Commissioners in attendance: Ron Angel, Ben Barstow, Kevin Corliss, Ann George, Andy Jensen, Bill Mason, Chuck Masters, Ted Maxwell, Bryan Sakuma, Herb Teas, Doug Walsh

Staff in attendance: Donna Gorham, Tracy Olberding, Alan Schreiber

Commissioners not in attendance: Bob Berger, Bill Green, Doug Muse, Kurt Volker

Guests: John Brown, WSU, Catherine Daniels, WSU, Shawn McNeil, WTFRC, Gary Pelter, WSU, Jane Thomas, WSU

Chair Teas called the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m.

Commissioners, staff and guests introduced themselves.

PUBLIC COMMENT
Chair Teas called for public comment. There were no comments.

MINUTES
Administrator Schreiber said he had received an e-mail request from an interested party who had read the minutes from the January and November meetings. The individual asked for clarification in regard to the proposal on crop profiles and the Department of Ecology's involvement. Ann George asked if this was truly Commission business. Schreiber noted the questions have more to do with the Department of Ecology than with the proposal. George suggested sending the questions to Green for a response. Commissioners agreed with this course of action. Schreiber said he would forward the e-mail to Green for comment.

Schreiber noted copies of the approved minutes were included for the July 11and September 19, 2001 Commission meetings and the August 16, 2001 Executive Committee meeting. Schreiber asked for corrections to the proposed November meeting minutes. There were no corrections.

Schreiber noted proposed minutes for the January meeting is included in the meeting notebooks. Chuck Masters noted on page seven, under proposal 02AN039, Jensen asked the role of Weyerhaeuser in the project. Masters said the answer should read: Weyerhaeuser is a participant in the research and is providing project leadership to the research team.

Schreiber said proposed minutes from the February 18, 2002 Executive Committee teleconference were also included. No corrections were noted.

FINANCIAL REPORT
Administrator Schreiber updated Commissioners on information received from Richard McCartan in regard to the budget cuts from WSU. McCartan verified WSCPR funding is included in the non-instructional budget at WSU and is subject to the 2% budget cut. McCartan also noted additional budget cuts should be expected. Schreiber said the last budget report from WSU reflects the budget cut. The current forward allocation is $162,538, right at the 18% target. The report from WSU indicates $941,785 allocated but not spent. Schreiber asked John Brown for input. Brown said the 2% cut sounds great, but the last update indicated up to 4% would be cut. Brown also noted tuition will go up 16%. Schreiber noted at the May meeting, the next fiscal year budget will be agreed on and to expect a bigger reduction in funding. Schreiber noted the three proposals before the Commission at this meeting total $49,789 and if all three were funded in full, the amount forward allocated would be $212,327.

Schreiber updated Commissioners on the WSDA "Jesernig dollars" funds transfer. A teleconference was held March 12, 2002 to discuss the transfer of funds to WSCPR. Herb Teas and Alan Schreiber represented WSCPR, Don Holbrook, Tom Kelly, and Tucson Smith represented WSU, individuals from contracts and grants, and Bill Brookreson represented WSDA. An interagency agreement was drafted. Schreiber said the WSDA just wants to transfer the funds to WSCPR with no say over how the funds are dispersed. Teas noted if the funds are not expended by 2003, the funds must be returned.

Schreiber noted all "Jesernig dollars" would go to projects from WSU researchers. The details have not been worked out yet and WSU does not have a mechanism to accept the funds from the WSDA. John Brown said the issue is with the wording of the agreement in regard to who receives the grant. Schreiber said during the conference call, it was stated WSU does not have a mechanism to accept the funding. Brown said he spoke with Don Holbrook this morning and Holbrook said it would be taken care of. Schreiber said this is a big improvement. WSDA does not want to track "Jesernig funds" and they want the WSCPR to track the funds. Teas said WSDA wants to get the funds transferred in one chunk.

ADMINISTRATORS REPORT
Schreiber updated Commissioners on the legislative report. Schreiber said the proposed timeline for developing the report is as follows: May - present preliminary draft report to Commissioners, July - present interim draft report to Commissioners, circulate outside of Commission, September - finalize report. Schreiber asked for comments on the schedule. Commissioners agreed the timeline was acceptable. Catherine Daniels asked if any data from PNN would be included and, if so, when would it be needed. Schreiber said the report will have a section about PNN and the reports from PNN would be used.

