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CapitalPress.com
Friday, March 5, 2021
Fifth-generation farm thrives on seed operation
By GEOFF PARKS
For the Capital Press
SILVERTON, Ore. —
Change has been a constant
companion to the work of five
generations of the Loe fam-
ily’s diversified farm in the
Evans Valley area northeast of
Silverton.
Fifth-generation Angela
(Loe) Rose started the Sil-
ver Falls Seed Co., in 1999
to market the Triangle Farm’s
seed production directly to
retailers and consumers.
“I started Silver Falls Seed
Company in 1999 with just me
doing this and mom and dad
(Kevin and Lori Loe) helping
out a little bit,” she said. She
explained that her seed com-
pany is separate from Trian-
gle Farms, which is operated
by her parents and brother,
Travis.
The Loe family traces back
to Norwegian immigrant Ole
Loe, who originally settled in
Minnesota before moving to
Oregon in 1902. He purchased
acreage for raising hops until
the 1920s when he switched
to grain, hay, berries and other
crops.
Ole Loe’s son, Oscar, took
over the farm in the 1920s and
began producing an eclectic
mix of nursery stock, turkeys,
chickens and custom harvest-
ing before deciding to get into
Silver Falls Seed Co.
ABOVE: Some of the colorful fields that grow Silver Falls Seed Co.’s seeds. LEFT: Angela Rose of the Sil-
ver Falls Seed Co. checks a small sampling of the hundreds of varieties of seeds grown on her family’s
Triangle Farms. Photo by Geoff Parks
the grass seed industry.
The next generation of
Loes moved the farm into cat-
tle and horses as well as the
seed business until Kevin took
over in the 1980s. In 1999,
Triangle Farms began native
seed collections and propaga-
W ATER M ASTER S ERIES
tion of their own
domestic seeds.
Today, Tri-
angle Farms does
contract produc-
tion, seed cleaning
and grows and markets
Christmas trees and Doug-
las fir timber. The business
also produces meat goats and
beef cattle.
The company Rose orig-
inally started — Oregon
Wholesale Seed Co. — was
established in 1999. The con-
currently created Silver Falls
Seed Co., sells pre-packaged
AND
seed directly to consumers and
retailers.
“Different sizes of seed
packets up to one pound of
our seed is sold at the Oregon
Gardens and Silver Falls State
Park,” Rose said, “but is now
sold mainly online through
our website.”
The company markets
Northwest native seed, indi-
vidual flower, cereal grain
and grass seed species; forage
and pasture mixes; flower and
grass seed mixes and blends;
ground cover species and cus-
tom seed packets contain-
ing one or more of the 200 or
so species produced over the
years.
“We’re set up to clean
flower and vegetable seed,
grasses and specialty seeds
here,” she said, noting that
Triangle’s own wildflowers,
native grasses, turf and for-
age grasses form the bulk of
the Silver Falls company’s
output. She markets the Sil-
ver Falls-labeled seed as well
as custom-labeled seed in
smaller quantities than most
companies offer.
“Most everything that I
sell is grown right here on this
farm, though I do buy out-
side a little bit for our forage
mixes,” she said.
“It’s a lot of work; it’s not
something you can just pick
up and do,” she said of her
company.
All seed packets are hand-
filled on site at the sprawling
warehouse and dryer com-
plex that makes up the Trian-
gle-Silver Falls businesses.
Rose and one employee han-
dle the flow of online and tele-
phone orders, while a contract
crew does the packaging.
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