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CapitalPress.com
April 13, 2018
Willamette Valley farmers make switch to hazelnuts
Farm is down to
20-30 acres of
Christmas trees
By BRENNA WIEGAND
For the Capital Press
When the last Christmas
tree falls, Gerald Mast and
Jerry Roth of Mast-Roth
Farms hope their young ha-
zelnut orchards will pick up
the slack.
Five years ago, after a
glut in the market, the Mon-
itor-Molalla area farmers
stopped planting Christmas
trees and started putting in
hazelnut trees.
Mast’s father-in-law, Don
Roth, began planting Christ-
mas trees about 40 years
ago and Mast joined him
five years later. Since then
Roth’s son Jerry came in and
the two now run the farm.
“Labor was also one of
the biggest factors for the
change; we can do the hazel-
nuts with just a few people,”
Gerald Mast said.
The farm is down to 20-
30 acres of Christmas trees
from its peak of 400 acres.
“All the Christmas trees
are off the land that we own
but there are a few pieces of
leased ground that still have
them,” Mast said. “The last
couple years the Christmas
tree market has been very
good, which has been help-
ful as we establish our ha-
zelnut orchards.”
They’re nearly finished
planting hazelnuts. They’re
in their sixth year of plant-
ing about 30 acres a year and
hope to end up with about
185 acres in nuts. Two years
ago, they began harvesting
nuts from 4-year-old trees
and this past year harvested
from 4- and 5-year-old trees.
Brenna Wiegand/For the Capital Press
Gerald Mast, left, and Jerry Roth walk a new hazelnut orchard.
Mast-Roth Farms near Molalla, Ore., has planted about 30 acres of
hazelnut trees a year for the past six years as it transitions out of
Christmas trees.
It was a low production
year for everybody, but
Mast and Roth were pleased
at their yield, gathering
600 pounds per acre on the
4-year-old trees and a little
more than 1,500 pounds on
the 5-year-olds. Selling off
some of their Christmas tree
equipment has helped them
in purchasing a whole new
set of machinery for their
new crop.
Along the way, they’ve
had a lot of help. They fol-
low the program set out by
Valley Ag, a division of
Wilco, and Wilbur-Ellis pro-
vides recommendations.
“We’ve also learned a
lot from other growers,”
Mast said. “This indus-
try is different than others;
growers seem to share in-
formation freely; it’s very
refreshing.”
Lately, some growers
have been double-planting
for higher, earlier produc-
tion. Trees go in 10-by-20
feet apart and then when
they start to grow togeth-
er every other tree is tak-
en out and the remaining
trees end up 20-by-20 feet
apart.
“We’re going 18-by-12
because we figure we can get
a few more years off the trees
before we need to take them
out,” Mast said.
While the Willamette
Valley produces about 99
percent of the U.S. supply, it
only produces 4-5 percent of
the world’s hazelnuts.
“We haven’t hit the
domestic market like we
could,” Mast said. “When
the supply is there for a year-
round market, talk is there’s
going to be a problem with
overproduction if we don’t
build up our domestic mar-
ket.”
In addition to the unpre-
dictable market and labor
costs associated with Christ-
mas trees, Mast is just ready
to stop.
“I’ve done it long enough
and the harvest is quite bru-
tal,” he said, “It can be very
wet and muddy and you
can’t stop; you’ve just got to
keep going.”
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