Hannelore Sudermann

Though loan volume is up, earnings are down at Northwest Farm Credit Services. The Northwest's largest agricultural lender announced Friday that its third-quarter earnings are $12.7 million, from income of $31.7 million. Earnings are down from $13.6 million out of income of $31.6 million a year ago. "From the standpoint of the earnings, it's a reflection of the decreased spread in what you get on loans and the competitive interest rate," said Jay Penick, president and chief executive officer. The spread has narrowed in the last year because of competition from the regional and community banks in the Northwest, Penick said.

Too much, too fast, too soon. Though the country's economic ship has come in, the real ones are stuck out of port. In Los Angeles, the barges can't get the dock time they need to drop off cargo from Asia. When the ships do get in, the exports often aren't there for them to take away. They're stuck on a train or in storage in another state.

Simon Craven-Thompson, owner of Craven's Coffee, addresses a group of high school students at the Youth Entrepreneur Seminar Friday. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

A sprouting force is cheating Adams County farmers of their winter wheat crop. Because of abundant cheat grass, the growers are tearing up entire rolling hills covered with the tender shoots of September plantings. Though it's an annual problem for farmers, this year the wind and weather have combined to make the weed uncommonly prolific.

Sexual confusion. It's the apple growers' latest weapon against the intrepid coddling moth, their greatest enemy. By confusing the male moths with a synthetic female sex hormone, growers can drive the gray-winged little menaces to distraction. Fewer moths mate and no larvae are born to spoil the apples.

Adams County landowner Ken Melcher scans an aerial photograph of his land with Washington State Farm Services Agency worker Kay Stelzer. In the background, Melcher's son Wes talks with Raeann Telecky. Photo by Hannelore Sudermann/The Spokesman-Review

A trader in the Dow Jones futures pit shouts orders near the suspension of trading at the Chicago Board of Trade Monday. Photo by Associated Press

1. Francisco Ramirez picks Fuji apples last week in Grant Daniel's 70-acre Wenatchee orchard. 2. More than 20,000 Red Delicious apples a week pass through this line at the Stemilt Packing Co., where washed and waxed apples are prepared for boxing. Photos by Liz Kishimoto/The Spokesman-Review

Growers in Okanagan County this season had plenty of fruit, but no one to pick it. Orchardist Rocky DeVon needed 50 people to help him harvest his Red and Golden Delicious apples. Instead, he had to make do with 19. "There was a tremendous shortage of labor up here," he said. "And across the board, it seemed to be hurting everybody." Farmers partly blame the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which stepped up arrests in Eastern Washington this year. He and the other orchardists depend on the migrant workers to harvest their crop. "If they don't work in the agriculture industry, nobody does anymore." DeVon said he pays beginning workers about $65 a day and experienced pickers earn up to $100. He also supplies housing and utilities. Employers are required to check workers' documents to ensure they're eligible to work in the United States, according to the INS. Undocumented workers sometimes get around this by borrowing Social Security numbers, identification and green cards from other workers. Though labor was tight in other apple-growing areas, such as Wenatchee and Yakima, the hardest hit was Okanagan County, said Dean Tupper, spokesman for the Washington Farm Bureau. The INS hadn't noticed a labor shortage, said Loretta Lopez-Mossman, deputy chief patrol agent for the agency. But INS arrests are up from last year, she said. "We are showing our highest apprehensions for the last six years." This year, the INS picked up 2,331 undocumented immigrants in Eastern Washington, a jump from 1,352 last year. That was due to an increase in INS officers in the state. "This year we had most of our agents in the sector (Eastern Washington) for the whole year," said Lopez-Mossman. "Last year most people were down at the (U.S.-Mexico) border for Operation Gatekeeper." Okanagan County seemed to have its own such operation. According to DeVon, the agents heavily patrolled Highway 97, the main road into the county. "I don't know if we were so much singled out as we were an easier target because we only have one road," he said. "The Hispanics were afraid to come here." While DeVon was able to harvest his crop in a timely manner, some of his fellow growers had to leave their apples too long on the trees while they waited for workers to finish in other orchards. DeVon said he tried to find other workers. He even placed an order for 40 workers with the Department of Employment Security in June. "They finally got me two people the last few days of picking," he said. DeVon said he's lucky that his harvest was smaller than usual this year and he was not too hurt by the low number of available workers. But next summer, he's expecting more fruit and will need more help. "If I have the same number of workers and a normal harvest, I expect half my crop to rot on the trees," he said."I'm extremely worried about next year."

In the continuing struggle for rights and power in the apple industry, it's the workers who are at the core. For more than a year and a half, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has targeted the apple packing industry, hoping to win over the workers, particularly at Stemilt Growers Inc. in Wenatchee and Washington Fruit in Yakima. Unions have tried to organize farm workers since at least the 1930s, but in the state of Washington they've had little success.

Claiming fertilizer laced with heavy metals ruined land and crops in Eastern Washington, a Seattle lawyer filed civil suits Monday against two major fertilizer suppliers. One class-action complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court in Yakima against Minnesota-based Cenex Supply & Marketing Inc. and the other was filed in the Grant County Superior Court against Quincy-based Quincy Farm Chemicals, Inc. Plaintiffs' attorney in both cases is personal injury attorney Steve Berman of Hagens & Berman. He has a reputation for securing large out-of-court settlements from major corporations.

When it comes to holding beer and pop, plastic is shaking up the aluminum industry. The familiar cylindrical can ousted the glass bottle as the dominant package 30 years ago and has reigned since as king of beer and soft drink containers. But the crush for cans in North America may be over. Market surveys show even though it's the same beverage in a new package, people are willing to pay more for unique single-serve plastic bottles.

