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.
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