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August 18, 2017 CapitalPress.com 11 Aliya Hall/Capital Press Treco Inc. in Woodburn, Ore., was started in 1941 by Brent Smith’s grandparents. Nursery specializes in fruit, nut rootstock By ALIYA HALL Capital Press WOODBURN, Ore. — Brent Smith is the third-gen- eration of Smiths to operate Treco Inc. He has worked there since third grade, and finds it re- warding to see how the busi- ness has changed. “It’s just being able to keep it successful. We’ve gone through our hard times, too, like everyone else, and have learned from it, but every year there’s some new challenge. We want to stay on the leading edge of things,” Smith said. Treco was founded in 1941 by Smith’s grandparents, and initially they produced both 2-year-old fruit trees and root- stock. However, in 2000 Tre- co focused production strictly on rootstock because it was competing against its custom- ers for orchard tree sales. Treco is known for its ap- ple rootstock, but has also started to grow hazelnut root- stock, as well as some pear rootstock. “We have 75 years of ex- perience growing it, and you can’t beat this climate. There are other nurseries, but with our soil type and the amount of rain we get, it’s ideal,” Smith said. “We’re very hands-on. Quality is a major thing, customers will buy our B-grade stock knowing it’s as good as others’ A-grade. It keeps commercial growers coming back.” Treco’s production is known as layering. They plant starter material in the spring and let it grow for a full win- ter cycle to defoliate. That fol- lowing spring they will lay the material on the ground and let it send shoots off, which they cover with sawdust to help root. That following winter, when the plant goes dormant again, they cut off the mother plant’s rootstock and sell it. “Rootstock controls the tree,” Smith said. “There’s very dwarfing rootstock that goes to garden centers for someone who is going to put a pot on their patio with a lit- tle fruit tree, and then there’s the other side of the pendulum that is as close to standard trees as you can get.” Rootstock also determines how trees will grow in differ- ent soil and climate types. “We have some from Rus- sia and Poland that are really winter hardy. Then there’s rootstock that has some dis- ease resistance. We get a lot of that from Cornell Universi- ty’s Geneva Program,” Smith said. There’s a lot more differ- ence in apple rootstock than people think, according to Smith. His Geneva rootstock comes in crooked with spines that aren’t easily propagated until it’s in the orchard; older rootstocks grow straight with distance between the nodes and some that root better than others. “They all have their little quirks. There is a ton of dif- ference; no two rootstocks are the same. All have different characteristics,” said Smith. Treco was able to recov- er quicker than most nurser- ies after the 2008 recession, even though it had just gone through a hit from the fruiting industry in 2000. That dip in the market was due to produc- ers’ dependence on one apple — Red Delicious — that was overproduced, according to Smith. However, the fruit market began recovering before the 2008 recession hit, which al- lowed Smith to ride it out. “We saw a dip, but we didn’t see the big recession like the other nurseries did; we recovered a lot quicker. We just hunkered down and waited for it. It helped being on the food side,” he said. In the future Treco will be focusing on the hazelnut mar- ket and finding that next edge to stay ahead. N17-1\#6
