Sugarbeets are more than just a commodity for Oregon grower John Frisch.
“It’s the first crop that we ever grew,” he said.
Frisch and his wife, Dian, operate Frisch Family Farms in Cove, Ore. It’s located about 15 miles from La Grande, the county seat of Union County. They married in 1996 and started growing beets for Amalgamated Sugar Company in 1998.
“The first year we farmed we grew 40 acres of beets,” he said. “There is kind of a soft spot in my heart for growing beets, because that’s how I got started farming.”
Ag Background
Frisch, 44, grew up on a farm near Grand View, Idaho, with his parents, Kent and Tangie. Kent managed the farm side of Triangle Diary, located in Grand View.
“I grew up in the forage business with corn, alfalfa and grains,” he said.
Frisch went to college in La Grande at Eastern Oregon University.
“I met a gal from the West Coast, and we settled here,” he said.
Dian matriculated to La Grande from Tillamook, Ore., where her parents, Sam and Jo Vermilyea, ran a small dairy.
“We certainly have to credit both of our parents for teaching us a good work ethic and how to work.”
Dian drove truck for eight years until the first of their children were born. Maggie is 12, and Patrick 10. She still pulls all the petioles and soil tests, in addition to keeping all the books.
Dian began a three-acre pumpkin patch two years ago.
“People come out and pick a pumpkin,” Frisch said. “That’s one reason she’s not as involved in the beet harvest as she used to be. She’s pretty busy in the month of October now.”
Big Harvest
Sugar content for Frisch’s beets last season hit 19.3 percent, above the station average of 18.7.
“Our tonnage was very good, just shy of 40 tons, which is far above our historic average,” Frisch said. “It was an exceptional crop for the growers in the La Grande area.”
Frisch grows between 280 and 320 acres annually.
He credited a drier spring than usual for the better beet harvest.
“We struggle with quite a bit of disease pressure in the spring, particularly Aphanomyces root rot,” Frisch said. “Because of the dry weather, we didn’t get it like we usually do and those beets just exploded.”
Rotation crops include small grains, alfalfa, timothy grass and sunflowers.
“I’ve grown a number of small-seeded vegetables over the years,” Frisch said. “We’re currently growing spinach seed. We have a pretty diversified rotation.”
Frisch is one of nine beet growers in Union County.
“The guys here like to grow beets,” Frisch said. “They have stuck with it through the good times and the bad times. The growers up here have been very loyal to the beets.”
The piling station sits only 2 to 3 miles away from Frisch, while the distance to the Amalgamated factory in Nampa, Idaho, is about 150 miles.
“We are able to grow a consistent crop,” Frisch said. “Compared to some other crops, beets are very stable.
“We owe a tremendous debt to Don McCabe and Bill and Lou Delashmutt,” Frisch said. “We rent most of our ground from them, and they have treated us extremely well over the years.”
Paying Attention
Frisch is a member of the Nyssa-Nampa Sugarbeet Growers Association and enjoys attending the Snake River Sugar Seed Committee meetings.
“I find it interesting,” he said. “There has been a lot of research.”
Frisch hasn’t encountered any problems with weeds.
“Our rotation really helps us there,” he said. “We have so many different crops that we grow. We get lots of different opportunities at different times of the year that we’re able to try and spray those weeds and use different chemistries. We’ve been pretty lucky.”
Weed resistance is also not an issue.
“They’re starting to see some problems in Idaho,” Frisch said. “I haven’t seen it yet. But it’s certainly something to which we’re paying attention.”
Farming niche
Frisch had the good fortune of finding what best suits him.
“It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do,” he said. “I like everything about farming, except maybe the paperwork. I like to grow things. I like being my own boss.”
Working in agriculture also eliminates complacency.
“No two years are the same,” Frisch said. “Every year is different. I really enjoy the challenge.”
He also recognizes the impact his dad made.
“Working with my dad, that’s probably where I got the bug,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate how good a farmer he was until I’d been gone a while and did it on my own.”
Most importantly he also found the perfect partner.
“I’ve always been very fortunate that it’s never been my dream,” he said. “It’s always been our dream, my wife and I. It’s something we wanted to do. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, and she begrudgingly came along or vice versa. It’s always been something we wanted to do together, and we’ve been very, very lucky and blessed to be around a lot of good people. Nobody gets to where they are without some help, and we’ve certainly been very blessed from that standpoint.”