Washington Nurseries Down, Not Out
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Cameron Nursery workers tie young apple trees to stakes near Eltopia, Washington, in June. With increasing labor and other production costs, his nursery can no longer afford to produce trees on speculation and is reducing its capacity, said owner Todd Cameron. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)Cameron Nursery workers tie young apple trees to stakes near Eltopia, Washington, in June. With increasing labor and other production costs, his nursery can no longer afford to produce trees on speculation and is reducing its capacity, said owner Todd Cameron. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)
Washington’s apple growers just aren’t ordering trees like they used to.
That puts the nursery producers who supply the industry in the difficult position of downsizing their businesses to weather the downturn.
“We’re cutting down our size, as other nurseries seem to be doing as well,” said Todd Cameron, owner of Cameron Nursery. ‘To stay in the black, we’ve got to pull back.”
Cameron and his daughter, Allison Schrader, invited the International Fruit Tree Association to visit their nursery in Eltopia in July to talk about how the uncertainty in the apple market is affecting the nursery business and their family.
“We’ve gone from selling lots of trees before they are even budded to lots of customers who want to buy trees at the last minute because they don’t know what to plant,” Cameron said.
That led Cameron Nursery, and others, to produce trees on speculation, as many nurseries told Good Fruit Grower last year. That may have worked in the past, when growers had far fewer rootstock and variety combinations to choose from, but now, “trying to guess what someone might need is extremely dangerous,” said Dale Goldy, owner of Gold Crown Nursery in Quincy. “If you have a tree need, we can fill it for you. But we can’t put roots in the ground hoping somebody is going to want a finished tree.”
With ever-increasing costs and continued uncertainty, speculation is not sustainable, Cameron and Goldy said.
“Each tree you burn is the most expensive tree you ever made,” Cameron said. “So, we’re only going to plant what’s sold, we’re only going to bud what’s sold, and there’s not going to be as many trees available.”
Allison Schrader, right, and her father, Todd Cameron, owners of Cameron Nursery, stand in an orchard near Prosser, Washington, in June. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower)Allison Schrader, right, and her father, Todd Cameron, owners of Cameron Nursery, stand in an orchard near Prosser, Washington, in June. (Ross Courtney/Good Fruit Grower) Costs up and demand down
It’s not surprising that the Washington apple industry needed a pause in planting to reevaluate its direction after the “big boom in planting in the late 20-teens,” said Jim Adams of Willow Drive Nursery. But it happened amid many other challenges that no one could predict: A pandemic. Inflation. Export challenges. Political uncertainty.
“(The industry) is going to see our way through it in the next couple years, but there’s just too much turmoil in the world right now,” Adams said. And as for Willow Drive itself: “We’re just trying to be as conservative as possible and not make any big moves.”
The rising cost of fuel and fertilizer affects nurseries too, but labor poses the biggest cost to producing quality trees, Adams said. “We do our best to keep our costs down and try to reimagine our labor needs, but it’s called a nursery for a reason — there’s a lot of labor input.”
Good Fruit Grower reached out to several other Washington nurseries, who declined to comment for this story. But a few acknowledged similar challenges.
At Cameron Nursery, Schrader acknowledged that pulling back capacity to rein in costs now means there could be a tree shortage when the industry starts ordering more trees again in the future.
This year, they planted about 50 percent less than last year, which was also about 50 percent down from the year before, she said. “The nursery guys, we talk to each other, and it sounds like the others are doing the same thing,” she said.
Part of the challenge is that rootstock-scion pairings have become far more complicated. It used to be that a large customer would contract 100,000 M.9-337 rootstocks and then pick the variety. Now, growers must decide on a variety, then select the right rootstock for that cultivar and the site, which requires more preplanning, Cameron said.
Goldy said he’s sourcing rootstocks this year for finished trees in 2025 — that’s how far in advance growers need to plan. And with more information continuing to emerge about newer Geneva rootstocks, it’s even harder for nurseries to predict which rootstocks to invest in.
Some previously popular combinations can turn out to be predisposed to problems, such as the nutrient imbalance found in Honeycrisp on G.41.For years, nurseries couldn’t produce enough G.41 to meet the demand, Goldy said; now they can, but growers want to put Honeycrisp on G.969 or G.890.
Cameron Nursery will no longer make that Honeycrisp on G.41 combination. “We’re finding this out after we’ve already made a bunch,” Schrader said. “We had a lot in the ground, because it’s supposed to be a rock star, and now we find out that it’s not.” It is their No. 1 rootstock, and they are taking out half.
But downsizing the family business, which Cameron’s parents started in 1980, means that the third generation — business manager Schrader and her brother, Eric, the production manager — must seek other employment.
Eric Cameron, the manager of operations at Cameron Nursery, stands in one of the company’s nursery beds in Eltopia in June. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)Eric Cameron, the manager of operations at Cameron Nursery, stands in one of the company’s nursery beds in Eltopia in June. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)
“My brother and I had been here with the idea of taking this over. It’s a very difficult thing to accept,” she said. “But I really respect my dad for making that decision and showing our customers that we are doing this proactively to be fiscally responsible. The worst thing would be to run until the bottom runs out.”
