Des Moines Register
11-26-06
Iowans crack nut market
Chestnuts make a global comeback, and a group of southeast Iowa farmers cash
in
By ANNE FITZGERALD
REGISTER AGRIBUSINESS WRITER
For a group of southeast Iowa farmers, chestnuts mean money to spend on the
holidays.
Before blight wiped it out in the first half of the 20th century, the American
chestnut was one of the most common hardwood trees in the United States.
Sometimes standing 10 feet or more in diameter and 100 feet tall, it was revered
for its edible fruit and for its fine wood.
Now, the chestnut is making a comeback, and a group of southeastern Iowa
farmers is contributing to the tree's resurgence. They are raising Chinese
chestnut trees, not the majestic American chestnut because of its susceptibility to
blight.
Tom Wahl, a Wapello grower, and his wife, Kathy Dice, alone have planted
hundreds of the trees since the late 1980s. They also raise persimmon, Asian
pear, pawpa, pecan, hazel and medlar trees, harvesting the fruit and growing
tree seedlings for sale on Red Fern Farm, their 86-acre Louisa County operation.
Chestnuts are their main tree crop, in part because of growing demand for the
nuts, in part because of the trees' productivity. Oak trees produce heavy crops
every four or five years. Hickories produce heavy crops every three or four years.
"Chestnuts tend to produce heavy crops every year," Wahl said.
Chestnuts offer an added advantage to growers like Wahl and Dice: higher prices
than other nuts. Pecans raised in the South, for instance, sell for a quarter per
pound on average. This fall, some chestnut trees in southeast Iowa produced
more than 1,000 pounds per acre, and farmers sold the nuts for up to $2 per
pound. Certified organic chestnuts fetched nearly $5 per pound for producers.
"They're all out. They're sold out," Wahl said of the certified organic growers.
Chestnuts are the third-most commonly consumed nut in the world. Nationally,
demand for chestnuts is skyrocketing as health-conscious consumers seek foods
with known nutritional benefits. A growing Asian-American population also is
driving demand.
Globally, demand is booming, too. In China, for instance, chestnuts are the thirdmost common food crop, after rice and wheat and ahead of corn and soybeans.
Fifteen years ago, chestnut producers were unheard of in Iowa. Now, there are at
least 40, and by all accounts, there is plenty of room for other growers. In 2000,
U.S. consumers purchased 41 million pounds of the nuts, with American farmers
raising just 1 percent.
Six years ago, Wahl and others formed a marketing cooperative - Southeast
Iowa Nut Growers. The co-op sells half of the unshelled nuts directly to
consumers, but the rest are sold in bulk quantities to retailers, primarily grocery
stores.
"The business is succeeding beyond anyone's wildest expectations," according
to a profile of the venture, written by the Agricultural Marketing Resource
Center at Iowa State University in Ames.
Wahl and his wife started growing the trees to harvest their fruit, then started
their nursery business. The couple learned the business the hard way; when they
started building their business, there were few resources to tap for information in
Iowa. Their first chestnut seedlings came from nurseries that dug them up, bareroot. Few survived, and those that did took more than a decade to bear fruit.
They lost thousands of dollars.
Lesson: Transplant chestnut nursery stock grown in containers or media beds.
Farmers put solid tree sleeves around other seedlings and killed hundreds.
Lesson: Drill holes in the covers to allow air to circulate.
Wahl bought his seedlings, thinking that would help speed establishment of a
chestnut stand, but the trees did poorly.
Lesson: Grow your own.
Wahl, 48, grew up near Johnston, north of Des Moines, when it was a small city
surrounded by farm ground. Until December 1999, he worked in forest, wildlife
and park management for the Louisa County Conservation Board. Now, he farms
full time and helps home-school the couple's two children. Dice works as a
naturalist for the board, hoping to be able to farm full time in the future.
"That's our goal for the farm - to provide all of our income - and we'll get there
eventually, but with tree crops, it's a slow process," Wahl said.
Their farm sits on high, flat ground three miles west of the Mississippi River. Most
of their soil is fayette silt loam, considered one of the best for hardwood tree
production. The soil "has only a few equals and no superiors," Wahl said. This is
a place in Iowa where white oaks can grow. Chestnuts thrive in soil and climate
that favor white oaks.
By Wahl's estimate, up to 700 fruit-bearing chestnut trees grow on Red Fern
Farm. He cuts the tops off of poor producers, grafting buds from superior trees
on to their trunks.
They have learned to plant multiple species together to minimize pest and
disease problems. Pawpa and chestnut trees work well together, as do
persimmon and walnut trees.
The fruit tree business requires patience, but persistence can pay off. This year,
Wahl and Dice have sold out of their own chestnuts, and their nursery business
has been brisk.
"It's a high-value crop with pretty much a guaranteed market," Wahl said of
chestnuts. "That's pretty much unique in agriculture. I don't know of any other
crop without the potential of supply overtaking demand, even with everybody and
their brother jumping in."
Reporter Anne Fitzgerald can be reached at (515) 284-8122 or
afitzgerald@dmreg.com