Digger magazine

Written to make you a nursery industry expert.

Challenges escalate for comprehensive immigration reform

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For quite some time, the nursery industry has been at the forefront of the push for comprehensive federal immigration reform. This means enforcing the law to secure U.S. borders, providing a dependable labor source for industries that need it, and setting up a path for undocumented people already in the country to earn sensible adjustment […]

Wage and hour law seminar is next Tuesday

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View Larger MapAgricultural employers are invited to attend a refresher meeting next Tuesday, May 25, on wage and hour law. It’s being conducted by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and will last from 6-8 p.m. in the PGE Community Room, 2079 Progress Way, Woodburn, Ore. Topics covered will include minimum wage, piece-rate work, […]

Nursery people succeed at ballot box

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Two leaders from the Oregon nursery industry – both of them past presidents of the Oregon Association of Nurseries – made strong impressions at the ballot box in Tuesday’s primary election: Kathy LeCompte, the owner of Brooks Tree Farm in Brooks, Ore., with her husband Dave, is running for a seat in the Oregon House […]

Extension services to cease in Lane County

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Oregon State University Extension Service of Lane County has announced that it is shutting down most of its programs by the end of this summer due to the failure of a funding measure in yesterday’s election. Faculty members presently stationed there will be reassigned elsewhere. The official press release: The defeat of Measure 20-158 leaves […]

Writer breaks down the immigration issue

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From reporter Dan Wheat in the Capital Press (Salem, Ore.), Thursday, May 13, 2010: If illegal immigration was an easy issue it would have been solved by now. For most of us who are not immersed in the subject it is easy to adopt the sound bite of the side we lean toward. It’s much […]

Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown to speak to OAN members

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The second-highest elected official in Oregon’s state government will be the guest speaker at the next meeting of the OAN Government Relations Committee. As secretary of state, Kate Brown works on many issues of importance to nursery growers. For one, she is leading a workgroup that is grappling with the thorny issue of defining public […]

Early registrations due May 15 for the 2010 Oregon Urban and Community Forestry Conference

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Early registrations are now being accepted for the 2010 Oregon Urban and Community Forestry Conference, titled ”From Seed to City: The Journey of an Urban Tree”. The two-day conference will take place June 2 at J. Frank Schmidt & Sons Inc. nursery in Boring, Ore., and June 3 at The Oregon Garden Resort, Silverton, Ore. […]

Pacific Coast Nurseryman stops print publication

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The venerable Pacific Coast Nurseryman magazine, which covers nursery news in 13 states and British Colubmia, has stopped print publication after nearly seven decades. “Owner Rita Kwasnick made a difficult decision to exit the magazine business due to financial problems posed by the economy and declining advertising revenues,” a press release stated. “She closed the […]

Tree growers can get aid for disaster losses

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U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack announced today that nurseries, Christmas tree growers and orchardists can now apply for benefits under the Tree Assistance Program, which was part of the 2008 Farm Bill. The program, administered by the USDA Farm Service Agency, exists to help farmers who lost trees to natural disasters after Jan. 1, […]