Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/450509
www.goodfruit.com Good Fruit Grower FEBRUARY 1, 2015 11 The Wine Commission has allocated more than 25 percent of total assessment funds for budget year 2015 toward research, according to Warner. The biggest allo- cation—about $1 million—is helping fund construction of Washington State University's Wine Science Center. Another $250,000 is being spent on research for the 2015 budget year. "I feel very strongly about research and the need to elevate the industry's research involvement," Warner told Good Fruit Grower, adding that the strategic plan will recommend how to best structure and implement a research program. Two key components of the program are communicating research with industry and seeking additional research dollars through grants and such. Timing Wine Commission board member Dick Boushey is chair of the Commission's relatively new Research Committee. Boushey, grape and tree fruit grower from Grandview, has been a member of the Wine Advisory Committee for many years. The Wine Advisory Committee, which became a subcommittee of the Wine Commission in 1998, is a volunteer committee of growers and winemakers that annually reviews and recommends funding of research proposals. "It's time—it's more than time—to get an indus- try-wide research program going," said Boushey in a phone interview. Boushey was part of an industry task force that developed a research plan and identified pri- orities nearly a decade ago. The task force was assembled by the Washington Association of Wine Grape Growers. "But what the task force and plan never answered was who's going to do the work and who's going to adminis- ter the program," he said. "Nor did it identify a funding source." Washington's wine industry has many organizations, he explained, from grape grower groups like WAWGG and the Washington State Grape Society, to wine organi- zations like the Washington Wine Institute and regional wine associations and industry wide groups like the GOOD FRUIT GROWER FILE PHOTO