The death sentence came down Saturday morning for an entire generation of whitetop.

About 350 people drew their weapons that day in the battle against whitetop, the pesky weed that is crowding out native or more desirable introduced vegetation on thousands of acres in Baker County including yards and fields inside the Baker City limits.

Their ammunition is an herbicide cocktail designed to kill whitetop.

About 350 people assembled at the county’s weed office in Baker City between 7 a.m. and noon to collect their free allotment of five gallons.

All told, officials dispensed about 1,800 gallons, said Arnie Grammon, the county’s weed supervisor. That’s about twice as much as they doled out in previous years.

Each gallon can, if properly applied, eradicate whitetop from about 1,400 square feet. If each of the 350 whitetop warriors sprays the whole five gallons on whitetop, then the weed could be banished from almost 4,000 acres.

That won’t solve the county’s whitetop problem it’s not for nothing that they call noxious weeds noxious.

Yet, the herbicide handouts not only doomed a fair amount of whitetop, they will allow Grammon and his crew to concentrate on the bigger chunks of infested ground. Also, the small army of whitetop fighters who gathered Saturday at the weed office might well prevent patches of whitetop from merging into more of those big chunks.

The people who left Saturday with five gallons of herbicide about 60 bucks worth if you bought the stuff from a retailer weren’t the only ones who saved money, either.

Grammon said that thanks to a $15,000 grant he received from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, the andquot;freeandquot; herbicide cost the county about $4 per five gallons to mix.

But that’s a bargain compared with the county’s cost when it reimburses landowners who buy their own herbicide to control whitetop.

The bottom line, he said, is that events such as Saturday’s represent a significant andquot;bang for our buckandquot; in the campaign against whitetop.

This is a good thing, because as it stands, Baker County has more whitetop than it has bucks.

But not as much whitetop as we had last week.