Schreiber gave Commissioners an overview of the outline for the report. The report will include sections on overview, mandate, history, and Commission processes. Bob Berger had suggested including the project status report. Schreiber said the report would include a list of projects funded, state allocations, matching funds and in-kind support. The report will include new registrations and new mandate use practices. Schreiber noted new mandate projects take longer and are not as tangible. A section on impacts will include protection of human health, environment and economic impacts, reduced risk, noxious weeds, salmon/riparian barrier. A section on other benefits will include development of IPM programs, regional cooperation with the University of Oregon, University of California, and Utah State University, and information about PNN. An appendix may include more information about funds that have come in. Schreiber said the report may be more than 20 pages and will be a glossy, four-color report.

Chuck Masters suggested an executive summary and a table of contents be included. Schreiber said if the report length were longer than 40 pages, an executive summary would be needed. Masters suggested paying sufficient attention to the environmental side of the issues; people think agriculture is a polluter of the environment and there are lots of stories to tell. Schreiber said the report would be distributed ahead of the presentation to the legislature to build support for continuance of the Commission. Masters said we want to ensure the Commission is really needed not only by agriculture but by the environmental community as well. Schreiber said he would start on the report and provide periodic updates on the status to Commissioners. Schreiber said he would use the Executive Committee to bounce ideas off of.

RFP
Schreiber said he had received feedback from a research who had to rewrite his proposal as a result of the January funding decisions. The researcher felt the RFP should more clearly signal intent in regard to Category A, B, and C and found Commissioner objections disconcerting. The researcher said there are documented cases of acute human and animal illness. The researcher did not want to debate these cases but simply wants to get research funds. Schreiber said when the new RFP is developed; the Commission may want to make expectations clearer.

2002 WASHINGTON PEST CONTROL TOUR
Tracy Olberding gave an update on the 2002 Washington Pest Control Tour planning. Olberding said the dates for the Tour are July 23-25. Olberding said the Doubletree Hotel (now the West Coast Hotel) in Pasco will be the headquarters and all the caterers and venues have been confirmed. Schreiber noted about 50 people will be invited, split evenly between private and public agencies including legislative representatives. Olberding said she has been working on lining up the tour stops and speakers. Tour stops will include the perennial crops of the Yakima Valley on Tuesday, vegetable and seed crops of the Columbia Basin on Wednesday, and crops of the Walla Walla Valley and the Palouse on Thursday.

WSCPR QUESTIONAIRE
Schreiber asked Commissioners to review and comment on the draft of the WSCPR questionnaire. Schreiber said the questionnaire would be mailed to every researcher and commodity group whether they have been funded or not. The questionnaire is to be completed by the July meeting to include feedback for the RFP review.

MEETING DATES;
Schreiber reviewed meeting dates - May 8 in Yakima at the Department of Agriculture, and July 9 in Pasco at the Franklin County PUD auditorium. The meeting dates in September and November have conflicts. There two options for the meeting in September - if the meeting is held on September 10, the Mt Vernon research station is not available and the meeting will be at the Best Western, if the date is changed to September 11, the research station is available. Bryan Sakuma indicated the research station was the preferred location for the meeting. Doug Walsh noted there might be a conflict with the regional IR-4 meeting. Schreiber said the meeting date would be changed to September 11 unless there is a conflict with the IR-4 meeting. The November meeting is usually held at the Hal Holmes Center in Ellensburg - there is a conflict on the first day. Schreiber suggested moving the meeting to November 13-14. Commissioners agreed.

Schreiber said in a previous meeting a Commissioner had suggested an administrators' review of the quality of previous work done by researchers requesting funding. Commissioners agreed and Schreiber said this would be provided at funding meetings.

PROPOSAL PRESENTATIONS
02PN066 Control of Insect Vectored Silver Top Fungus in Grass Seed Fields PNW Region Using Soft Pesticides
David Bragg, Washington State University
WSCPR request $24,500 Co-funding $48,000
Dave Bragg asked Commissioners if there were any questions about the project and noted the questions from the last presentation revolved around the budget. Hearing none, Bragg continued to discuss the project. Bragg said several efficacy studies would be done in Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Bragg noted this project continues to expand and he wants to stick to what is in the proposal. The proposal is to study development materials that are effective for labeling by companies or candidate materials for IR-4. Bragg noted the travel expenses have been dropped from the budget; salaries include technical, hourly workers and Dr. Rau at OSU. Co-funding is from a special USDA grant administered by the Grass Seed Commission.