The nursery industry has certainly weathered ups and downs in the apple industry before, Cameron said. He’s concerned the next few years will see more apple orchards coming out than going in, as growers grapple with rising costs of production, arduous regulations and consolidation. And this time, it’s more than his own finances at stake.
“The difference is I’m not 30 anymore. I have grandkids, and I need my kids to have a stable income,” he said. “If we only grow 100,000 or 200,000 trees a year, I will figure out how to do that, but it will support a much smaller company.”
Schrader started as a manager at the Agri-Service dealership in Pasco in July. She said the nursery is retaining key staff, including salesman Jacob Hafer and foreman Ruben Ramos, but shrinking the middle management and seasonal staff.
Growers need to understand that costs of production are also increasing for nurseries — 5 to 10 percent. “Prices are going to go up, or we can’t make trees,” Cameron said.
In the past, if growers changed their minds after contracting trees, the nursery would be able to resell those trees because the demand was there. Now, he said, “that’s going to be over. We can’t afford to be the nice guys.”
Goldy said his message to growers is that advance planning holds the key to the future of tree supply.
“The fundamental change is that I can do anything you need, but I can’t do anything I am going to have to burn,” he said. “Advance communication is key to helping nurseries plan.” •
—by Kate Prengaman
Prairie Revival Nursery Rolls Out Instant Welcome Mat For Pollinators
Andy Gilsdorf of Prairie Revival NurseryAndy Gilsdorf, owner of Prairie Revival Nursery, wheels out a fresh-cut roll of his innovation called Native Sod. Nick Wood Photo
By Nick WoodActing Editor
DE PERE — While growing in the protection of a greenhouse, the native prairie sod that Andy Gilsdorf has developed is a vibrant and blooming 60-foot-long carpet of pollinator-friendly native flowers and grasses.But Gilsdorf’s idea, now in its second year, is not to put on a show in the greenhouse; rather, it is to roll it up like sod and send it out into the real world where it can outcompete weeds and jumpstart a native prairie that provides pollinators with an almost-instant refuge.“Native sod is what I call it,” Gilsdorf said. “The goal is to create a solid root mass so that when you go and lay it down in the landscape, the weeds don’t have a chance to compete with it.”Gilsdorf said you still have to clear the vegetation beneath, but nothing like the soil preparation and babysitting you’d have to do to start a planting from seed.“You just roll it out, water it a couple times, and in a couple of years it will be a fully established prairie,” Gilsdorf said.Gilsdorf said there are nearly 50 native plants in the mix, including a lot of seeds that still need the cold shock of winter, so wherever you plant it something will thrive.“You’ll have plants growing the first year, all the way through the year, and then the second year, there are seeds that are dormant in the soil that need a cold stratification like a winter in order to activate,” he said. “So next year, it’ll actually just become more diverse as those seeds get activated and they’ll germinate next spring. It’s a product that just keeps getting better year after year.”Gilsdorf said he makes sure there’s a good variety of plants that will do well in most conditions. At the same time, each patch of sod will turn out different over the years depending on those conditions.“What becomes dominant could change with just two hours less sun a day in one location or just a touch more moisture on the other side of the yard,” he said. “The bigger of an area that you plant, the more pronounced that gets to the point where you can kind of tell where the water settles in a field or what plants are growing in a big mass – so that’s kind of fun.”But you don’t need a big space to take advantage of native sod.“If you just have a little corner — a tree died or something — and you just want to fill that in and make a little pollinator habitat, you don’t need to turn your whole yard into natives in order to utilize a little chunk of this to help the native wildlife. It’s just a great way to speed up the process.”
