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About Capital press. (Salem, OR) 19??-current | View Entire Issue (April 14, 2017)
April 14, 2017 CapitalPress.com 13 Farm produces hazelnut trees through micropropagation By BRENNA WIEGAND For the Capital Press Propagation has become the major focus at the Ron Chapin hazelnut farm near Salem. Chapin, who owns and op- erates the orchards with sons Larry and Paul and nephews Jeff, Steve and Caleb, said the idea is to maintain a cash flow while their young orchards reach maturity. As with farm- ers across the Willamette Val- ley, they must plant new va- rieties as traditional varieties fall to eastern filbert blight. “We’ve been pushing the nursery business because we’re going to go through a period of time when we have young trees and no old, pro- ducing orchards which is go- ing to be a little bit tight cash- flow wise,” Chapin said. Chapin runs a bare root Brenna Wiegand/For the Capital Press Ron Chapin and Travis Adams utilize micropropagation techniques to grow hazelnut trees for Chapin Farms and other orchards. nursery and micropropagation operation at the 700-acre fam- ily farm. In past years, they’ve grown volumes of the Jeffer- son variety but are switching gears in an attempt to keep up with a growing demand for Webster and are relying on the speed of layering versus tissue culture to grab the busi- ness at hand. “We’re trying real hard to get these things into our layer- ing program because when we put a tissue cultured tree in the ground we have a two-year wait before we can harvest a bare root tree,” Chapin said. “However, without tissue and just relying on grafting and layering to multiply the trees for our layering beds, it would take a decade to do what we do in two years.” Travis Adams is Chapin’s partner in the micropropaga- tion business and manages the laboratory, where Adams has a bumper crop of Webster trees underway. Chapin got into microprop- agation eight years ago while his daughter Nicole was pursu- ing her horticulture degree at Oregon State University. She came home excited about the hazelnut micropropagation going on there. Through tri- al, error and lots of help from others, the lab is now produc- ing nicely and predictably. “There is always some- thing but we’ve been able to work our way through it; even the volume of the contain- er makes a big difference,” Adams said. “I feel like ev- erything we’ve done right has been by people giving us really good advice and trying to replicate that within the budget we have. We may do things differently such as us- ing Saran wrap on Mason jars, but it’s working really well.” This year the lab will serve about 15 customers, up from last year’s six, and is on track to produce 150,000 plants. Ron has about 60 bare root customers and will also pro- duce 150,000 trees in addition to some 40,000-50,000 potted varieties. Together, it’s enough to cover 1,500-2,000 acres. “It is a nice little business,” Chapin said. “There’s a lot of excitement in the hazelnut industry right now because of the prices. You go to the industry meetings and the attendance has doubled or tripled.” Eastern filbert blight, which could have been the death knell of the industry, is slowly being defeated as farmers replace dying or- chards with the sturdy, dis- ease-resistant varieties com- ing out of Oregon State. “Without those we would be in a sorry state as an indus- try,” Chapin said. “Instead, orchards are going in all over the place.” Chapin’s own orchards yield 3,500-4,000 pounds of nuts an acre, though it’s been as high as 5,000. He’s hoping the new varieties per- form similarly — and sooner rather than later. ONV17--7/#4N
