Two women, eight balers, and a lot of trucks

by Mike Rankin

OREGON’S Willamette Valley marks the center of U.S. grass seed production. Once the grass seed is harvested, the remainder of the plant is left behind. This grass straw was once treated as a waste product, either burned in the field or removed and destroyed. Those days are over. Now, baled grass straw is a valued commodity for export.

Two women who own or manage three vertically integrated businesses that depend on the grass straw industry are Macey Wessels and Shelly Boshart Davis. Wessels spoke at Symposium 2023 last February, which is hosted by the Midwest Forage Association and Wisconsin Custom Operators.

Both women came from family farms when they first met at the Oregon State Capitol while stumping for agricultural interests. They quickly became friends. “We are complete opposites,” Wessels said. “Shelly hates management and conflict but loves sales. I enjoy managing people. We talked about going into business together but didn’t know exactly what that would look like.”

After exploring several business models, Boshart Davis suggested the two women buy her family’s trucking and straw-baling business, which was owned by her parents, Stan and Lori, in Tangent, Ore. That transaction became a reality in 2018, and the two friends now have a financial or managing interest in three field-to-end user businesses. Soon after buying Boshart Trucking, Boshart Davis successfully won a seat in Oregon’s House of Representatives.

Boshart Trucking, which was started in 1983 with two semitrucks, now has a fleet of 35. The entity also does straw baling and employs 25 yearround workers along with 35 seasonal employees (mostly teenagers) during the summer harvest. In addition to straw, the company’s trucks haul many other agricultural and nonagricultural goods throughout the year.

BOSSCO Trading LLC was formed in 1999 as the marketing arm of the businesses after the brokerage that Boshart Trucking sold straw to went bankrupt. At that time, Boshart Davis went to Japan and South Korea to maintain the market for their grass straw. BOSSCO Trading LLC is managed by Boshart Davis but is still owned by her parents. It employs two full-time workers who are responsible for export sales and customer service.

Pressco LLC, formed in 2003, was the final piece to the puzzle that completed the loop of field to end user. It is still owned by Boshart Davis’ parents but managed by Wessels. The bale-pressing facility does custom pressing and has 10 to 12 full-time employees. Here, bales are sliced, compressed, bound, and shrink-wrapped into bundles for loading into export containers.

Extreme baling

Boshart Trucking bales approximately 20,000 acres of grass straw from 40 different growers. They work in about a 150-mile radius, and this all has to be accomplished in a sixweek period.

“There are four baling crews with each consisting of two Krone balers, two rakes, and a bale stacker,” Wessels explained. “Each crew has an adult crew chief and five seasonal workers who operate the equipment. Dense bales are important for the press to operate correctly. Bales are at least 1,000 pounds, but the average is closer to 1,200 pounds.”

The grass straw comes from fields where fescue, perennial ryegrass, annual ryegrass, or orchardgrass seed was harvested. Wessels said that they bale mostly during the day to ensure a dry product, and the crew chief constantly monitors bale moisture.

Electronic logging devices (ELDs) are in all of Boshart Trucking’s trucks, bale squeezes. This makes it possible to see where equipment is located at all times from the company’s offices.

“We operate with complete transparency for our growers,” Wessels said.

Boshart Trucking and BOSSCO

Trading integrate to maintain this transparency from harvest timing to bale removal and through the entire sales process. Further, they provide updates on market conditions to their growers. The grass straw export market is in Japan and South Korea. “This is not a hay product,” Wessels explained. “We compete against lowgrade Australian hay and rice straw. The product is simply used in live - stock rations to add fiber.”

Boshart Trucking moves about 25 to 50 containers per week to the port or container terminal for export for BOSSCO Trading. “We feel we have an advantage in traceability,” Wessels said. “We can trace any of our straw back from Korea and Japan to the field that it came from. Having control of the entire process has led to us having a really stable customer base.”

Wessels acknowledged that a lot of their business success depends on things out of their control. “Whether it’s a good grass straw year or not, we still have to cover 20,000 acres,” she said. “We also are directly impacted by the strength of the U.S. dollar and international shipping bottlenecks.”

Invest in employees

“Employees are our lifeblood,” Wessels asserted. “We invest in our employees through extensive training and education, and we encourage them to be involved in the community. We try to work around their schedules as much as possible. I would do anything for my employees, and I’d like to think they’d do anything for me.”