Herb Teas asked about the note on the budget page in reference to co-funding. Bragg said co-funding is for $44,000 from GSCSSA from USDA sources, $4,000 is from industry. The note was added by Dorothy Hieder, is informational only and was not included as cost share. Bragg said Tom Kelly insisted on the statement. Teas said as far as WSCPR is concerned, this amount is considered matching. Chuck Masters said the project description was lacking information needed to evaluate the budget request - what efficacy trials on how many products. Bragg said these are large trials, remote from Pullman. Bragg noted the request is for work to be done, the data from 2001 is not available and cleaning the seed is a long process. Masters asked why, for the 2002 trial, are only two products being included. Bragg said he wanted more than two products but when he asked industry people to propose products to study - Capture and Leverage were the two that were asked for. Walsh asked if FMC pushed for Mustang. Bragg said FMC was not really interested in Mustang, Sladen feels Capture has better potential in grass seed.

02AN067 Development of a Molecular Seed Assay for Detection/Quantification of Seed-borne Inoculum Associated with Neck Rot of Onion
Gary Pelter for Lindsey du Toit, Washington State University
WSCPR request $5,039 Co-funding $14,944 Jesernig request $5,040
Gary Pelter said the request is for $5,039 to support $20,000 already received to support development of a molecular assay to detect seed-borne inoculum on onion seed. Pelter said 50% of the seed is exported, 20% is for domestic use and 20% of the world supply is grown in Washington. There are four species of botrytis and botrytis allium is of concern. The process will take an assay that has already been developed and modify it to fit onion seed. Product is quarantined in the east coast and European countries will not allow chemical use. The intent is to develop a standardized assay that is rapid. A researcher in Denmark is willing to come here and oversee a graduate student to adapt the technique on bulb onions to onion seed. The primary use of the funds will be for equipment, reagents, some travel and time slip labor. Pelter said a selective, rapid, and inexpensive test for botrytis on onion seed would be a benefit to seed producers and seed companies.

Schreiber noted the proposal was submitted without the knowledge that "Jesernig dollars" were all allocated and if the proposal is funded all the money would come from WSCPR funds. Chuck Masters noted part of the problem with the current assay is to really understand the infection level and how to be precise enough to get infection levels and replication associated with the infection level. Pelter noted another study augments this proposal and one of the Dutch seed companies will provide three levels of infected seed plus a clean batch.

02PN070 Crop Profile Coordinator
Catherine Daniels, Washington State University
WSCPR Request $20,250 Co-funding $50,000
Catherine Daniels thanked the Commission for hearing the proposal. Daniels noted when the proposal was first submitted; there was a question as to support. Daniels said industry support was confirmed last week and WAWGG had agreed to sponsor the proposal. The request is for $20,250 as partial support for a position writing crop profiles. The remainder of support for this position will come from a Department of Ecology (DOE) grant. Daniels said if this proposal is funded by WSCPR, a meeting will be held with the Department of Ecology to secure the remainder of funding. The WSCPR funds would be returned if the Department of Ecology does not fund the position. Daniels said a letter from EPA to USDA indicates crop profiles are used to give information to someone who knows nothing about the crop and prompts thinking on how to deal with pests and documents existing uses to manage pests for EPA.

