The Applegater

Applegater Fall 2016 1 Photo by Kathy Kliewer applegater.org Applegate Valley Community Newspaper, Inc. PO Box 14 Jacksonville, OR 97530 Nonprofit Org US Postage PAID Permit #125 Medford OR ECRWSSEDDM Local Postal Customer What's behind the fence? Marijuana! FALL 2016 Volume 9, No. 3 Serving Jackson and Josephine Counties — Circulation: 11,000 Applegate Valley Community Newsmagazine Celebrating Years ~23~ BY DIANA COOGLE ISSUE AGRICULTURE - WINE See SISKIYOU, page 14 There are over a thousand wine varieties from many thousands of wine regions around the world, each with its own distinct characteristics. e basic characteristics of wine—sweetness, acidity, tannin, balance, and body—are greatly affected by the terroir of the grapevine. "Terroir" is a French term for the environmental factors—elevation, soil, climate, nearby crops, and the orientation of the crop—that affect a crop's qualities. Climate plays a primary role in wine terroir. Grapes are grown best in temperate climates. In North America, grapes are grown from northern Mexico to southern Canada. e regions with cooler climates make wines that taste BY DEBBIE TOLLEFSON Grape Talk: Terroir 101 t a r t e r, a n d t h e warmer climates make wines that taste riper. As grapes ripen, they become less acidic, so grapes grown in a cooler climate will be more acidic than grapes that have a long period to ripen or are grown in warm or hot climates. As the world's climate changes, the terroir of the grapes grown in a particular area will also change. e soil in which the grapevine is planted is also important. e soil is like a tea bag through which the water filters to the roots of the grapevine. If the soil has a lot of minerals, you may taste the minerality in the finished wine. You also Jakob Shockey's article, "Grow with Respect," generated numerous responses from readers—"around 95 percent positive, with a little hate mail thrown in," he says—after it appeared in the Spring 2016 Applegater. While Jakob's article was written from a community perspective, Diana Coogle's article focuses on the growers of recreational marijuana. A surge of pot farmers into the Applegate has lined our roads with dense fences, as we have all noticed. It's no surprise, then, to learn that Jackson County has the state's highest number of growers licensed for recreational marijuana (126), with Josephine County's numbers (101) third and Clackamas's (102) barely ahead of Josephine's. "It's a gold rush," says Patty Downing of Elvenwood Enterprises, a local farm growing recreational marijuana. That gold-rush profitability led Patty and her husband to expand from vegetables and herbs to cannabis, enabling them to keep their property and also to hire local residents. Patty speaks strongly about the value to the McKee Bridge Historical Society Annual Meeting and Centennial Celebration T h e M c K e e B r i d g e Historical Society will hold its annual meeting on Saturday, September 10, beginning at noon with a potluck on the bridge, followed by the annual meeting around 12:30 pm. Members and non-members are invited to join us on the re c e n t l y re s t o re d Mc K e e Bridge for a pleasant lunch above the river. Hi s t o r y b u f f s m i g h t b e interested in the Medford "Mail Tribune 100" column's recent ongoing discussion about putting in a rail line from Medford to the Blue Ledge Mine above Elliott Creek (now Applegate Lake) 100 years ago. (To read these columns, go to mailtribune.com and search "Blue Ledge.") When that effort did not succeed, the county built McKee Bridge in order to avoid the notoriously dangerous East Side Road above Cameron Bridge when moving copper ore from Blue Ledge Mine. Centennial Celebration The association's next big event will be on Saturday, June 10, 2017, to celebrate the McKee Bridge Centennial, which promises to be a big celebration with a classic car club, steam engines, historic displays, and good food and music. If you're just itching to get involved in a local event like this, we are just itching to have you join us. Planning has already begun. Contact Paul Tipton at ptipton@ frontier.com or 541-846-7501 or Bob Van Heuit at rvanh2000@ yahoo.com or 541-499-6132. McKee Bridge photo by Paul Tipton. Siskiyou Sustainable Co-op goes high-tech BY SHELLEY MANNING Do you want more vibrant health? Joining a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is a great way to add healthy foods to your diet while helping your local farmer. e concept is that by investing financially in advance of the harvest and thus becoming a shareholder, you provide funds to help the farmers pay for everything involved in farm production, from seeds to farm equipment to labor. CSAs connect consumers directly to regional farms and the products they produce. When the crops come in, shareholders receive their pre-purchased portions throughout the growing season. Siskiyou Sustainable Cooperative is a local CSA, a collective of farms and farmers in the Applegate and Williams valleys. In 2002, a group of farmers decided to join forces to jointly market their farm products. eir vision was to create a cooperatively owned business See MARIJUANA, page 12 See TERROIR, page 17 Duane and Kathy Bowman (left photo) grow merlot and cabernet franc at their Cricket Hill Winery on Kubli Bench. Greg and Debbie Schultz (right photo), owners of Schultz Wines and Glory Oaks Vineyard and Farm on Slagle Creek, specialize in tempranillo and malbec grapes. Photo by Leslie Bloss.

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