Capital press., April 13, 2018, Page 12, Image 40

12 CapitalPress.com
April 13, 2018
Apple schools sow seeds of cider success
For the Capital Press
Chris Blanchard took a
continuing education class at
Oregon State University, and
in 2014 opened Longdrop Ci-
der in Boise, Idaho, with two
partners. Today, he’s among the
experts who teach other would-
be cider makers how to launch
their own cider businesses.
Blanchard is one of dozens
of students who have taken
OSU cider courses and gone on
to open their own cider houses
in the Northwest and beyond.
Educational opportunities
abound in the Northwest for
apple growers and cider makers
looking to develop their skills
in the orchard, in business or in
the cidery. As the love for craft
ciders develops, the region’s
schools have responded with
short and long courses ranging
from a few hours-long tasting
workshops to years-long fer-
mentation science courses.
The recent surge in cider’s
popularity is fertile ground for
expanding education. More
than half of the cider businesses
in the Northwest have been es-
tablished in the past five years,
according to statistics gath-
ered by the Northwest Cider
Association. The association’s
more than 70 members own
orchards, cideries and tasting
rooms in Washington, Oregon,
Idaho, Montana and British
Columbia.
The association helps orga-
nize several festivals each year
including the BC Cider Week,
April 27-May 6 this year, and
the Cider Rite of Spring, which
took place March 10 in Port-
land, and the Washington Ci-
der Week in September. The
association’s website calendar
listed 15 public Northwest ci-
der festivals in the past year
Courtesy of OSU-PACE
Scott Robbins, Oregon State University Research Farms manager,
talks to cider students at Lewis-Brown Farm in Corvallis.
sponsored by its members and
associates. In these celebratory
settings, visitors can taste and
learn about cider varieties, and
meet the cider makers.
Many new and experienced
farmers and growers attend
festivals and take courses to
get into craft apple production.
Many are looking for a way
to launch or expand current
operations, said Greg Aronoff
of Oregon State University’s
non-credit educational arm,
Professional and Continuing
Education (PACE). Students
in these various courses and
workshops range in age from
25 to their mid-60s, and in-
clude homebrewers, retired and
active farmers, and new or cur-
rent business owners.
In addition to PACE, OSU
offers a variety of orchard and
cider courses, both for credit
and noncredit.
The university’s fermenta-
tion science program, for ex-
ample, is among a handful of
programs in the U.S. that offer
a fermentation degree training
students in biological, chemical
and physical principles, as well
as engineering, processing,
preservation and other aspects
of fermented food products.
Students interested in orchards
can earn degrees in research
including fruit breeding and
genetics, entomology, fruit pa-
thology, to name a few areas of
study.
As of 2016, Washington
State University merged its
coursework with University
of Idaho’s to create a similar
fermentation science degree,
including specific cider cours-
es.
Located in the state that
produces more than half of the
nation’s apples, it is no wonder
that WSU also sponsors one
of the largest orchard research
and extension programs in the
Northwest. Its Tree Fruit Re-
search and Extension Center
includes more than 200 acres
of orchards, labs and class-
rooms on three properties. The
center is home to high-level
apple research, but it is also a
base for a multitude of public
classes and workshops in or-
chard care and cider produc-
tion taught by WSU experts.
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