Chuck Masters asked what DOE's role is in Pest Management Strategic Planning (PMSP) process, how this got started, what is DOE looking to accomplish and, if DOE provides money, will any strings be attached. Daniels said Green approached her about putting more emphasis on crop profiles based on how he perceived water management. Daniels said a request for $50,000 under the Clean Water Act will be submitted to document how pesticides are important to IPM programs, to identify water contamination and look at how to change pesticide uses. Daniels noted once PMSP's are done, all growers are eligible for loans to change practices. The DOE has asked for crop profiles and PMSP's for irrigation districts and oysters. Schreiber asked who pays for these. Daniels said it costs $5,000 to hold a workshop and funds come out of grant monies. Ann George asked if industry puts in money. Daniels said some industries are better able to pay, for example, potato. Bill Mason asked about mosquito control districts. Daniels noted it is hard to get USDA to recognize water is a commodity. Schreiber asked how much funding is currently set aside for crop profiles or PMSP's. Daniels said $5,000 last year for PMSP's. Schreiber asked what the likelihood of getting DOE money. Daniels said they have not gone through the process. Schreiber asked if the total $70,000 is funded, how will they pick what gets worked on. Daniels said wine grapes, pears, apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums and prunes would be done if funding were approved. Daniels noted she was open to WSCPR picking the eight for the DOE portion. Schreiber asked if tree fruit asked to be done first. Daniels said they agreed when she called and, since workload is high, there are not a lot of people asking for these. Herb Teas asked how realistic is it to have an individual do this. Daniels said the individual does not need to know all things, but must be able to sit down with a group of people and ask questions to gather information. Schreiber noted for the potato PMSP, a professional facilitator was hired who did not know potatoes. Daniels said an individual is needed who can gather information, that information will be reviewed by Daniels and follow-up questions will be generated. Schreiber noted this is a one-time request for funding from WSCPR, and asked how the position would be funded in the future. Daniels said future funding sources would be found and the intent is to move towards developing PMSP's over many years. Schreiber asked for clarification on the budget amount for equipment and hourly salary. Daniels said the equipment budget was for a computer and printer and the hourly salary was for data collection and clerical support. Schreiber noted 14% of the match is for indirect costs. Daniels said this is a requirement from WSU.

Ann George noted as more crop profiles are developed, more time would be required to maintain them. Daniels said the crop profiles must be updated every couple of years and the researcher may decide when an update is needed. Teas asked if the cost is out of the normal budget. Daniels said all maintenance costs come out of USDA funds, and noted they have run out of researchers to write profiles since these are significant investments in researcher time. Chuck Masters noted the discussion from the January meeting indicated WSDA was a partner in this effort. Ted Maxwell noted WSDA was never a partner and the discussion is much different today than in January. Schreiber noted this has changed into something different than what Green proposed in January. Masters noted the $50,000 is for crop profiles and not PMSP's. Daniels said the request is for crop profiles only.

Chair Teas invited Commissioner's to break for lunch at 12:30 p.m.

The meeting resumed at 1:00 p.m.
Chair Teas asked for comments on the draft financial report format. Commissioner consensus was that the format was acceptable.

PNN
Jane Thomas presented Commissioners with an update on the Pesticide Notification Network. Thomas noted the average number of people on the distribution is going up every year. Thomas said the distribution is different depending on the content of the notification. Thomas said the web page is a big part of the workload and enhancements in 2001 included building a list of state RUP products, a new section was added for miscellaneous information. Thomas said the Endosulfan Taskforce sent out a questionnaire that was posted on the PNN web page. Thomas completed a survey of PNN users. Thomas said PNN received high marks for overall usefulness, timeliness, and quality and quantity of information.

Thomas asked Commissioners if the timing the survey every four years was acceptable. Ben Barstow asked if any follow-up was done with non-responders. Thomas said no. Barstow asked the rate of response. Thomas said 47% of the 150 surveys sent out were returned.

Thomas asked for feedback from Commissioners as to posting a sign up page on the PNN web page. Thomas noted in the past the Commission was restrictive as to who was on the PNN distribution, including WSU and commodity groups. Thomas said this has relaxed over time and there is no expense to adding users. Teas suggested making e-mail contact a requirement. Thomas noted it was possible to get subscribers from out of state. Schreiber noted Oregon and Idaho may be interested, but a South Carolina asparagus grower may want to have access and this situation could cause a significant increase in subscribers. Teas said he saw no serious down side to an enrollment screen on the web page. Doug Walsh asked how many contacts are using facsimile exclusively. Thomas said about twenty and a few still use US mail. Schreiber asked how many hits on the website occur a month. Thomas said about 300 per month.

Thomas said the current request is for funding for FY2003. Thomas noted this request has an increase in salary and benefits for her position. Thomas said her position description is being re-written and that may mean a salary increase in October. Thomas said if the position upgrade is not approved, funds would be returned to WSCPR. Thomas said another part of the increase in budget is for a time-slip position that was made a permanent part-time position this year. The request is for $50,500 to operate the PNN for FY2003.

Schreiber said one way the Commission may deal with the budget cut is an across the board cut to the WSCPR budget and asked what the impact to PNN would be if the budget were cut. Daniels said the position time would be cut, and noted currently Thomas is working on PNN 50% of the time. Daniels continued that basic notifications would go out and any new projects would be cut.

