Northwest Transplants – I am Oregon Agriculture

Me, my parents and our Northwest Transplants group.

I am Oregon agriculture.

My name is Lauren Lucht and I, along with my parents, operate Northwest Transplants LLC.; a diversified seedling operation outside of Molalla, Oregon. My mother and father started Northwest Transplants in 1988 after experiencing the need and potential market for a quality seedling production to service the Pacific Northwest.

An aerial shot of our property in Mollala, Oregon.

Together, they combined backgrounds in production agriculture and business management to grow a family operation that now services five northwestern states and western Canada, and produces over 70 million starts annually.

The crops we raise at Northwest Transplants are fresh process vegetables, herbs, and starts for specialty seed production. We work with our customers to improve the quality and uniformity of their crops, shortening the growing season, and reducing pesticide and herbicide inputs.

Our automatic seeding machines use suction to hold onto and plant the seeds in each cell in the trays.

My favorite thing about our operation is that we always experiment with new crops in order to provide new agricultural opportunities to growers. We are contracted to grow carrot, cabbage, cauliflower, peppers, onion, leek, pumpkin, radish, chard, kale, sweet potatoes, and medicinal herbs, to name a few. We offer our services to organic and conventional growers requesting anywhere from one to 100,000 trays.

Inside one of our 84 greenhouses.

Growers that contract with Northwest Transplants provide their own seed and request a desired out-date for their plug starts. At the appropriate time, Northwest Transplant staff works hard to seed plants and get trays into our germination room. Seeded trays are then placed in one of 84 greenhouses and carefully tended to promote growth and development. When plants leave our farm they are transplanted into fields to carry out the remainder of their production cycle and harvested either for consumption, seed, or research. Our goal is to help farmers in the Pacific Northwest to be more productive and more profitable so that they may continue to provide for the country’s food and fiber needs.