Orange County NC Website
Approved 12/12/16 <br />OC Board of Adjustment – 10/10/16 Page 75 of 113 <br /> <br /> <br />Andy Petesch: And you’ve worked closely on the chestnut operation that’s going on with the Brewer Farm 1 <br />project. Is that right? 2 <br /> 3 <br />Chris Brewer: Initially I helped clear the land, the fields that had the trees that grew through them. We then 4 <br />set out the grid for the chestnuts. We also watered the chestnuts over the summer and planted the chestnut 5 <br />trees, throughout the summer. 6 <br /> 7 <br />Andy Petesch: And how much do you have invested right now in the chestnut operation? 8 <br /> 9 <br />Chris Brewer: Over $50,000 invested. 10 <br /> 11 <br />Andy Petesch: And is this just on the Morrow Mill site? 12 <br /> 13 <br />Chris Brewer: So we have an additional property in Caswell County, which we have 319 chestnut trees 14 <br />planted. So that is a total of 354 chestnut trees, which we planted just in the spring and the fall. 15 <br /> 16 <br />Andy Petesch: Then are you actively working with any productive chestnut trees? 17 <br /> 18 <br />Chris Brewer: Right, so as Kara spoke earlier; we are still marketing the chestnuts, which we have 19 <br />harvested off of an existing farm in Orange County and we have been selling those to different vendors and 20 <br />also to some retails, to friends and family. 21 <br /> 22 <br />Andy Petesch: And approximately how many pounds of those? 23 <br /> 24 <br />Chris Brewer: So far we’ve sold about 300 so far this year. We have about 1,000 pounds in inventory. 25 <br /> 26 <br />Andy Petesch: And you’re familiar with the financial projections that Ms.> Brewer testified were part of the 27 <br />farm summary? There were some questions about the labor aspects that were incorporated in that? 28 <br /> 29 <br />Chris Brewer: Right, so I think Mr. Katz had a couple of questions about the labor and just for the 5 year, 10 30 <br />year and 20 year projections: the 5 year we had $15,000 in labor, which at 5 years there won’t be as many 31 <br />chestnuts produced; 10 years we have $74,000; and 20 years we have $86,000 in labor in our projections. 32 <br /> 33 <br />Andy Petesch: And then one other issue that arose was the yield per tree. Could you talk about how you 34 <br />arrived at your estimates? 35 <br /> 36 <br />Chris Brewer: So there’s varying… There’s lots of different places we looked. Michigan State University has 37 <br />published an article which they talked about up to 3,500 pounds per acre of chestnut trees. Chestnut Hill 38 <br />Outdoors, which raises Dunstan chestnut trees, have stated that they believe between 50 and 100 pounds 39 <br />per chestnut are possible. The Northern Nut Groves Association have stated in an article that they’re 40 <br />between 50 and 138 pounds per tree. For our financials we only use 52 pounds per tree. 41 <br /> 42 <br />Andy Petesch: Ok. 43 <br /> 44 <br />Barry Katz: I would just like to ask you… You have other locations where you’re harvesting chestnuts so 45 <br />you process these chestnuts as was described? You wash them and raise them to the temperature of 160 46 <br />degrees and then you dry them and all that? 47 <br /> 48 <br />Chris Brewer: Yes. 49