THIRD PARTY LABELING
Schreiber introduced Shawn McNeil, noting McNeil works on IPM and FQPA issues for Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission and, although McNeil is speaking for one commodity group, in a sense he is speaking for more than one commodity.

McNeil said third party labeling is an area he wants to encourage discussion on and the end result is to have a small group put together to study this issue. McNeil said, for lime sulfur, the chemical company response was the potential for lawsuits was too high. McNeil said growers came back and said they needed this product. McNeil helped generate a 24c for the state and it is theoretically possible to issue more 24c's for the same use, which he wants to avoid. McNeil said a third party company would streamline this process. McNeil said Mycoshield currently has a 24c and is a good candidate for third party labeling. The WSCPR may have an interest due to the broad base in commodity groups and state regulations. Currently, McNeil is using a Florida group's efforts as a template and it is possible to spin off another organization to do third party labeling.

Ann George asked Ted Maxwell if the Idaho Department of Agriculture had changed their stance on third party labeling. Maxwell said he did not know. George noted Idaho has historically not supported third party labeling. Schreiber directed Commissioners to an example of template language in Commissioner notebooks that was acceptable. George noted the concept is good and suggested checking with IDA if their position had changed. George said a regional approach would be desirable. Schreiber said the concern over litigation for these minor use registrations is a significant obstacle to registration and it is within WSCPR's charter to get involved in this issue. Schreiber said WSCPR would be better off to not hold labels and to name a third party to hold the labels, WSCPR could facilitate the creation of an entity, a non-profit pan agriculture entity, whose sole purpose is to hold these labels. To use these labels, the individual must join the entity and sign an agreement not to sue the registrant.

Chuck Masters said the third party labeling process is something to support and it is important to get registrants involved in the administration process. The registrants need to feel comfortable with our process.

Schreiber recommended forming a committee with Chuck Masters, Ted Maxwell, Shawn McNeil, Kurt Volker, Doug Walsh, and Alan Schreiber. Schreiber said the committee would report back to the Commission at the May meeting. Commissioners agreed with this course of action.

POLICY AND PROCEDURE
Herb Teas said he would like to see a policy and procedure manual in place by September. Schreiber said policies set up two years ago are included in the notebooks. Schreiber noted many of the issues are no longer pertinent, for example meeting attendance issues. Schreiber said the last two years of minutes need to be reviewed and policy issues included from those meetings. Teas asked Commissioners how best to approach this issue, not to make a decision today but to get a process in place to summarize policy. Andy Jensen said he supported this effort and suggested including the enabling legislation. Schreiber said the legislation will be included and any motions affecting policy. Jensen said is will be nice to have all policy in one place and suggested ensuring there are no conflicts with other issues. Ann George suggested going through each process addressed and making the policy complete. Schreiber said the first step for the May meeting will be to update the current draft. Jensen asked for copies to be sent out a couple of weeks ahead of the meeting. Schreiber noted some specific issues have come up that need to be addressed now.

PLANT BREEDING PROJECTS
Schreiber said a policy is needed in regard to plant breeding projects. Teas said this is part of the bigger issue of reduced funding. Ann George said projects need to be prioritized and suggested developing a list of proposal types, prioritizing the types of projects and when funding is low, use the list to prioritize areas of research. Teas noted a concern in new mandate projects and suggested tightening guidelines. Schreiber said this brings up a second area for discussion, the priorities in the RFP. Masters said as proposals come up there must be flexibility with the list. Walsh noted the mechanism is included in the RFP, researchers are required to respond to what the impact would be within five years, however, the level of response varies. Masters asked if it is clear enough as to the intent of the impact statement. Walsh said the impact statement is important and needs to be addressed. Teas noted the RFP would be reviewed at the next meeting.

John Brown said a new initiative is in front of the legislature in 2003 on sustainable agriculture and there may be a window for plant breeding. Brown noted sustainable agriculture return is longer than five years and this initiative would give researchers another place to go for funding. George noted the difficulty is that IPM is part of sustainable agriculture and it is difficult to draw a line. Brown said a critical point in plant breeding might be to rule out transgenic where five years is not a window. Schreiber said the problem with plant breeding is that it is a long-term investment and the same is true with transgenic. Kevin Corliss said he doesn't want to see a person asking for a specific target period to evaluate previously bred materials get lumped together with other plant breeding projects. That type of project does have value with a quick turnaround. Teas noted many other things are involved in a variety trial other than just disease. Schreiber said the Commission does not want to develop a policy that would preclude us from funding plant breeding work.

