making our decision about (dicamba) registration for In North Dakota, where farmers this year are expected to harvest a record soybean crop, the Agriculture Depart- ment also is drafting state-specific di- camba restrictions. The state will not go so far as to ban the chemical but is likely to fine-tune the federal rules to fit North Dakota weather and geogra- phy, according to Agriculture Commis- sioner Doug Goehring. can be a little more prescriptive in North he said. have a pretty good idea, a feel, for where soy- beans are grown and what the environ- mental conditions State officials are striving to finalize their regulations soon.

HERBICIDE Farmers report dicamba damage BLAKE NICHOLSON ASSOCIATED PRESS FREMONT, Neb. The fight over chicken processing operation already approved by the city of Fremont and the state of Nebraska is now mov- ing to the county level. In the next 18 months or so, between 100 and 125 farmers in a rural 14-county region of eastern Nebraska will go be- fore their local county boards, seeking permits to build chicken barns on their land. The typical farmer will request per- mission to build four barns, each hous- ing 43,000 birds, although some flocks used in the operation will have a differ- ent arrangement, with more or fewer birds. The appearance of as many as 500 new poultry barns around the re- gion will be a change in many of the counties, where cattle feedlots and hog barns are the most common sign of live- stock agriculture.

Opponents vow to protest at every meeting, bringing their catalog of con- cerns about the potential im- pact on water quality, human health, ani- mal welfare and road conditions. But they admit a sense of inevitability about the project, in which the farmers would raise chickens for slaughter at a Costco processing plant under construc- tion in Fremont. The Omaha World-Herald reports that Dodge County Board members on Sept. 27 unanimously approved a permit for the first farmer to seek one, Colten Schafersman of Hooper, Nebraska, at a contentious meeting where supporters and opponents delivered about an hour of testimony. The testimony revealed strategies both sides will use as they try to influ- ence county boards in the coming months.

Opponents plan to attend and speak at every permit hearing, said Randy Rup- pert, a Dodge County resident and orga- nizer of the Nebraska Communities United group, which has opposed the project since it was announced in the spring of 2016. Group members are dividing and con- quering the list of counties to keep track of all the hearings on the calendar. are going to keep reiterating that there are far better ways of raising chickens than the ways Costco is plan- ning to do said Ruppert, who op- poses large-scale industrial livestock operations. Among other concerns, he worries that water quality in Nebraska will go the way of Iowa, where high nitrate lev- els from fertilizer runoff pose problems for drinking water in cities including Des Moines. on the threshold of destroying our state with this type of he said.

Representatives of the Costco project also plan to attend many or all of the meetings, in support of the farmers. Counties likely to see permit requests are: Burt, Butler, Cass, Colfax, Cuming, Dodge, Madison, Platte, Polk, Saunders, Seward, Stanton, Washington and Wayne. The farms are within a 60-mile drive of Fremont. There may also be in- terest from some counties in western Iowa, project representatives said, but there been much interest from the more urban Lancaster and Douglas Counties. Representatives of Lincoln Premium Poultry, the company that will operate the plant, have been making presenta- tions in advance to county boards to tell them about the project.

an effort to show them we want to be transparent, we want to be good partners and said Jessica Kolterman, who handles community out- reach for Lincoln Premium Poultry. When the permit applications do come before the boards, farmers, too, will be prepared. Lincoln Premium Poul- try is coaching farmers on how to an- swer the likely questions, such as queries about odor, how the farmers will work with their neighbors and how dispose of all the chicken manure. (Compost it and use it on farm fields as fertilizer.) Lincoln Premium is also paying for a consultant, Nutrient Advisors of West Point, Nebraska, to work with each farmer to fill out paperwork showing that his or her site meets a set of state guidelines for locating a livestock feed- ing operation. The guidelines called the Livestock Siting Assessment Matrix came out of a bill passed in the Nebraska Legislature in 2015, designed to make it easier for counties to evaluate and approve opera- tions like cattle feedlots and chicken and hog barns.

Dodge County in March was the first county to voluntarily adopt the matrix, with board members saying it was a tool, but not a rubber stamp, to help with eval- uating chicken barn requests. Ruppert, the project opponent, see it that way. He said the matrix makes the permits inevitable. going to approve this permit because now put the matrix in position, which really takes away all re- sponsibility from the county board of su- he said before the Sept. 27 meeting.

have to listen to the citizenry Schafersman, the Hooper farmer, submitted plans for four barns housing a total of 60,000 birds. The plans scored 100 points on the matrix, above the 75 points needed to receive the ap- proval. Most of the points come from actions that a farmer would be taking anyway. An operation that follows the per- mit requirements and the zon- ing requirements gains 60 points on those qualifications alone. CHICKEN PROCESSING Costco plant debate moves to Neb.

counties Fourth-generation farmer John Snover and his grandson, Colten Schafersman, repair a broken belt on a John Deere S670 Combine on their farm in Hooper, Neb. AP Some worry about health, animal welfare BARBARA SODERLIN OMAHA WORLD-HERALD.