August 21, 2015
CapitalPress.com
11
Bailey Nurseries on Five generations have kept Weeks Berry Nursery going
track for a good year
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
By ERICK PETERSON
For the Capital Press
SUNNYSIDE, Wash. —
2015 has been a good year
for Bailey Nurseries, which is
owned by the Bailey family
and headquartered in St. Paul,
Minn.
By June, the company was
on track to meet its annual reve-
nue goal, said Matt Armbruster,
office manager and production
assistant at the company in
Sunnyside, Wash. With peak
season continuing into October,
it looks likely that Bailey will
exceed its sales goals.
The robust outlook follows
a reconfiguring of the Sunny-
side operation.
“In 2008, everyone got hit
pretty hard,” he said. The suc-
cess of nurseries is tied close-
ly to the housing market. And
with the housing market taking
a nosedive, nurseries, Bailey
Nurseries included, suffered.
The problem, he said, is
that landscaping is the “bread
and butter” of businesses like
Bailey. The company supplies
orchardists, but fruit tree sales
were not enough to sustain it.
The location’s current 165
acres are now split between
field production and orchard
production.
“We also try to grow things
that other places can’t,” he said.
The company supplies other
wholesalers as well as garden
centers.
Armbruster said that he is
happy with the current success
of the overall company, and he
Erick Peterson/For the Capital Press
Matt Armbruster is office man-
ager and production assistant at
Bailey Nurseries in Sunnyside,
Wash. The current 165 acres
are split between field produc-
tion and orchard production.
boasts of its long history and
positive corporate culture.
Started by John Vincent Bai-
ley in the early 1900s, Bailey
Nurseries is in its fourth gen-
eration of family ownership. At
its start, company employees
would take produce to market
on horse-drawn wagons. After
World War II, Bailey got into
landscaping and horticulture
and transitioned away from
produce.
The company expanded into
Illinois, Oregon, Washington
and Arizona. Its Sunnyside lo-
cation, formerly Pacific Coast
Nursery, was added in 1997.
Meanwhile, the company
gained a reputation for quality
that has won over thousands of
major customers, Armbruster
said.
KEIZER, Ore. — At
Weeks Berry Nursery, each
generation has built on the one
before. Currently at the helm
is John Weeks, president, and
his son Bradley Weeks — the
secretary, treasurer and fifth
generation of the family to
work on the farm.
One of the country’s larg-
est wholesale distributors of
berry plants, the nursery sup-
plies about 3,000 retail nurs-
eries that order about 25-100
plants at a time.
In 1888, George Weeks
started a small peach opera-
tion on 300 acres he bought
from Thomas Keizer. His
son Wilbur was one of the
first in the area to receive a
USDA nursery license and
helped develop the strawber-
ry industry in the Willamette
Valley.
Wilbur’s son Wayne
brought in raspberries and
grapes in the 1940s and
was instrumental in helping
Welch’s start the region’s
table grape industry. Wayne
and son John kept expanding
the product line — blackber-
ries, asparagus, rhubarb and,
in the late 1980s, blueberries,
positioning them well when
they became a hot commod-
Brenna Wiegand/For the Capital Press
Bradley Weeks looks over a field of raspberry plants. Weeks Berry
Nursery offers a wide range of berries.
ity for growers.
“People are looking for
fresher, more natural pro-
duce,” retail manager Penny
Schaeffer said. “We’re seeing
more blueberries sold in gro-
cery stores.”
Among Weeks’ 16 blue-
berry varieties are a handful
of new introductions; “Raz”
is a blueberry that tastes like
a raspberry.
Haskaps, the dark blue
fruit of the edible honeysuck-
le Lonicera caerulea, have
been found to contain more
antioxidants than blueberries
and people are starting to
seek them out.
Bradley
is
working
to streamline operations
through new technology in-
cluding more efficient rota-
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“In the ’80s we had 30-35
people and were able to move
a lot of product; now we have
about 18 who are putting
out four times the amount,”
Weeks said. “The problem is
inflation and high overhead
— my last tractor cost more
than my house.”
Due to Oregon’s battle
with strawberry mosaic virus
Weeks re-wholesales about
3 million California-grown
strawberry plants a year.
He’s also concerned about
the push to raise Oregon’s
minimum wage to $15 an hour.
“I charge about 88 cents
apiece for raspberry plants;
in Montana, where the min-
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main concerns is being able
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