Andy Jensen said every breeding program will have a disease or IPM screening component and asked if this is what Commissioners wanted to get involved with. Jensen asked Commissioners to define plant breeding. Teas asked if this was about varieties already in commercial use or at the research stage. Jensen replied for his example, already released. Barstow asked if this only applies to new mandate. Teas said it did. Barstow noted this policy would only apply to half of the Commission's funding. Schreiber asked if the Commission would restrict submission, if no return within five years. Jensen said he had no problem evaluating specific projects already on track to be released. Masters noted breeding programs per se appear to be non-ending.

Schreiber suggested strengthening the language to read an expectation of increased new return to grower within a 3-5 year period. Masters said the Commission could choose where to enter the breeding program timeline. Teas said this would allow evaluation of non-commercialized varieties with 2-3 years of release. George agreed and said this gives the Commission the opportunity to use common sense.

Schreiber agreed to strengthen the language in the RFP in regard increased return within a five-year timeframe and to develop RFP priorities.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE
Schreiber asked Commissioners to reconsider the policy of restricting the administrator from providing technical assistance to submitters. Schreiber noted if the policy had been followed for the three proposals heard at this meeting, two of the three would have been returned to the requestor without comments. Ann George agreed and said the comments Commission staff provides are most helpful.

DISCUSSION
Barstow noted the intent was to keep the administrator from spending too much time reviewing proposals. Schreiber noted most of the proposals arrive at the deadline for submission, and the review staff provides saves a lot of time at meetings. Barstow asked for clarification. Schreiber noted this is only a successful commission if proposals are funded. Schreiber said if the rules are really strict, there will be good proposals that won't be heard. Walsh said this would enable Schreiber to assist but also empower him to send back a proposal and ask the requester to start over. Teas noted the Commission is charged with funding minor minor crops and for the most part minor minor crops do not have a person with experience to write the proposal and assistance is needed. Walsh said the choice to help or not should be Schreiber's. Teas noted the deadline could be changed.

PRESENTATIONS BY COMMISSIONERS
Schreiber continued with the next issue, and asked if Commissioners who are presenting proposals get any different treatment than other presenters. Chair Teas asked for a show of hands for no special treatment. Commissioners were unanimous.

CO-FUNDING
Ann George brought up another policy issue in regard to including USDA money as match. George said a consistent policy should be developed. Walsh said with Bragg's proposal, the footnote from Tom Kelly at WSU satisfies WSU's requirements. Walsh asked if researcher's time could go under a footnote. Schreiber agreed a policy should be developed. George said researchers should be encouraged to capture entire amounts of co-funding of any kind, keeping mind the source of co-funding will be considered.

Schreiber noted staff at WSU must identify what they spend their time on, in the past; researchers have not listed projects on their timesheets. Schreiber asked if researchers are allowed to use their time to leverage their proposal as match, does the Commission want to enforce tracking this. George noted different universities would have different procedures. Schreiber asked Commissioners what co-funding carries the most weight. Barstow said the commodity group funds carry the most weight. George said the source doesn't matter, showing commitment by an affected industry vs. a researcher trying to get a paper done. Walsh said his opinion, as a Commissioner, is that individual grower dollars count the most, commodity group comes in second and efficacy monies from pesticide companies are third. Schreiber suggested no restrictions be placed on match, but placing greater value on cash and in-kind contributions from impacted parties. John Brown noted other universities use salary as a big part of matching, and it appears WSU is penalized for not putting salary in the match. Walsh noted the Wine Advisory Committee has changed their position to require inclusion of salary. Teas noted the information should be captured for the legislative report. Schreiber noted for repeat requests for the same project or a similar project, consideration should be given to previous work. Brown asked how this would be done. Schreiber said by administrator review, progress reports and site visits. Brown asked if this information would be circulated with the current proposal to Commissioners. Schreiber said it would go to Commissioners before the meeting or at the meeting. Teas noted the Tree Fruit Research Commission does this on an annual basis. Schreiber said with funding meetings, there is a lot of reading for Commissioners, and Commissioners want some kind of assurance as to the quality of previous work.

