The Fruit Growers News - December 2002


Although Larry and Richard (Dick), the brothers Olsen, may have been raised in the fertile farmlands of Washington’s lower Yakima Valley, neither they, nor their folks, saw themselves as farmers. Their parents had tried tilling the soil, but preferred selling produce to growing it, and owned Whitstran Trading Co., a local grocery in Prosser. Anxious to leave small-town life behind, both brothers headed for the city as soon as they graduated. Dick became a journalist for a large Seattle newspaper; Larry sold life insurance in a community near San Francisco. Yet surprisingly, when a friend’s 80-acre apple orchard went up for sale in 1971, the two decided to team up and give farming a go. Larry had tired of city life. Dick had already returned to help run the family store. “We didn’t have the first idea how to grow apples,” says Larry. “It was something you’d do in your youth. I wouldn’t take that risk today.” Yet some 30 years and 22 farm purchases later, the two have been enormously successful. Through a diversity of crops from wheat, corn, beans, and alfalfa to 150 acres of the mint that once grew prevalently in the Prosser area, Larry’s first love has remained apples. They began with Red Delicious, Washington state’s first choice in apple production. For 20 years, despite problems such as the Alar scare, and a 70% reduction in water during the 1994 drought, the fruit brought them almost uninterrupted prosperity. At first, Larry and Dick did most of the work themselves, building equity and asset value. “We worked really hard, but we were also lucky,” says Dick. “We’d seen smart farmers go broke relying on one crop,” Larry adds. They began to buy land with crops such as hops and mint. (Seventy-six percent of the U.S. hop production originates in the Yakima Valley.) And while small mint farms such as theirs were soon replaced by much larger 1,000-2,000 acre operations, hops soared from 65-80 cents/pound in their first year to $3-$4 in the second and third years. When one crop floundered, another flew. Diversification was paying off. They practiced the same philosophy with apples. In the 1980s, trying to stay ahead of a fickle consumer, they began production of Galas. By 2000, their Red and Golden Delicious were gone - totally replaced, in order of production, by Galas first, Fujis second, and Braeburns third. Ginger Gold and Granny Smith today round the mix; Pacific Rose are planned for spring.
And as luck would also play its part, a truly auspicious apple arrived in 1985 with a whole-tree mutation of one of their Royal Galas. “It was superior in quality - a gift from God,” says Larry. Tested and found unique, the apple stayed true to type in subsequent propagation. Today Pacific Gala is patented, and the brothers receive royalties from the four nurseries licensed to sell the new species. While the 1980s brought diversity in apples to the Olsens, the years, and subsequent farm purchases, also ushered in a new crop - Concord grapes. And though this particular species was best suited to juices, jams, jellies and Logan David jug wine, a fledgling wine industry was beginning in Washington state. Larry loved apples, but Dick directed his interest to the new enterprise. Today the Olsen Farm covers about 2,000 acres or roughly a 15-mile diameter. Wine grapes are the biggest crop; apples and hop acreage remains stable. Forever faithful to their drive for diversification, the two also grow high-yield asparagus at 8,000 pounds per acre (the state average is 3,500 pounds), 10 acres of cherries, organic apples, and lease land for production of decorative gourds and Indian corn. Larry has served on the board of USApple - currently as vice chairman, and on the Board of Directors of Tree Top. He is a member of the Washington Horticultural Association, was on their board in the 1980s, and is a founding member of Horticultural PAC. He retired from the Board of Directors of the Washington Apple Commission this year, after serving as its chairman in 2000. It’s been a life laboring and lobbying for a perhaps currently underappre- ciated fruit. “Many Americans don’t eat well - averaging less than 20 pounds of apples per year,” Larry laments. “And the industry hasn’t done a good job of creating consumer demand. We’ve just been through about a five-year economic crisis in the apple industry. The apples that cost about $13 a box to grow, were selling for a half of that.” Always looking to the future, today the Olsen’s highest-density apple orchards are planted at about 750 trees per acre. Future orchards are planned for 1,500-2,000. The tree tops are trellised for labor-saving picking. The roots, deep in the dry volcanic soil, are sustained by drip irrigation. And though the conversion from rill to drip irrigation cost $1,000 per acre, the system saves on water, an ever contentious issue in Washington’s desert. “Apple growers won’t survive the decade in today’s world market unless we constantly reduce costs,” Larry warns. “China’s growing a very nice high end apple, and is the real global threat. Growers can’t be complacent. Whenever they can, they need to learn from others and invest in their orchards.”