09/26/2026
We did finish the first and possibly only pick of our 18 acre Lewis orchard on Thursday. It took a day longer than anticipated because of equipment issues, but fortunately those were minor.
It looks like our harvest is considerably smaller than last year, worse than I initially predicted. The major difference between us and many Willamette Valley farmers is that all of our orchards are 20-35 years old and don’t have consistent yearly increases in yield just because the trees are increasing in size.
The total Oregon crop should be very good based upon the number of newer orchards coming into production and the young orchards growing larger.
It’s not as bad as it may sound. Last year our orchards produced record matching and breaking volume of nuts and fortunately the prices paid per pound were the highest since 2014. Catkins are already 3/4”-1” in length and are plentiful indicating a very positive fertilization rate of nuts for the 2027 crop. Usually when there are lots of catkins, the trees produce the same proportion of the female flower. It’s just way too early to easily see those.
We start harvesting our largest orchard on Monday, our 40 acre Willamette trees. It may be a single harvest as well. Next weeks weather forecast looks good with rain currently predicted for just Thursday so that would have little impact on us finishing next week. But, this is Oregon, where weather predictions are usually wrong and can change dramatically in a couple of days, so we continue to “knock on wood”.
Photos below show broken bearings in the head of of GK sweeper. Thankfully GK manufacturing facility is only 45 minutes away and one of their best mechanics assists me with diagnosing possible causes and solutions to equipment issues so we were able to repair the sweeper ourself after buying ten new bearings.
