Friday, April 9, 2021
CapitalPress.com
3
Craig Reed/For the Capital Press
Jesse and Rachel Nielsen purchased 80 acres of Umpqua Valley bottomland in 2007
and four years later turned part of their pasture and hay fi elds into 16 acres of Jeff er-
son hazelnut trees.
Jesse and Rachel Nielsen:
Hazelnuts a family aff air
By CRAIG REED
For the Capital Press
ROSEBURG, Ore. —
When part of the family ranch
was made available for sale,
Jesse and Rachel Nielsen didn’t
hesitate to move back to Doug-
las County.
In 2007, the couple pur-
chased 80 acres of the ranch’s
bottomland that parallels the
Umpqua River. Jesse had grown
up on the ranch, graduated from
Roseburg High School in 1998,
moved away for several years
and became a lineman.
Rachel had also moved
away after graduating from
Douglas High School in Win-
ston, Ore., also in 1998. She
went to school and became an
ultrasound sonographer.
The Nielsens wanted to raise
their kids in a country setting so
there was no debate when the
opportunity to move back pre-
sented itself.
“When you’re little, you like
farming, you like the equip-
ment,” Jesse said. “I don’t know
if I envisioned myself farming,
but then it was a case of ‘now
what do you do’ when you’re
here.”
There was a bit of indecision
for the young couple on how
best to use their 80 acres. Jesse’s
father, Rusty Nielsen, who had
a sheep and cattle background,
suggested a hazelnut orchard
and provided Jesse and Rachel
with educational information on
the nut.
Initially, the couple part-
nered with Rusty on mother
cows, using the ground for
pasture and hay. Some of the
ground was also leased to a
company that used it to grow
grape starts.
But fi nally in the fall of
2011, diversifi cation came to
the ranch when 16 acres of the
bottomland was planted to Jef-
ferson hazelnut seedlings.
“Trees don’t get out at
night,” Jesse said of one rea-
son an orchard was planted.
“Another draw was there is
less day-to-day labor with the
trees. There was a lot of work
with cows and I already had a
full-time job.”
Rachel also worked at her
profession and the couple
eventually had three children.
To learn more about hazel-
nuts, Jesse and Rachel did
plenty of reading on the crop
and attended several infor-
mational conferences put on
by George Packing Co. They
admitted the learning curve
was steep, but after their
16-acre orchard produced nine
bins of nuts from its fi rst har-
vest in 2018, another 20 acres
was planted in 2019, half in Jef-
ferson and half in Ennis. They
decided to add Ennis trees for
diversifi cation.
The harvest of the older
orchard in 2019 was a new
experience because there was
rain, mud and ground debris
during harvest. The crop pro-
duced 25 bins, but there
was an extra cost in clean-
ing mud and debris off the
nuts.
The 2020 harvest was a
much better experience, pro-
ducing 18 bins, but the same
poundage as 2019 because
there was less mud or debris.
The Nielsens have marketed
the hazelnuts through George
Packing.
Jesse and Rachel have done
much of the orchard work
themselves, planting the trees
in 2011 and pruning them until
hiring the work out this past
year.
Their two older kids,
Isabella, 11, and Tavit, 9,
earned a wage by helping
prune the younger orchard
last spring. Kenzie, 4, isn’t
old enough to help, but spent
time with the family in the
orchard.
“I like it here,” Rachel said.
“When we fi rst started dating
and I was able to visit here,
I loved this property. When
we had the chance to move
back here, I didn’t need any
prodding.”
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