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About Polk County itemizer observer. (Dallas, Or) 1992-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 2017)
Polk County News 10A Polk County Itemizer-Observer • July 19, 2017 Olives: Comparisons drawn to wine industry Continued from Page 1A “It took me a long time, it took me a year of daily monitoring,” he said. “In that year, I identified maybe a dozen potential sites and then did a little more due diligence in terms of what soils, and looked at well logs to determine what kind of water might be in the area.” Oregon olives are drawing comparisons to the early wine industry in that Caceu and the other growers are taking a chance on the crop growing well here. Caceu said the upside of the gam- ble makes it worth it. “The crop is fairly easy to grow and easy to get to the value-added product,” he said, referring to the oil made from olives. Olives take a fraction of the investment to plant than wine grapes and require lit- tle maintenance by compar- ison, Caceu said. Keeping the trees productive gener- ally consists of providing enough water, adding occa- sional nutrients and light pruning, he said. He said olives are easy for established farms to incor- porate, which is the case at the biggest olive farm in state,Oregon Olive Mill at Red Ridge Farms, Also home to Durant Vineyards, the farm has 17 acres of olives and runs a commercial olive oil mill. “This crop, and the value of the product, they fit very well within a small farm concept,” Caceu said. “It doesn’t necessarily need large acres.” While La Creole Orchards isn’t to the point where it can sell oil yet, Caceu is working to get his oil into the hands of chefs and is taking his product on the road for tastings at farmers markets and food festivals. — Experience on the ground Olive farmers have been experimenting with varietals on their own, using trial and error, more or less. The win- ters of 2011 and 2013 re- vealed their missteps. By the winter of 2011, La Creole Orchards and several other farms were growing Spanish trees that didn’t fare well. Caceu lost all his trees that winter. He and other growers decided to look harder at the types they were planting. “We said, ‘let’s go back to the book and see what else.’ Maybe we didn’t look well enough or we went on wish- ful thinking. Let’s just do more research,” Caceu said. “So, we did more research. The first orchard in Keizer, Victory Estates, they had planted 20 or 30 different varietals. From their experi- JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer La Creole Orchards owner Bogdan Caceu, left, talks with Neil Bell with OSU Extension at the farm on Thursday. ence, we knew that there were some that were quite resistant.” Growers began talking with farmers in Europe to get a better idea of what would work. Caceu replant- ed in 2013, with French and northern Italian olive trees. Those varietals have worked well, Caceu said. JOLENE GUZMAN/Itemizer-Observer Olive trees of different ages are planted on 5.5 acres at La Creole Orchards. NOTICE The Polk County Sheriff’s Office has in its physical possession the unclaimed personal property described below. If you have any owner- ship interest in any of that unclaimed property, you must file a claim with the Polk County Sheriff’s office within 30 days from the date of publication of this notice, or you will lose your interest in that property. • • • Firearms, knives, bicycles, electronic equipment, jewelry, tools, bags/backpacks, sports equipment 1996 Jeep Cherokee, OR 161FLB, Vin #1J4FT68S5TL133117 2002 Subaru Outback, OR SL36977, Vin#4S3BH665926656981 Contact Polk County Sheriff’s Office at: 850 Main Street, Dallas, OR 97338 • (503) 623-9251 (June 28; July 5, 12, 19, 2017) Thursdays! May - September 10:00 am - 3:00 pm Featuring Growers, Producers & Artisans of the Polk County area & beyond! 182 Academy St., Dallas (corner of Main & Academy) Live Music with Cash & Company 11 am to 1pm VENDORS THIS WEEK: Tony Diaz Fresh Farm Produce • Sweet Dreams Kettle Korn Birdsong Farm • Unobtainium Food & Beverage Loyal Organic Farm • Majestic View Farm Hazelton Farms • Rosie's Scottish Goodies Wine Fauve • Bermudez Family Farm • El Pique Raison Ethique • The Soap Store • Black Rock BBQ Akha Farm • Ah Nuts • Good & Bready Boy Scouts Bottle drive fundraiser is going well! Please continue to bring down your empties EACH week to Bounty Market to help support this AWESOME troop! NEXT WEEK: Dallas Summerfest Market July 27th ~ 20+ vendors SPECIAL KIDS EVENT: Republic Services Join Republic Services at the Polk County Bounty Market for a fun FREE re- use project – Make and take your own bookmarks for summer reading! Polk County Bounty Market at Dallas Art in the Park July 30th – Get your second helping of the Bounty Market this week on Sunday at Dallas Art in the Park. Dallas City Park 8am to 3pm. 503-623-2564 Facebook.com/bountymarket http://www.exploredallasoregon.org/bounty-market.html The trees made it through 2013 — another year the state’s orchards suffered losses — and this past win- ter with minimal damage. Now he’s putting hope in science to find a made-for- Oregon olive tree and estab- lish better growing prac- tices. — Turning to plant science A few members of the OSU research team visited La Creole Orchards last week to film the orchard with a drone and take pho- tos of the trees as part of the olive project. Neil Bell, Extension’s community horticulturalist for Polk and Marion coun- ties, said the research goals are to find a cold-hardy olive tree variety, begin propagation in Oregon, and develop better cultiva- tion procedures. Bell’s ex- pertise is in finding cold- hardy plants. “We’ve done cold-hardi- ness on woody ornamental plants. This is the first fruit- ing plant,” Bell said. “It’s a woody plant. The same principles that you would apply to an ornamental plant will work with a plant like olives.” OSU ordered olive tree cuttings of more than 30 cultivars from the University of California Davis, where there’s a library of about 100 different varietals. “Those will be planted in Corvallis,” Bell said. “That will form the beginning of the cold-hardiness evalua- tion.” He said many more culti- vars exist in Europe, provid- ing more opportunities to find what Oregon growers seek. “I guess no one could re- ally tell you which ones are hardier than others, other than the ones that have been trialed here,” Bell said. “There’s good knowledge just from growers experi- menting with what would work, but our goal is to find something even hardier. If it is out there. We literally don’t know.” At the same time as it searches for hardier vari- etals, the team will re- search propagation tech- niques. “Right now, a lot of the plants are bought out of Solution on Page 6A California, and they are not cheap,” Bell said. “Allowing better information on propagation under local conditions would be good.” Bell said early observa- tions indicate the plants gain hardiness with age, so it could be beneficial to keep the plants in pots for two to three years before putting them in the ground. Caceu said last winter he wrapped his trees to protect them from the cold, which worked with a few excep- tions. Extension’s researchers may find types that don’t require that kind of help. If that happens, that means comparisons to the state’s wine pioneers could hold true for Oregon’s olive believers. “I’ve heard the same thing said that it’s 1965 for the wine industry,” Bell said. “Some did believe it would work and there were pio- neers that got it going. Bog- dan is one of those pioneers. He’s throwing a lot of time and money into something that is still very much in it’s infancy.”
