Friday, March 25, 2022
CapitalPress.com 11
Intercropping: ‘Something changes when the
focus is on making money from the intercrop’
Continued from Page 1
“The largest and best
plots of land are already
planted,” he said.
Intercropping
doesn’t
seem especially prevalent
in any one part of the Wil-
lamette Valley, where most
hazelnuts are grown, and
likely depends more on the
expertise and equipment of
the farmer, McDaniel said.
“It seems pretty random
based on the grower and the
operation of the grower,”
he said. “It’s more of a per-
sonal choice of the farmer.”
While seed crops are
most popular, there are still
some unexpected crops
found growing among
hazelnut rows, includ-
ing Christmas trees, nurs-
ery stock, hay, strawberries
and hemp. Typically, farm-
ers already have experience
with these crops before try-
ing to grow them within
orchards.
Christmas trees
“We’re a Christmas tree
farm at the root, where we
come from. The hazelnuts
are a new crop,” said Gus-
tavo Guerrero, whose fam-
ily has intercropped about
60 acres of Christmas trees
with hazelnuts near McMin-
nville, Ore. “It sticks to the
roots we’ve had as farmers
in this area.”
Usually, farmers remove
the intercrop after the
orchard’s fourth year but
the Guerreros plan to leave
the Christmas trees in place
for five to six years.
They’ve used rakes to
sweep up hazelnuts by hand
as the trees begin produc-
ing nuts, which is highly
labor-intensive, Guerrero
said. They’ve broken even
on the nut harvest, but the
practice is worthwhile
given the strong demand
and prices for Christmas
trees.
Due to the tight spacing,
harvesting the Christmas
trees is also more difficult
because they can’t immedi-
ately be stacked in a trailer,
he said.
“We’ve had to hand-drag
the trees out of the field,
which takes a little more
time. But overall the con-
flict is minimal. It’s man-
ageable,” Guerrero said.
“We would definitely plant
them again with Christmas
trees. Farming is really a
game of chance. You learn
from that experience, which
will help you in future
endeavors.”
Nursery stock
Bruce Ernst, a nursery
operator near St. Paul, like-
wise swept hazelnuts by
hand in an 33-acre orchard
planted with nursery stock,
but doesn’t regret inter-
cropping despite the added
effort. The revenue gen-
erated by the boxwoods,
which are now being
dug up, was financially
defensible.
“I got some good value
off that land,” Ernst said.
“It was worth the extra
trouble.”
Ernst was reluctant to
reduce his nursery pro-
duction, particularly since
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Jimmy Lee grows grass
seed and other crops that
are intercropped at his ha-
zelnut orchards near Leb-
anon, Ore.
unknown
Bruce Ernst examines boxwoods that are intercropped in his hazelnut orchard near St. Paul, Ore.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Gustavo Guerrero examines Christmas trees that are intercropped at his family’s ha-
zelnut orchard near McMinnville, Ore.
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Perry Lucas examines hazelnut trees that are inter-
cropped with orchard grass grown for hay at his farm
near Gervais, Ore.
intercropping didn’t pre-
vent mechanical fertilizing
and pruning with a tractor
between hazelnut rows.
“Those boxwoods don’t
get that tall, so you can
go in right over the top of
them,” he said. “We never
really missed a beat.”
While high in value,
nursery stock wouldn’t
always be a rational choice
for intercropping, however.
Ernst is in a unique sit-
uation because he already
had a customer base, so
he wasn’t planting on
speculation.
“I had a market for the
boxwood. Otherwise, if
I was a regular hazelnut
farmer, it wouldn’t work
out,” he said.
Orchard grass hay
Perry Lucas of Gervais,
Ore., similarly has buyers
available for his orchard
grass hay, which he inter-
crops with hazelnuts but
also grows in fields beyond
his orchards.
The farm relies on a
self-propelled haybine that
Lucas bought especially
to fit between tree rows,
but which he uses on open
fields as well.
