4A
Ԃ
APPEAL TRIBUNE
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 4, 2017
Life in the
Valley y
sanews@salem.gannett.com
STATESMAN JOURNAL FILE PHOTOS
Gerald Beard, from left, Alberto Valdez and Alberto Bolla bale and sort Christmas trees at Hupp Farms in Silverton. Hupp Farms is wholesale grower of Christmas trees.
Farmers cash in on holiday
MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
THE CAPITOL PRESS
SILVERTON — Ten years ago, the
market for the Northwest’s signature
Christmas tree crop was depressed by
an oversupply, sending prices into the
gutter.
The Hupp family, which farms near
Silverton, had an abundance of fully-
grown trees that nobody had bought, so
they decided to get rid of them.
But not all of them.
After removing roughly every other
tree in some of their fields, the Hupps
allowed the remaining Noble firs to
develop longer, wider and thicker
branches, which were then cut and sold
for boughs used in Christmas deco-
rations.
“A lot of it is spacing,” said Jason
Hupp, whose family owns Hupp Farms.
These days, wreaths, garlands and
boughs are a steady business line for
the Hupps, who also continue to grow
Christmas trees and nursery seedlings.
A major advantage of the bough
market is that large buyers send their
own crews to harvest the crop.
“We don’t have the manpower to cut
everything people want,” Hupp said.
“The nice thing is we don’t have to har-
vest it.”
Boughs also play a useful role given
the varying conditions across the
Hupps’ property.
Their best fields with access to irri-
gation water are devoted to nursery
conifers. Marginal land without water
is planted to Christmas trees. Steep and
less accessible parcels are dedicated to
boughs. Rocky fields are committed to
timber.
Across the U.S., farmers sold more
than $1.3 million worth of cut conifer-
ous evergreens in 2014, according to
the most recent USDA data. To com-
pare, the total value of cut Christmas
trees — the king of the holiday’s crops
— topped $366 million that year.
Despite the relatively small market
for boughs and Christmas-related
plants such as poinsettias and holly,
they provide an important niche for
Northwest growers, tapping a source of
cash flow at a time of year when most
other crops have long been harvested.
Poinsettias provide a way for green-
house nurseries that sell flowering
bedding plants in springtime to keep
their employees busy during the fall,
too.
Last year, growers nationwide sold
nearly $140 million worth of potted
poinsettias, according to USDA.
Though the plant isn’t particularly
profitable, it does provide enough reve-
nue to keep workers who might not
otherwise return from being laid off,
said Vern Johnson, owner of Johnson
Brothers Greenhouses near Eugene.
Because they’re a tropical plant,
poinsettias need more heat during the
cool months preceding Christmas, add-
ing to the cost of growing them, he said.
They’re also prone to fungal disease,
requiring frequent sprays and more
spacing between plants to ensure prop-
er air circulation.
STATESMAN JOURNAL FILE
Rows of Nordmann firs are ready to be cut at the Skyline Christmas Tree Farm.
Wreaths are a profitable holiday crop for some area farmers, facing an oversupply of trees.
“It’s not a bread-and-butter crop,”
said Johnson, who also produces bed-
ding plants, perennials, shrubs and
trees.
Poinsettias are a truly international
industry, he said.
Breeding occurs in tropical coun-
tries such as Costa Rica and Guatema-
la. Cuttings are then shipped to large
greenhouses, where they’re rooted. The
rooted poinsettias are then sold to
greenhouses such as the Johnson
Brothers operation for the final stage
of production.
Night temperatures must be kept
above 65 degrees Fahrenheit for poin-
settias, though breeders in recent years
have turned their attention to devel-
oping varieties that can withstand low-
er temperatures, Johnson said.
“We’re loving that, because a lot of
your money goes to heating these
things,” he said.
Improved genetics in poinsettias
have also reduced the need to screen
many varieties from the sun to induce
flowering, said Kyle Peterson, produc-
tion manager at Fessler Nursery near
Woodburn, Ore.
Within the greenhouse, wires are
suspended above the crop, which is
manually covered in plastic each day
and uncovered in the morning.
“It’s quite a chore pulling that plastic
each day,” he said.
While fewer poinsettia varieties now
require this treatment, Fessler Nursery
has in recent years also begun growing
Christmas cactuses, which must be
covered from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. beginning
in September to initiate flowering, he
said.
Despite the extra labor, Christmas
cactuses are more profitable because
they’re not as sensitive to cold and
prone to diseases as poinsettias, Pe-
terson said.
“They require a lot of attention,” he
said.
The nursery has dispatched an effi-
cient remedy to combat the white flies,
aphids and thrips that feast on poinset-
tias: Baskets of mullein — a common
roadside plant with leathery leaves —
are hung throughout the greenhouse.
The mullein harbors a beneficial
bug, dicyphus hesperus, which eats the
pests, Peterson said. “We’re always
trying to find additional ways to reduce
pesticide use.”
While poinsettias are finicky due to
their tropical origins, farmers also
encounter difficulties with a Christmas
crop that naturally thrives in the region
— holly.
The plant is vulnerable to phytoph-
thora, a genus of fungal-like pathogens
that damage it.
“There’s no cure for it. All you can
do is try to prevent it,” said Don Harte-
loo, who owns Mill Creek Holly Farms
near Stayton.
More than $1 million worth of cut
holly was sold in the U.S. in 2014, ac-
cording to the latest USDA data.
Fungicide sprays are necessary
during the rainy season, and during
summer dead leaves and other debris
are vacuumed from beneath the holly
trees to keep the disease away.
Unless a grower is aggressive in
fighting the pathogen, it can defoliate
and wipe out an entire orchard, espe-
cially in a year like 2016, when disease
pressure has been high, said Harteloo.
“It seems to be getting worse all the
time, and this seems to be a particular-
ly bad year,” he said.
Once a healthy holly tree is estab-
lished, which takes about a decade,
branches can be cut vigorously each
year, Harteloo said.
Cutting seems to stimulate growth,
so overly zealous harvesters have nev-
er been a problem, he said.
Harteloo and his wife, Sue, sell their
holly to wholesale buyers. They also
make wreaths and other decorations,
which are sold online.
Most buyers want red berries on
their holly and prefer variegated culti-
vars with leaves that have cream-col-
ored edges, Sue Harteloo said.
To prevent leaves and berries from
falling off after harvest, the branches
are dipped in a rare plant hormone,
Don Harteloo said.
“It’s very expensive. A thousand
dollars a gallon,” he said.
The Harteloos also sell “kissing
balls” that incorporate mistletoe, a
parasitic plant that infects oak trees.
A farmer near Silverton has enough
mistletoe growing wild on his property
to supply their yearly needs.
“It doesn’t take much to go a long
ways,” Harteloo said.
The mistletoe is collected using
ladders or shears on long poles, but
when it’s particularly inaccessible,
Harteloo resorts to firearms.
“You can shoot it down, usually with
a shotgun,” he said.