PROPOSAL DECISIONS
Schreiber noted the funding requests total $54,829. Teas asked for Commissioner input.

02PN066 Control of Insect Vectored Silver Top Fungus in Grass Seed Fields PNW Region Using Soft Pesticides
David Bragg, Washington State University
WSCPR request $24,500 Co-funding $48,000
Chuck Masters said from his experience and perspective, he had difficulty understanding whether the project as described is worth the amount requested. Masters said based on the lack of information, he would vote to deny the proposal and asked for comments from other Commissioners. Barstow said this is a good project but the proposal is poor, and he wants to see the work done. Jensen said the current proposal does not have a good project description. Schreiber said when the proposal came it was outside of resubmittal guidelines, and was re-worked to get the current proposal. Masters asked for input on the size of the dollar request. Jensen said it seems like a lot of dollars. Teas noted Bragg is doing large block trials. Masters said 10 by 20 meter replicates. Schreiber said he is not doing grass seed work due to the cost and noted even without funding by WSCPR, the project will go forward but be scaled back. Barstow asked where this project would put the forward allocation. Schreiber said if all three projects were funded, the forward allocation would be just over 25%. Schreiber noted WSU has advised no more than 25% forward allocation.

02AN067 Development of a Molecular Seed Assay for Detectin/Quantification of Seed-borne Inoculum Associated with Neck Rot of Onion
Gary Pelter for Lindsey du Toit, Washington State University
WSCPR request $5,039 Co-funding $14,944 Jesernig request $5,040
Doug Walsh asked for clarification on a problem with how the proposal originally came in. Schreiber said it was submitted to the commodity group for signature and due to an office move, the commodity group did not mail the proposal in time. The researcher thought it was in the WSCPR office and was out of the country at the time. Commissioners invited the researcher to come back at the next meeting.

DISCUSSION
Walsh noted the funding from CBVSA is 25-30% of their research budget and this is a substantial match from this group.

02AN070 Crop Profile Coordinator
Catherine Daniels, Washington State University
WSCPR request $20,250 Co-funding $50,000
Corliss said there is not as much support as you would expect, due to the lack of communication to his group and it would be nice to see something from other commodities. Teas said the tree fruit industry declined to support the proposal and preferred to put out a contract bid for a specific crop rather than funding a position. George asked Daniels who perceives value from crop profiles, noting EPA and Ecology use them. Daniels said individual commodities have used them, for example, red raspberry and oyster have used them for public relation concerns, and individual county agents can take the list to chemical companies to show value for their products. Teas asked what the urgency is. Daniels said this is an unusual situation, she was not aware of Greens presentation at the January meeting until afterward, and she is not aware of an urgent timeline. Daniels said she did not have time to contact all commodities to ask for support and appreciates the Commission hearing the proposal. George said she appreciated what Daniels had done to get this to the Commission and it is a valuable service to the commodities, but without commodity buyoff it appears the commodity does not perceive enough value to ask for the profile. Ted Maxwell said the WSDA has a use for these down the road in the area of the endangered species program. The information would be nice to have for a specific action or general action on a chemical that would impact the crop. Corliss said the primary value is a communication vehicle to regulators. Barstow asked why WSDA is not doing this. Maxwell said WSDA is more interested in pesticide profiles. Masters asked if it was up to WSCPR to fund this kind of project, there is some value, but wondered how much of an important tool this is to regulators. Masters noted the issue of updating the profiles. Masters said a conflict of interest is possible with DOE putting grant money into crop profiles when their agenda is to minimize pesticide use and asked if this is in the Commission's best interest. Barstow said he was not sure this proposal would do anything to solve a problem within 5 years. George said she was bothered by commodities that are not minor minor and offer no financial assistance and if USDA wants the crop profile done, funding should come from USDA. Schreiber noted a workshop will be held April 9 in Spokane to explain PMSP's and to try to get commodities to do them and the Ecology decision will be in mid-April. Masters said it seems WSCPR should not fund crop profiles, there is a limited amount of money to pass out and hardcore research should get done.

OTHER BUSINESS
John Brown asked for clarification on the agreement between WSDA and WSCPR, specifically the dates of the agreement. Schreiber said the funds are to be transferred to WSCPR and WSU by June 30, 2002. Brown said he would help to ensure this goes forward and will follow-up on the decision in the office of grant research and development.

Chair Teas adjourned the meeting at 3:30 pm.

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