Wet Feet Farming Crops
Aronia, Pacific crabapple, and willow trees.
Our WSDA Specialty Crop Block Grant project focused on the following three crops that were intended to serve as a starting point for farmers in the Pacific Northwest to experiment with maximizing productivity and ecological benefits in wet areas. However, these are just a few examples of high-value specialty crops that can thrive in saturated soils.
Why We Picked Aronia, Pacific Crabapple & Willow
Aronia, grafted cider apples, and ornamental willow were chosen as focus crops for this grant for their market potential in our region and their ability to thrive in the conditions emerging on many of our farmlands.
Our growing agritourism industry lends itself to exciting sales strategies: farm stands, U-pick, farmers markets, food hubs, direct restaurant sales, florists, value-added products, and more!
Some economic markets can be quite large and well-structured with both wholesale and retail venues, and others are dependent on your personal relationships with local artisans and communities.
Known more commonly as “specialty crops,” products from aronia, cider apples, and willow grown in perennial systems can fall into one of four categories:
- Medicinals and Botanicals: Plant-derived substances can be used in food supplements, herbal health, dyes, and cosmetics. Any part of the plant may be used: wood, bark, buds, roots, fruits, flowers, nuts, sap, and even pollen. Aronia is a great crop for this use.
- Food and Beverage Products: Perennial food products include nuts, fruits, and even mushrooms. Commercial nut markets can include in-shell products, whole and crushed kernels, oils, and confections. Berries are marketed fresh, frozen, or as value-added products in jams, jellies, syrups, concentrates, confections, ciders, and wines.
- Decorative Florals: Woody plant species like willow may have a colorful or unusually shaped stem, bud, flower, fruit, or leaf that could be used in decorative floral products. Floral designers use these to enliven floral arrangements.
- Handicrafts and Specialty Woods: Natural materials and specialty woods can be used in handicrafts such as: baskets, walking sticks, pendants, furniture, instruments, and more.
While the return on investments for perennial commodity crops like aronia, cider apples, and willow take longer to realize, this gives you time to professionally network and build your marketing skill.
Pacific Crabapple
Our Pacific Northwest native crabapple thrives in saturated conditions and can handle dryer conditions as well. Two of the farms participating in the Wet Feet Farming project grafted cider apples onto Pacific crabapple rootstock, allowing valuable commercial varieties to be grown in conditions that they would otherwise not tolerate. Local cideries are expanding in our region and may provide strong market potential for farms able to provide them with unique flavors and apple varieties.
Data for rootstock, not scion stock.
Mature Size:
Height: 15-30 ft Width: 25 ft
Spacing:
In Row: 5-8 ft
Between Rows: 15 ft (leave space required for harvesting)
Sun Exposure: Full – Partial Sun
Soil Conditions: Moist – Saturated Soils. Tolerant of both salt-spray drift and saline soils.
pH: 5.5-6.5
Hardiness Zone: 6-8
Planting Window: Rainy Season
Planting to 1st Harvest: 4-6 years
Harvest Window: August-October
Grafted cider apple on native crabapple rootstock enables the growth of cider apples in less ideal soil conditions. However, wet conditions can be risky for an already disease-prone crop.
Consistent watering, weeding, and pruning are integral, especially in the first year for successful graft union growth and overall plant growth. Most apples will need complementary apple varieties to be planted adjacent to them to ensure proper pollination. Make sure the scion varieties you select are complementary to the bloom times of one another for fruiting to occur in your planting. Consult your local extension experts for good fits based on the apple bloom period.
Cultivating the understory beneath this crop will help support native pollinators and increase pollination. Annual pruning or training of the crop will be needed to maximize harvest. Growing apples for cider requires fewer inputs as the fruit doesn’t need to be cosmetically perfect.
Hard cider is a strong retail and wholesale market in the Pacific Northwest. Despite being a more challenging perennial crop to grow, there is a growing market for hard cider and apples. Cider apples can produce complex and full-bodied alcoholic beverages. Blending cider apple cultivars can provide ciders with a range of viscosity and mouth feels.
Profitability in the cider market will depend on relationships with local cideries willing to pay well for specialty cider apples. Minimize costs by establishing multiple-year contracts with potential outlets once your plants are established and average production yields can be evaluated. The Northwest Cider Association and American Cider Association are avid supporters of the cider market.
- American Cider Association
- Apple Grower Research and Extension Needs for Craft Cider
- WSDA Apple Maggot Quarantine
- Organic Pest Management in Backyard Fruit Trees and Berry Patches
- Pest Management Guide for Apples in Washington Home Orchards (Home Garden Series)
- Fire Blight of Apple and Pear
- Apple Anthracnose
- Apple Anthracnose Canker
- Cost Estimation of Establishing a Cider Orchard in Western Washington
- eXtension Apples Community of Practice
- Montana Heritage Orchard Program
- Northwest Cider Association
- Northwest Cider Club
- Old Time Apple Varieties in Western Washington – WSU Extension
- Tree Fruit Economics
- Savannah Institute’s Key Perennial Crops – Cider Apples
- Cider Apple Research at Washington State University
Aronia
This hardy and highly adaptable shrub with vigorous growth and high berry production has emerging market potential as a “superfruit” and is seen in various forms in specialty markets in our region. This berry is not good for fresh eating, but is excellent for value-added products and is similar to elderberry in its nutritional and medicinal market value.
