The Organic Catkin Newsletter

August 2023 | Issue 3

The Organic Catkin

It's Almost Here!

The Organic Hazelnut Summer Tour is on August 25th

The OOHC Summer Tour is Free!

We just received a TOPP grant (Northwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program) that allows us to offer the OOHC 2023 Summer Tour to attendees free of charge!

This event includes a farm tour to see some innovative practices in

person, followed by an afternoon full of educational presentations.

The Summer Tour also includes a healthy, locally-sourced lunch.

Summer Tour

Morning Program

The Oregon Organic Hazelnut Collective is thrilled to host the 6th Annual Summer tour! We will spend the morning session at Carter Clark Farms, a beautiful property with 30 acres of Sacajawea and McDonald trees. Carter Clark will share and show the challenges, practices, collaborations, and innovations to optimize soil and tree health, support organic and regenerative farming, while also making the farm profitable and prosperous for his family. We will also be able to see the over-the-row Litau harvester in action!

Sessions & Speakers

Afternoon Program

The afternoon session will be held at Cascade Foods, just a quick 30-minute drive from Carter Clark Farms. We will be providing a delicious and healthy lunch with educational sessions starting at 12:30 pm. We have an exciting lineup of educators, innovators, leaders, and farmers in organic hazelnuts.

Greg Riches with Cascade Foods - The Market and Opportunity for Organic Hazelnuts

Tanya Murray with Oregon Tilth - Know Your Costs To Grow

Nik Wiman Associate Professor Orchard Specialist at OSU - Getting past the fears of going organic with a new orchard and an orchard in transition

Vik Sakhalkar and Bill Riddle with Bio Ag - Soil Health and Management for Optimal Growing and Ecosystem

Panel of Organic Hazelnut Farmers -

Raina Wickstrom/Steenson Hazelnut Orchards
David Stehman/Meridian Orchards
Bruce Kaser/Pratum Farm

Farming Practices for Irrigation, Applications, Filbert Moth, Suckering, and Weeds

We will end the afternoon with a raffle for the Best Tractor Seat Cushion (there will be 5 winners!) and an opportunity to connect, collaborate and celebrate Oregon Organic Hazelnuts and our growing community. We look forward to seeing you there!

Carter Clark Farm, Aumsville, OR

Transitioning to Organic (Part III) – by Bruce Kaser

In early June, my neighbor sent me a text message (with an attachment) that said, “Some more good news on hazelnuts.”

I was on my tractor at the time and didn’t open the attachment until I got back to the house. Ignoring the neighbor’s sarcasm, and hoping to read some good news (for a change) about an unexpected price bump for farmers in the conventional hazelnut industry or something like that, instead, it was a copy of Nik Wiman’s field notes on the California root beetle (Prionus californicus).

The previous week I had noticed a couple of dead branches in our youngest orchard that looked like unusual damage (this is its 5th leaf year) – and so – I went back to look. Ouch. Things got worse from what I saw before. And since then, about one to two dozen trees are showing signs of root beetle damage, some worse than others:

We’ve not harvested nuts from this orchard, yet, because the trees have been too young. But if things go as planned, the orchard will be certified organic next year. Therefore, insecticides are not an option, although Nik’s field notes indicate that insecticides “are not incredibly effective,” anyway.

The current best information about these things indicates that adult beetles are short-lived and thought to be active in the July to August time frame. So we put out pheromone traps right away:

The traps (called panel traps) have a replaceable pheromone packet that attracts flying male beetles. They hit the trap, and fall down through a hole into a plastic bowl at the bottom, where they are unable to crawl or fly out.

These are big, nasty-looking critters – some of the beetles that we caught were close to 3 inches in length.

Having no experience, we decided to overload the number of traps in areas where we could clearly see some damage (5 traps for a 7-acre area) and put out a couple in other parts of the farm that were remote from areas of visible damage but adjacent to neighboring orchards.

A few beetles were caught in the remote traps over 5-6 weeks; a lot were trapped in the damaged areas.

We’re all scientists – so I thought that more tree damage in an area equates to a larger larval population density boring into the base of the trees there – which likewise equates to higher density of mature beetles that spread from that location. What do I know? But we did catch lots of beetles in those areas

(i.e., areas of visible damage) over a 5 to 6 week period. I saved them all

(shown below):

All we know, right now, is that we’re catching fewer beetles than before. Hopefully, we are suppressing the breeding population and the trees that have been damaged will recover in time.

Photos from Pratum Farm, Salem, OR

Read Nik Wiman's Hazelnut Field Notes for more information on the California Root Borer

Read Here

Organic Market Update -

Greg Riches, Cascade Foods

The organic market, while slowly gaining momentum, still has a few uphill battles to climb...

Organic Turkish continues to be priced well below origin Oregon($4.00-$4.50/lb)

Persistent global inflation is putting pricing pressure on all commodities, not just hazelnuts but other nuts in general

As we have seen with conventional hazelnuts, the slow increase in demand in North America is tracking parallel to organic.

We continue to be optimistic about the future of organic hazels but need to temper

expectations in the short term. Any substantial increase in production will be met with pricing pressure to move product as the market develops.

Find our Webinars on YouTube

This second webinar, hosted by Sue Chen, goes beyond Why Go Organic to How to Go Organic.

Learn about the requirements and process for getting certified, plus explore cover cropping as a key organic management practice. With panelists Tanya Murray, Farm Viability Specialist from Oregon Tilth & Chris Lessey, Crop & Soil Science Graduate Research Assistant at OSU

Stay Tuned for Upcoming Webinars

Check It Out

OOHC Membership

$ 50/year ($25 for students*)

Special Offer: Memberships purchased now are valid through the end of 2024!

Membership benefits**

Listing of your organization on the OOHC website, with a link to your website
Invitation to annual OOHC members meeting (learn about members’ farms, seek solutions to challenges, help select annual OOHC priorities)
Listing in Member Directory - and receive directory
Free OOHC-branded hat
View/participate in the online organic hazelnut forum (launching in Fall)
Be counted as a member of our collective, so we can better represent the organic hazelnut industry

* Includes high school students as well as part-time or full-time trade school/college/university students.

** You can opt out of any benefit(s) you don’t want.

Become a Member

Steenson Hazelnut Orchards, Salem, OR

Upcoming Events

August 25: 2023 Annual Organic Summer Tour

Oregon Organic Hazelnut Collective

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