Gilsdorf, who’s full-time job is with the Department of Natural Resources, started his business called Prairie Revival Nursery last year with an idea to use the leftover seeds that don’t make it into pots for commercial greenhouses.He approached Justin Kroening at Stone Silo Prairie Gardens in De Pere with an idea to volunteer in exchange for leftover seeds.“He said that he couldn’t do that, but he’d hire me and we’d work it out.”So Gilsdorf started working part-time at the garden and got the opportunity to do a trial run in one of the greenhouses.That test worked well, so this year he rented his own greenhouse in Pulaski and did his first planting in May.But the new greenhouse had some quirks.“I seeded it for the first time in early May, but then there were a couple of temperature mishaps,” he said. “I set the thermometer to what I wanted to open the vents and it turns out that it’s not accurate — not within 30 or 40 degrees — so I walked in and it was 120 degrees and I had just cooked everything.”Round two he thought he had it dialed in, but one cloudless 90-degree day in late May sunburned all the plants.“I was in there twice a day watering trying to try to keep it cool. And it just couldn’t stay ahead of it,” he said.It wasn’t until June that he finally got this year’s batch planted.It went on sale earlier this month.He ended up growing about 600 square feet of the sod, and he sells it for $10 per square foot.Currently Gilsdorf has two varieties of native sod: one composed of native flowers that will grow into a stand up to 12 feet tall, and one composed of shorter prairie grasses to keep things a little tidier for in town.Next year he hopes to do custom plantings based on what customers want, whether it’s a mass of one specific color, or a low border, or dry or wet conditions.“The goal is just to make the process easier, so that you don’t have to do years of work to get established and you don’t have to figure out what kind of soil you have and what kind of light you have and what kind of water regime you have. This is kind of the way to hedge your bets and it takes all the research out of it.”For more information, find Prairie Revival Nursery on facebook or email Gilsdorf at [email protected]
sWith minimal soil preparation and a few days of watering, this 1 foot x 5 foot strip of “Native Sod” will outcompete weeds and create an instant patch of native prairie plants. Nick Wood Photo
‘Future Proofing’ Your Business – Innovation And Creating USPs
SPONSORED CONTENT Differentiating your offering and staying ahead of the curve is ‘critical’ in today’s marketplace, discovers Nicole Weinstein as she talks to nursery businesses driving forward innovation
Demand for childcare has increased exponentially over the last 20 years, with government spending on early years topping £3.7 billion in 2019 – from almost nothing in the 1990s. Nursery businesses are keeping up with the times, responding to the challenges of the marketplace and the looming concerns over staff retention and the rising cost-of-living. But some are faring better than others.
‘Those that have used the lessons learnt from the pandemic to refine and adapt their offerings – and come up with innovative plans to future-proof their assets – will undoubtedly stand stronger over the coming months and years,’ explains Ben Barbanel, Head of Debt Finance at OakNorth Bank.
The move towards purpose-built accommodation, which is easier to clean and more cost-efficient to run, is just one of the ways that businesses can remain ‘relevant’ in today’s marketplace, according to Barbanel.
But some owners are taking this a step further. Simon Redwood and Andrew Rose, who own and operate children’s nurseries in the north of England alongside their full-time jobs, used reinforced steel in the foundations of their new purpose-built 110-place setting in Chorley, Lancashire, so that they could have the option to add on another floor when necessary.
‘It’s currently two storeys high,’ explains Redwood, ‘But we can just rip off the roof and add another level or two if we need more space,’ he says.
The entrepreneurs’ venture, Strawberry Fields Nursery and Preschool, also has an onsite swimming academy and café, which provides a differentiated offering and an additional revenue stream outside of nursery hours.
‘There’s high demand for children’s swimming lessons in the area. We have 450 children on the waiting list and the calls haven’t stopped coming in,’ explains Redwood.
The constant stream of babies, pre-schoolers and siblings that attend the classes get a first-hand glimpse of the site that houses the on-site nursery, which is a great for potential new starters. And the swim school collects the parents’ data, which works well for future marketing campaigns.
‘When we explain to parents that part of the nursery offering is that their child can learn to swim in a warm pool with a one-to-six ratio, it’s a massive USP,’ Redwood says.
There’s also been no shortage in attracting the best talent, with practitioners keen to work in a state-of-the-art building which has a pool, underfloor heating, fingerprint technology and is surrounded by beautiful countryside.‘On top of our staff team, we’ve got 15 to 20 quality applicants that are keen to join,’ Redwood says.
OakNorth Bank has been working with the owners to provide growth capital to pursue a buy-and-build strategy to bring nurseries with swimming academies to market.
Barbanel says, ‘It’s a great example of a setting that’s maintaining its relevance, increasing its usage and penetration through the setting and creating a captive audience.’
But he adds, ‘Given the innovative nature of what they've built, there’s going to be a hefty payback period. When it comes to new start-up settings, it’s important to have a reasonable mid-to-long term view. They’ve assessed the risks and are confident it’s going to give them the return they need.’
INTERGENERATIONAL OFFERINGDementia specialist provider Belong opened its first care village with a fully integrated children’s day nursery on-site in Chester in August 2022, providing care and learning for 25 birth to five year-olds, six days a week.
The £21m state-of-the-art development is the non-profit care provider’s first intergenerational site and is being run by Sue Egersdorff, founder of Ready Generations.
She says, ‘We’ve done a lot of work mirroring the care qualifications across early years and childcare and older people's care and we’ve found that they are broadly the same. What’s more, people want the opportunity to work in older people’s care and in childcare. The team have already undertaken special training to better understand the needs of the young and old in this particular setting but we plan to do a lot more research about what an integrated workforce looks like.’
The care village has a bistro, gym, hair salon, therapy room, and entertainment venue which residents and members of the public have access to, and is great for parents when they drop off their children.
Barbanel says, ‘This model, although niche and unique, is appealing to its stakeholders: the parents. It’s evolving and differentiating its offer and maintaining its relevance in the marketplace. For staff, it offers cross-sector care and potential career progression.’
Barbanel predicts that more innovative ideas will come to the marketplace in the coming years: add-ons with the potential for additional revenue streams; nurseries appearing in flexible office spaces and other non-traditional buildings and locations.
‘It’s an exciting time,’ he concludes.
Find out more about OakNorth Bank here