Winter 2023

Heading into February on the farm means that harvesting and grading are in full swing and shipping is about to start. We have a fantastic crew this year, and we are grateful for the space that our second barn continues to offer.

Autumn 2022

Leaves begin to turn and mist settles in the valley at Black Jack Acres. As signs of autumn arrive on the farm, we turn our attention to the harvest season ahead.

It is hard to believe that this season marks our 40th year in this business. Over the years, we’ve grown from a two person show of owners Marilyn and Christopher to a team of dedicated employees and family members.

We are equally grateful for the loyalty of our customers and vendors over the years, and we look forward to working together for many more!

2022 Harvest

Harvest is well underway, and we are proud to introduce the newest member of our harvest crew, The Transformer!

Our custom build harvester facilitates the removal of the rootstock from the fields, and is helping us make the process more efficient and easier on our crew.

Happy Holidays

To all of our customers, vendors, partners, family and friends…may the season bring you health and happiness! —Christopher, Marilyn, Lalena, Veronica, Cameron and the entire CopenHaven Farms crew!

Expanded Offerings for 2022

We are excited to be included in Fruit Growers News’ New Variety Showcase this year. Click anywhere on the image below to be directed to the publication website and read the entire article, featuring BUD® 10 and Krymsk® 5.

Spring 2021

It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since we entered a pandemic. We feel so fortunate to have made it this far, and with very few hiccups along the way.

As a member of the agriculture industry, there was never any shut down; no non-essential work to be done. Our crew and our family kept showing up to cultivate, harvest, process and ship fruit rootstock for customers both close to home and around the globe. Plants don’t stop growing. People don’t stop eating. So here we are, one year later, and we are happy to report that we have learned a lot about how to keep our business running, our employees healthy and customers well-served in a challenging public health and economic landscape.

We are grateful for our loyal and hardworking crew. More than ever, they showed up consistently, worked hard, and did their part to keep themselves and co-workers healthy during the pandemic. Their level of care for one another and our farm really showed this year!

Planting time! Our crew establishes new layer beds.

We are thrilled to report that our crew grew by one this season! Cameron Dolby has returned to work on the farm alongside his parents, sisters and crew! We welcomed him on board in February. You can watch him in action here, loading our bins onto a truck headed for New York.

In addition to horticulture experience, a great attitude and an easy going nature, Cameron brings experience as a mechanic (his former career) to the farm.

Cameron putting his welding chops to use on the tiller.

Harvest 2020

We are excited to have our harvest crew back! The weather has been dry and welcoming for us so far this year. Scroll down to see images of our team digging the cherry beds. This is just the beginning of the harvest season. Stay tuned for more updates on the process of bringing your plants from our field to your hands!

A State on Fire

Summer started off alright. Sure, we were still in masks, physically distancing, sanitizing every surface, and just generally working hard in old and new ways to keep our family and crew healthy during the pandemic. But we were thrilled to be outside again in the fresh air. The sun had returned and clean water flowed from every sprinkler head, ensuring a robust crop of rootstock.

By the time September rolled around and we headed into the Labor Day Weekend, we knew that summer was coming to a close, but we hoped as we always did, to wring a few more warm and sunny days out of it before the rains and dark skies settled into the valley for their six month (minimum) stay.

Our expectations for that gradual slide into fall were swiftly shattered when a wind storm took down a power line and sparked a fire just over the hill from our property. With dry conditions, high winds, and forest land and fields to burn, the fire spread quickly and evacuations soon followed. And as many of you reading this are likely aware, this was not the only fire blazing in Oregon. By current estimates, more than one million acres have burned over the past couple of weeks.

Our fire story ended with our little community, family, farm crew, land, crops and buildings safe and unscathed. Not a single plant suffered thanks to the quick action of our dad and co-founder, Christopher Dolby, who wasted no time putting water on the perimeter of our nursery as a precaution. An incredible team of firefighters, loggers and landowners from near and far heeded the call, and behind each of them was a community member, local business owner, or Facebook Friend offering water, food, horse trailers, or refuge for a stranger on safe ground.

While we are grateful for our own luck, our hearts go out to those in the rest of our state who have lost so much, including loved ones, pets, homes, barns and entire livelihoods. The path to recovery will be long, but Oregonians are resilient and tenacious. And those dreaded rains? Thankfully, they have returned. The smoke is clearing and we are beginning to take steps toward recovery.

Planting Time!