“We’ve got the equip-
ment and the people who
buy the hay, so it’s easy to
sell,” he said.
Grass seed requires
machinery that’s too large
for his orchards, which
don’t have the space to eas-
ily maneuver a combine,
Lucas said.
“We’ve got a county
road that we’d have to turn
around on with a lot of traf-
fic,” he said.
‘Tractor blight’
Operating hay machin-
ery between hazelnut rows
does occasionally cause a
tree to succumb to “trac-
tor blight” but the problem
hasn’t been serious enough
to discourage intercrop-
ping, Lucas said.
Usually, a damaged tree
doesn’t have to be replaced
with a new one, though
surrounding trees must
be pruned to allow it to
regrow, he said. “The suck-
ers will come up and you’ll
get a tree.”
Irrigation key
Decades ago, Lucas
FFA: ‘I feel like there’s been a lot of built-up energy’
Continued from Page 1
annual state convention
when the first COVID-19
restrictions were announced.
All public gatherings were
banned to prevent the spread
of the virus, forcing the can-
cellation of the convention
a week before it was sched-
uled to begin.
Oregon FFA leaders
moved quickly to pivot to a
virtual convention in 2020,
then again in 2021. While
not ideal, the format still
allowed members to com-
pete in events, attend work-
shops and elect new officers.
Kendall Castrow, a senior
at Redmond High School,
said she is excited to be
coming out of the pandemic
and reuniting with her fel-
low FFA members from
across the state.
Kendall
Castrow
Phil
Ward
“I feel like there’s been a
lot of built-up energy,” Cas-
trow said. “Everybody gets
to kind of release that energy
and just be themselves.”
Bush, the Tillamook FFA
adviser, said this year was
his 15th state convention as
either a teacher or student. It
was at here, Bush said, that
he met his best friend and
the future best man at his
wedding. It was also here
that he decided he wanted
to become an agriculture
teacher in his hometown.
“The kids learn stuff here
they can take home,” Bush
said. “Perhaps most impor-
tantly, they learn who they
are.”
Gary Walls, a senior from
Ione, met Saturday morn-
ing with Corrina Smith
and Dakota Anderson, both
sophomores from Elgin.
Walls, who joined FFA
in seventh grade, had just
earned his State Degree, the
highest award a state FFA
association can bestow on
its members.
The friends said they
remember feeling disap-
pointed when the state con-
vention was canceled in
2020. Now it was time to
celebrate.
“You can feel all the pos-
itivity and great emotions
in-person,” Walls said.
“I’m really a people per-
son,” Anderson added. “I
like to meet new people.”
Phil Ward, Oregon FFA
CEO, said this year they
eclipsed 14,000 total mem-
bers statewide — the most
in the state organization’s
history.
Ward said for the major-
ity of these students this was
their first in-person state
convention. “They’re seeing
it for the first time with fresh
eyes,” he said. “It’s been fun
to watch.”
Though Ward said he is
proud of Oregon FFA for
how it has responded to the
pandemic, there is simply no
substitute for being together
in person.
“It just reminds me of
what FFA is all about,” he
said. “This is an organiza-
tion that builds potential in
young people.”
intercropped
hazelnuts
with wheat but found it
doesn’t align as well with
his orchards in terms of
irrigation.
Irrigating the trees in the
height of summer would
cause wheat kerns to germi-
nate. Waiting to irrigate the
trees until after the wheat
was harvested wouldn’t do
them much good, Lucas
said.
Suspending
irrigation
before the wheat harvest
didn’t kill or seriously hurt
his trees, but it didn’t help
the orchard, either, he said.
“It took longer to establish.”
Orchard grass, on the
other hand, can be irrigated
with overhead sprinklers
after the first cutting in May
or June and after it’s har-
vested in late August, Lucas
said. The hazelnut trees
need that water to grow
healthy roots in their early
years.
