News, 12/4/97

CHESTNUTS GO LOCAL

[SUNRISE Edition]

The Oregonian

Portland, Or.

Dec 4, 1997

Authors: BETHANYE McNICHOL of the Oregonian Staff

Abstract:

Eleven years ago, Randy and Irene Coleman knew absolutely nothing about chestnuts. They'd never even tasted one.

Now, Oregon's first commercial chestnut growers can't grow chestnuts fast enough.

Randy Coleman is a third-generation McMinnville-area farmer who specialized in broccoli, cauliflower and green beans and was "looking for something different" when he read that "hundreds of thousands of pounds of chestnuts are imported into the U.S. every year."

Full Text:

Summary: A McMinnville farming couple find success by tapping into a U.S. demand for the seasonal treat that once upon a recent time was mostly imported.

Eleven years ago, Randy and Irene Coleman knew absolutely nothing about chestnuts. They'd never even tasted one.

Now, Oregon's first commercial chestnut growers can't grow chestnuts fast enough.

Just last month, they received a phone call from a produce wholesaler who wanted 44 tons of the sweet, starchy nuggets.

"I told him I could give him 44 pounds," Randy Coleman said, laughing as he emphasized the word pounds.

This time of year -- when leaves fall, geese honk overhead and wood smoke curls from chimneys -- is chestnut time.

It's the time of year when people whose cultural heritage includes Italy, France, Spain, Japan, China, Korea or big cities back East, drive out to the Colemans' farm for their seasonal treats.

"It's the smell (of roasting chestnuts) that they remember most," Irene Coleman said of her customers. "People are nuts about them."

The native chestnut trees, which composed the bulk of North American hardwood forests when the Europeans first arrived, were wiped out by blight during the early part of this century.

Thus generations of Americans have never seen a chestnut tree and wouldn't have tasted chestnut dressing in their Thanksgiving turkeys were it not for the imported varieties.

"They may be unknown to us, but we're importing them for somebody," Coleman recalled thinking during his quest for an alternative crop. It sounded simple. Grow chestnuts and it'd be "just a case of them buying from us."

In the late 1980s, Coleman embarked on a research expedition to California where the chestnut growers he met "were kind of tight-lipped. They didn't share a lot of information with me." He decided to return to Oregon via a different route, and on the way home stopped in Placerville, Calif., where he serendipitously discovered Bob Bergantz.

Coleman spent two days with Bergantz and his wife, custodians of the few notes and chestnuts that were left after a

greenhouse fire destroyed the work that created the Colossal chestnut hybrid.

On the second day of his visit, Coleman recalled, Bergantz and his wife, who were both in their 80s, "went into another room and when they came out, they had decided I was to be the anointed one."

Coleman, who'd originally planned to plant 100 acres in chestnuts, returned to Oregon with 100 Colossal chestnuts and a scaled-down plan.

The Colemans planted their first orchard, four acres, in 1988. Three years ago, another 10 acres went in.

"At the time I started," Randy Coleman said, "total chestnut acreage in the United States was 50 acres."

Now the number totals 300 acres in Oregon alone, and a 30-member chestnut growers association has been formed.

Learning from scratch

Like grape vines, chestnut trees take five to seven years to begin producing. And like the pioneers who first planted grape vines in Yamhill County, the Colemans took a great leap into the unknown. Irene Coleman described it as "a real learning experience."

For example, they learned that grafting Colossal scions to Colossal seedling trees yields truly colossal chestnuts that weigh an ounce or more. Chestnuts from ungrafted trees are puny in comparison.

They've learned that because chestnuts are new to the area, there aren't any farmers or extension agents to talk to about the shot-hole borer, a tiny insect that bores into chestnut trees and infects them with a killer virus.

They've learned, and are educating local produce managers, that top-quality chestnuts must be stored in a cooler, like fresh vegetables, and not left out to dry, like regular nuts.

They've also learned how to ride out hard times such as the spring of 1992 when an orchard worker accidently sprayed their chestnut trees with Roundup herbicide. The Colemans saved the trees by lopping them off at their trunks and praying that the roots would survive.

Then there was the time Randy Coleman brought a poorly concocted chestnut dip to a family holiday. It tasted so wretched, he said, that only recently have family members opted to try chestnuts again. Product in great demand

Not that the Colemans lack customers. In addition to the hundreds of people who are more than willing to make the trip out to McMinnville for high quality fresh chestnuts, their customers include a wholesaler in Fresno, Calif., who markets the nuts to a mail-order catalog and a woman in Idaho who operates a street-corner chestnut roaster.

New customers are advised to phone the Colemans first and inquire about availability before making the trip to McMinnville. And should they be sold out this year -- and there's a chance they might be -- Irene Coleman suggested people leave their names and addressses and "we'll get them on the mailing list for next year." The number is 472-7897.

Meanwhile, a guy called last week and wanted "a semi load to ship to Mexico," Randy Coleman said. "The market has come to us."

Color Photo by ROBERT BACH of The Oregonian staff Sidebar text -- CHESTNUT COOKBOOK - Title, Contents, Cost, Write to...

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