We are all excited to get the growing season underway, but we are pretty sure Addy (daughter of Veronica Carl who many of you work with each year on your orders) is the most enthusiastic of all.

It’s great to be able to work outdoors once again, especially during the pandemic. Who couldn’t use a little fresh air and lots of wide open space right now?

The Annual Harvest

Here’s a selection of photos featuring our 28-person-strong harvest crew. From digging to cutting, counting, grading and tying, our crew has been moving the harvest process along swiftly. Thanks to their great teamwork, we have already started shipping this year’s crop to places around the globe.

We still have rootstock available in certain varieties. You can view our complete list here. Please let us know if you’d like to place an order for this season by emailing info@copenhavenfarms.com .

Happy Holidays from CopenHaven Farms!

November on the farm marks the beginning of our harvest season, which for better or worse lines up with the winter holiday season, making it a very busy time of year for our team and family. As we move into this especially bustling time, we wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to all of the people who make our family business possible, from our hardworking crew to our vendors and of course our customers. Thank you! May the coming season be full of warmth, good food, and time spent with loved ones!

What a Difference a Year Makes

We can hardly believe it has been a year since we did a little barn raising here at CopenHaven Farms. Time sure flies when you are working hard!

The Barn at Black Jack Acres about one year ago.

We’ve enjoyed a beautiful summer here in the Willamette Valley. In fact, in August our entire family gathered at Black Jack Acres to celebrate the marriage of an old family friend. It was nice to be able to share our farm with friends and family!

Days have been sunny and warm but not too hot, and for the most part the sky has been free of wildfire smoke. We are enjoying being on this new land and in our new production building, and are looking forward to building offices here in October. So before the season changes, we wanted to take a moment to post a few photos from this summer.

Pictured from left to right are Lalena, Veronica, Donevan, Cameron, Marilyn and Christopher. Lalena and Veronica currently work with Christopher and Marilyn, helping to manage the farm.

Unofficial lunch room with the very best view.

Lumber delivery. We’ll be transforming all of this wood into shipping crates over the next month.

Tractor parking. Only the best for our equipment which prefers parking next to wildflowers.

Behind the Scenes at Copenhaven Farms

We pride ourselves on growing the healthiest rootstock possible. As those of you in the industry know, a lot goes into the endeavor. Beyond fertile ground, appropriate climate, and close tending, once harvested crops require infrastructure for processing, storing and shipping. Our newest infrastructure, a barn at Black Jack Acres, is up and running as of this past season, and we are already feeling the benefits of its expansive processing space, ample cooler and large shipping area.

In addition to what happens in the field and in the barn, we rely on a solid team in the office to provide a healthy support system to the physical aspect of growing. From taking orders and inventory management to shipping perishable plants in the most healthy and efficient manner, a strong team equipped with the right tools is just as important as our team in the fields and barn.

Office space outfitted with technology allows us to process orders, manage payroll, and ship orders across the globe in the timely manner required by modern times. Many of these tasks rely on High Speed Internet. A given for metropolitan areas, it can be harder to come by in rural locations, as we discovered when researching options for our new office space at Black Jack Acres. Thankfully, Coho.net was able to get a signal for us even in our fairly remote location. We are so grateful for Justin’s help installing the antenna earlier this month. This is the first step in getting our technology up and running at this new site.

Justin from Coho.net installing the internet antenna on our new barn at Black Jack Acres.

Last time we posted here we announced the installation of the septic system. We are excited to report that we’ve now got three indoor bathrooms for our team!

The basic framing going up for three bathrooms.

Two of the three bathrooms are shown here, painted and ready for use!

This fall we will begin building out the office spaces within the barn with the goal of having them operational by the 2019 Harvest Season. See below for a sneak peak, and stay tuned for more photos and updates in October!

Temporary office setup to test the internet signal, as well as select wall paint colors.

Springtime at Copenhaven Farms

Our 2018-2019 season was a busy one. So much so that we neglected to post here for a while. We did manage to take a few photos along the way though. Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve been up to.

We shipped a lot of trees this spring. Some went via UPS and some went on very large trucks that tested the maneuvering skills of the drivers, like this Canadian bound double trailer that had to back into our loading area. The good news is, the driver passed the test with flying colors and no cargo, buildings or equipment were damaged in the process!

Earlier this month we installed a septic system — check out that drain field! — for our new barn at Black Jack Acres. We are all eagerly awaiting the build-out of the bathrooms this summer, but in the meantime, we are grateful for the services provided by RonJons Unlimited of Hillsboro, Oregon.

