August 18, 2017
CapitalPress.com
9
Native seed business takes root
By ALIYA HALL
Capital Press
ALBANY, Ore. — Sarah
Stutzman and Michele San-
toyo didn’t realize how hard
their dad, Craig Edminster,
worked until they joined him
at Pacific NW Naturals a few
years ago.
“You have to be a glutton
for punishment,” Stutzman said
about their native seed produc-
tion enterprise. “My dad works
his a-- off, always has.”
Edminster started Pacific
NW Naturals in 1996 after
working as a research scien-
tist for a cooperative of West-
ern farmers.
It was there that Edmin-
ster’s interest in native plant
species began.
“Natives are quite unique.
I didn’t switch 100 percent;
I needed a day job,” he said.
“The native seed business
Aliya Hall/Capital Press
Craig Edminster with his daughters, Michele Santoyo, left, and
Sarah Stutzman. Although Michele and Sarah helped in the fields
growing up, it was only in the past couple of years that they decid-
ed to work full-time for the company.
was strong east of the Cas-
cades because it was funded
by (Bureau of Land Manage-
ment) money. But I saw it was
a growth market with not a lot
of competitors.”
The Albany, Ore., business
struggled for the first cou-
ple of years, and most of the
seed was taken to the dump,
he said. However, Edminster
continued to contract with
organizations such as the
Calapooia Watershed Coun-
cil, FFA and 4-H. Eventually
they also contracted with the
BLM for a program based on
indefinite delivery and indef-
inite quantity, which funded
Edminster because his seeds
were good for forest resto-
ration.
“That’s what really put us
on the map. Private dollars
aren’t going to make this in-
dustry grow over a couple of
years; public dollars are the
way to get this thing going,”
Edminster said.
The biggest learning
curve, Edminster said, was
not knowing when to cut the
grass, how to fertilize it, and
if it needed irrigation or re-
quired a combine.
“Every population is dif-
ferent; even in the same gene
of species,” he said.
Stutzman and Santoyo said
it was the same with cleaning
the seed. As children, they
cleaned each seed by hand
because the company couldn’t
afford a seed cleaner.
“We had a 50-pound bag
of dirty seed and a tweezer to
pinch the seed out onto white
paper,” Stutzman said.
Edminster estimates that
no more than 30 or 50 grow-
ers have ever tried local na-
tives in their production fields
because of the risk of not
making money.
“When I was in the field it
was all worked by hand with
species that were too delicate
to be put through the com-
bine. We had to have a group
of people going down aisles
with scissors or taking seed
off with their hands,” Stutz-
man said.
“It’s very time-consuming,
and makes it more expensive
and difficult to handle. Peo-
ple want them, but they don’t
want to invest that time and
effort,” she said.
Stutzman said she’s vacu-
umed seeds off the ground to
save them. Santoyo added that
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those few seeds were worth
$30.
“Most of what we do is as
difficult as you can get,” Ed-
minster said.
Stutzman and Santoyo
knew that their father worked
a lot, but they didn’t realize
how hard until they commit-
ted to the company.
“It’s constant and doesn’t
stop. When you participate
in it, you see how hard it is,”
Stutzman said. “I worked in
the field with my now hus-
band, and harvesting stuff is
really difficult. You’re laying
it out on tarps and drying it,
then pitchforking it into a
thrasher and then to the seed
cleaner. It’s much more diffi-
cult than commercial grass-
es.”
Although Edminster joked
about retiring as soon as he
can, his daughters say they
don’t see that happening.