Mature Size:
Height: 3-6 ft Width: 2-6 ft
Spacing:
In Row: 4-8 ft
Between Rows: 10 ft (leave space required for harvesting)
Sun Exposure: Full – Partial Sun
Soil Conditions: Drought Tolerant – Saturated Soils. Salt-spray drift tolerant, but intolerant of saline soils.
pH: 5.1-6.5
Hardiness Zone: 3-9
Planting Window: Rainy Season
Planting to 1st Harvest: 1st year possible
Harvest Window: August-September
This up-and-coming superfruit is relatively pest-free. Greater emphasis should be placed on protecting the plant’s roots from grass and weed encroachment through the use of mulching materials (plastic, wood, straw) and regular weeding. Protection measures from deer and voles in its initial year of establishment should also be adhered to using a combination of stakes, cages, and plant protectors.
Pruning recommendations can vary, but general plant productivity can be maintained by pruning every 4-5 years. As aronia is self-fruitful, it does not require additional varieties to pollinate. Commercial blueberry harvesters work well for gleaning the fruit.
Although not especially palatable fresh due to an astringent taste, value-added products like baked goods, salsas, jellies, jams, chews, juices, and wines can incorporate aronia for added health benefits. Its deep purple color can be used as a dye. Selling wholesale to value-added processors, or developing value-added products in-house using the berries are market opportunities.
Pooling resources with other growers in the region to secure wholesale contracts may be another potential avenue. Explore information provided by the American Aronia Berry Association and North American Aronia Cooperative. Individual producers may be unlikely to be able to compete with processing cooperatives, but can seek out relationships with beverage companies interested in incorporating aronia into their products and pursue value-added producer grants and resources through organizations like Northwest Agriculture Business Center and United States Department of Agriculture.
Basketry/Ornamental Willow
Many willows thrive in wet conditions and ornamental willows have market opportunities with florists and crafters. Basketry willows have a niche market in our region and a larger market more broadly.
Mature Size:
Height: 60 ft Width: 70 ft (some varieties, if left unpruned)
Spacing:
In Row: 1-2 ft
Between Rows: 2-4 ft (leave space required for harvesting)
Sun Exposure: Full – Partial Sun
Soil Conditions: Moist – Saturated soils. Some species may be tolerant to salt-spray drift and saline soils – consult this research publication.
pH: 5.5-8.5
Hardiness Zone: 2-8
Planting Window: February – April
Planting to 1st Harvest: 2-4 years
Harvest Window: Winter months
Willows thrive in full sun but can tolerate partial shade. They propagate easily through livestake cuttings, but this will require regular weeding, mulching, and watering to ensure the livestake is not outcompeted. An eight- to twelve-inch cutting taken from a dormant one-year-old rod can be planted in early spring. March-April is an ideal time to plant live stakes in the Pacific Northwest.
Willow trees can be coppiced, which means cutting the top growth down to the ground in late winter to encourage young shoots to multiply in future growing years. Some growers may also prefer to let the trees grow into their natural shape and form, removing only dead or damaged growth, depending on your market needs.
Willow for decorative florals or baskets presents significant market opportunities, particularly if you are able to provide unique colors, bud and stem growths. Woody cuts can be sold fresh, but dried arrangements have also increased in popularity in the cut-flower industry.
There are basketry weavers guilds, such as the National Basketry Organization, that may provide opportunities to cultivate a market. The demand for cut flowers and additions to floral arrangements for retail florists has grown steadily.
Selecting the right plants for your agroforestry system will be key to its success. Draw on your site assessment for important information such as climate, soils, and topography. The plants selected should compliment one another within the system and avoid competition or introduce disease pressure. Plants should be selected for their tolerance of wet/dry soil conditions.
When Choosing Your Plants, Consider...
- Growth habit: What are the plants’ size, shape, and space needed to grow to maturity?
- Root system: Do your plants have tap roots, surface roots, rhizomatous roots, or mat-forming roots?
- Compatibility: Do plants complement each other in some way (fruit trees and pollinator-attracting flowers, for example)?
- Pest and disease resistance: Are selected varieties resistant to known pathogens or diseases in the region?
- Climate resilience: Are these species resilient in a changing climate? Can the system be designed to be flexible over time?
- Market value: Is there an existing or emerging market for your crops?
- Local knowledge: Are there indigenous people, local farmers, technical staff, or others that have knowledge you can draw from?
Marketing Resources
- Growing Specialty Forest Products in Agroforestry Settings
- Guide to Perennial Crop Options
- Key Perennial Crops – Savanna Institute
- Landowner Guide to Perennial Crop Options
- Marketing Agroforestry Products – Lessons from Producers (USDA)
- North American Agroforestry: An Integrated Science and Practice, 2nd edition
- Propagation of Plants by Grafting and Budding
- The use of agroforestry to control erosion – financial aspects
- Third Crop Options – Woody Decorative Florals
- USDA Agroforestry Center Riparian Forest Buffer Publications Hub