Poultry has plucked the top spot as king of the meat industry away from beef. While beef is losing its place on America's tables, chicken is fast flying toward 50 percent of the total meat market share. Pork is also a challenger.

Everything's coming up apples for the students at Wenatchee Valley College. An anonymous donor recently donated $1 million to support a four-year tree-fruit management program and a teaching position at the school. The gift will be shared by Washington State University and WVC, which now offer a joint two-year horticulture program in Wenatchee. The money will go into an endowment and the schools will use the annual income to create a four-year WSU baccalaureate degree program in Wenatchee.

Most people see wheat in two places: the fields and products in the supermarket. But this year, many also are seeing wheat piled in mounds outside grain elevators where the grain is exposed to the elements. When elevators managers run out of room in their storage bins, they're forced to store grain on the ground. Though it happens every harvest, this year several factors have forced grain elevators to leave much of the season's bounty outside. According to the Washington State Department of Agriculture, as much as 10 million bushels of wheat in Washington may have been stored on the ground this season. A cut in sales overseas, an unusual harvest and a limited number of train cars all contributed to the excess of wheat at inland elevators.

A worker at Hogue Winery rakes Gewurtzraminer grapes into a hopper. Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Spokesman-Review

Vietnam has made its first U.S. wheat purchase in 22 years. Though the Binh Dong Flour Mill is only buying 10,000 metric tons of red wheat, this deal could open the doors for Washington and Oregon farmers to sell their product to areas that until recently have been closed to trade. "It represents an opening of world markets previously off limits to U.S. producers and grain shippers," said John Schlueter, executive vice president of the Pacific Northwest Grain and Feed Association in Portland. "Very literally, it's the foot in the door for what we hope will be expanded future business."

Washington's prison employees are taking steps to break out of their current union. Hundreds have signed cards stating that they want to switch from the Washington Public Employees Association to another collective bargaining representative. And the Teamsters Union, which has been courting Department of Corrections workers the past few months, has formally requested an election to decertify the WPEA.

1. Gene Brash. Photos by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review 2. With an uncertain future ahead of them, Gene Brash and Bill Workman lead supply mules into the Bob Marshall Wilderness. 3. Above: Bill Workman and Gene Brash save about a mile and a half by fording the South Fork of the Flathead River just north of the Black Bear Camp. The vast Bob Marshall Wilderness is off-limits to motorized travel, except for emergencies. All supplies must be transported on the backs of mules to backcountry Forest Service crews. 4. The cabin at Black Bear Camp has only the essentials for living in the woods. The stove was air-lifted in before the Bob Marshall Wilderness was declared a wilderness area in 1964. 5. Left: "When you come out here, you leave behind all the fussing and worrying in your other life," Brash says. "Can't do anything about it, anyway, so you might as well forget about it." 6. Above: For almost 20 years, Gene Brash, right, and Bill Workman have packed supplies to forest service workers camped in the wilderness. 7. Right: As the sun starts to light the land around the Black Bear cabin, Brash returns for a cup of coffee after feeding the mules and horses. 8. Above: Mules are loaded with the everything the backcountry crews need, whether it's timber for bridges or rafts for rangers working the river. 9. Above: After seven hours of bearing loads weighing up to 200 pounds, even the best mules can use a back scratch. 10. Below: At the end of a day that started well before sunrise, Brash takes a break with a good book. "He's smarter than a whip," Bill Workman says. "He may try to make you think he's a dumb hick, but it ain't true. He reads a lot. He can figure out how to build anything just by reading about it in a book."

Former Broadview Dairy worker Ron Burton adds lids to the jug filler line at the Darigold plant Friday. Photo by Dan Pelle/The Spokesman-Review

After years of trying, the race is won. Jacklin Seed Co. announced this week it has obtained a patent for a fungus which makes Kentucky bluegrass naturally resistant to insects and disease. It's a technique the company had been trying to perfect for years, finally achieved last winter, and now has patented. Industry experts have said it could revolutionize turf maintenance, reducing the need for pesticides. It was a race to see who could get a disease-resistant "endophyte," or fungus, that exists naturally in ryegrass and tall fescue to fix itself to the bluegrass and bentgrass strains.

1. When the harvest brings truckload after truckload to the Rockford Grain Growers elevator in Spangle, the bins start filling up and Jack Olsen, who manages the facility, has to check which can take the next day's yield. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review 2. Dust diffuses the lone light illuminating the late night unloading of grain. When the farmers stay in the fields far into the night, Jack Olsen, too, works late. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review 3. Above, Olsen checks the bins holding wheat samples. Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review 4. At left, barley makes its way from the bins to a truck that will cart it south early the next morning. "Barley is the worst," says Olsen. "You get that dust on your skin and you just scratch and scratch and scratch." Photo by Torsten Kjellstrand/The Spokesman-Review

Governor Gary Locke dedicates the a Kaiser Aluminum facility at Mead on Monday. He is flanked by Rich Hadley of the Spokane Chamber of Commerce, left, and plant manager Tom Franklin. Photo by Dan McComb/The Spokesman-Review

Washington State Department of Corrections employees, numbering nearly 4,000, may be in the market again for new union representation. Their extended contract through the Washington Public Employees Association expires in November and some workers say they're unhappy with the wages, working conditions and benefits the union has gotten them. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters is courting the DOC workers, including those at the Walla Walla penitentiary and the Airway Heights Corrections Center.