In May we began the annual mounding process, a vital step in the cultivation of robust root development on our rootstock. We’ve had a beautiful and sunny spring which has helped the process move along swiftly.

Stay tuned for more updates as we head into summer on the farm!

And then it snowed!

Just when we thought winter was making way for spring, we got a subtle reminder that we are not out of the woods yet. Fortunately, our crew maintained a sense of joy through it all!

Harvest Mid-term Report

We are three quarters of the way through harvest and processing, and are entering our shipping season. Last week’s excellent weather provided great working conditions for our crew, and we are enjoying settling into the new work space at Black Jack Acres which is providing ample room for the harvest.

Reflecting on 2018

We have a lot to be thankful for in 2018 and want to take a moment to share our gratitude list with you!

We are grateful for a happy, healthy and hardworking crew. Without them we couldn’t do what we do. We are particularly grateful to Carlos, Evelio and Abel for their loyal leadership of the field crew. And we are grateful to our new Production Manager, Adrian, for moving all the way from the Midwest to join us. Here are some of our team members on the harvester this week pulling the plants from the field.

We are grateful for the opportunity to build a new production facility. We are excited to grow our business so that we can accommodate the relentless demand for healthy Oregon-grown fruit tree rootstock. We are putting the finishing touches on this building as I type. Much of the rootstock you will receive this spring will be processed and stored in this 12,000 square-foot facility.

We are grateful for amicable weather and great growing conditions. In farming we all know that some years Mother Nature is kinder than others, and this year we got lucky. We know that many of you were affected by drought, wild fires, hurricanes, flooding, and more this year. We send our best wishes your way for easier times in 2019.

We are of course very grateful to you, our customers! We are proud to grow the finest rootstock we can for you. We love being at the very beginning of your growing cycle, where anything is possible. Here’s to 2019. May it be fruitful!

Harvest Begins

Like clockwork, fall delivers foggy mornings, shorter days, and chilly nights. It also inspires a keen awareness among our team that every step counts as time marches us swiftly toward harvest. In the weeks leading up to what we affectionately refer to as our “busy season” — as if there were such a thing as down time on a farm — we find ourselves preparing all of our work spaces including our new barn at Black Jack Acres, lining up our ever-growing crew, brushing up on our safety trainings and protocols, and checking in our crops’ root development on the regular.

Geneva 890 rootstock, the first to come out of the field, is showing healthy root development.

Adrian and Carlos working together to harvest Geneva 890 from the mother root in our layer beds.

If you have any questions about our process, need to make changes to your order, or have a payment due to secure your order, please be in touch. And, if you haven’t placed your order yet, please take a look at our Current Availability to see what’s left!

Seasons Change

Mornings are looking like this a lot these days, which we don’t mind. Once the fog lifts, the days are dry, warm and stunning. We feel lucky to work in such perfect conditions.

The dry weather allowed us to get a jump start on fall planting of Prunus avium, Prunus mahaleb and Prunus myrobalan seed at Black Jack Acres earlier this week. Read on to learn more about the characteristics of each of these seedlings.

Prunus avium (Mazzard Cherry) is a sweet cherry rootstock. This vigorous plant is more water tolerant than mahaleb, cold hardy, resists root-knot nematode and is moderately resistant to oak root fungus.

Prunus mahaleb (Mahaleb Cherry) is both a sweet and sour cherry rootstock. A smaller tree than mazzard, it is also more drought tolerant and cold hardy. It resists bacterial canker and is moderately resistant to crown gall and root-lesion nematode.

Finally, Prunus myrobalan, the standard size rootstock for ornamental and fruiting plums. It maintains a somewhat uniform tree size and is compatible with a wide range of cultivars. It makes a strong, well anchored tree that is adapted to a variety of soils, including heavy ones. It is resistant to root-knot nematode and is mildly resistant to crown gall.

Breaking Ground

We are thrilled to announce that as part of our nursery expansion, we broke ground on a 12,000 square foot barn this summer!

This new facility will accommodate the processing and storage of rootstock grown on additional acreage now in production just a few miles from our existing farm, and will allow us to meet the growing demand in the marketplace for all of the fruit rootstock we cultivate. This new space will be up and running just in time for this year’s harvest.

We are grateful for the opportunity to continue to deliver the highest quality rootstock we can to our customers. This new hub will give us the space we need to do just that!