Farmers
who
have
installed drip lines in their
orchards can continue irri-
gating the trees even while
seed crops are allowed to
dry out, while Christmas
trees and nursery stock can
be watered at the same time.
Irrigation is a particu-
larly important consider-
ation when intercropping
because vegetation between
hazelnut rows will com-
pete with the trees, said Nik
Wiman, an orchard crops
specialist with Oregon State
University Extension.
“If you choose to inter-
crop, you want to ensure
you have enough irrigation
to account for the moisture
the intercrop is taking from
the soil,” Wiman said. “The
early years of growth are
super important for setting
up the orchard. The trees
really need to be the focus.”
Wiman said the “long
tradition” of growing cover
crops in orchards benefits
soil health by improving
organic matter and water
infiltration while reducing
erosion.
When farmers decide to
intercrop to generate reve-
nue, however, Wiman urges
caution. Many hazelnut
growers intercrop success-
fully, but the practice does
tend to narrow the margin
for error.
“Something
changes
when the focus is on mak-
ing money from the inter-
crop,” Wiman said.
Pest problems
Mice and voles are a
serious threat to hazelnut
orchards, since can they go
from feeding on the inter-
crop to feeding on tree bark,
said Jimmy Lee, a farmer
near Lebanon, Ore. Baits
can mitigate the problem
but extensive infestations
may warrant eliminating
the intercrop.
“Be extremely sharp
on voles or mice. I’ve had
mice kill quite a few — gir-
dle some trees,” he said. “If
something happens, you’ve
got to remember your
hazelnut trees are your pri-
mary crop.”
Lee said he prefers grow-
ing perennial grass and clo-
ver crops between hazelnut
rows, which require fewer
field operations than the
spinach seed and cabbage
seed he’s grown in the past.
Though these specialty
seed crops offered attrac-
tive prices, they had to be
re-planted each year, unlike
perennial crops that last
through the orchard’s early
years, he said.
“It’s a hassle and if you
have to work the ground
15 feet at a time, it’s a lot
of costs,” Lee said, refer-
ring to the 15-foot intercrop
rows.
To make intercropping
pencil out, farmers should
have enough acreage of
both hazelnuts and the other
crop to justify owning spe-
cialized equipment, he said.
Open fields are more effi-
cient to manage with larger
tractors, implements and
combines that won’t fit
between orchard rows.
“Everything has to be
small,” he said. “As the
trees get bigger and bigger,
everything gets tighter and
tighter.”
With about 560 acres of
hazelnut orchards, Lee fig-
ured he “might as well har-
vest some income” from
between the hazelnut rows
to offset costs, especially
since he was familiar with
seed crops.
However, the practice
wouldn’t be practical for
a small dedicated hazel-
nut producer, who’d have
a hard time rationalizing
the equipment costs, he
said. “I wouldn’t say it’s for
everybody.”
Drought: Below-average
spring temperatures are
most likely in PNW
Continued from Page 1
temperatures,
NOAA
predicted.
Across the Lower 48,
61% is in drought, the
most since 2013. NOAA
forecasts that drought
will expand in Kansas
and the Texas Gulf Coast,
as well as Arizona.
Below-average spring
temperatures are most
likely in the Pacific
Northwest. The greatest
chances for above-aver-
age temperatures are in
the Southern Rockies and
Southern Plains.
Below-average pre-
cipitation is forecast for
portions of the Central
Great Basin, Southwest,
Central and Southern
Rockies, and Central and
Southern Plains, east-
ward to the Central Gulf
Coast.
Above-average pre-
cipitation is most likely
in parts of the Great
Lakes, Ohio Valley and
mid-Atlantic regions.
Drought gripped the
nine Western states last
spring. The drought cov-
ered less territory, 73%,
but was more severe,
with 23% of the region
in “exceptional drought.”
This year, the spring
begins with 3% of the
West in exceptional
drought.