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WWW.POTATOGROWER.COM 15 Sauvie Island is precisely the kind of place that comes to mind when people think of the Pacific Northwest. Formed by the confluence of the Willamette River, Multnomah Channel and mighty Columbia River, the island is dotted with small fields in which grow seemingly every vegetable grown to man, surrounded by lush, green, endless forest. On a clear day, the volcanic cones of Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens can be seen rising up from the horizon to the northeast. Ponds and creeks dimple the island's 24,000 acres; water is apparently never in short supply. Lewis and Clark literally put the island on the map after camping there in the spring of 1806, naming it Wappatoe Island and noting that it was "extremely fertile." Settled some 10 miles from downtown Portland, though, it is likely not what comes to mind when one considers the term "potato country." PRODUCTIVE LAND It was in this picturesque, almost idyllic setting that Antonio Fazio settled down and began farming after his immigration from Italy in the early 1940s. At the time, the Army Corps of Engineers was constructing dikes around much of the island to keep water levels down and provide more arable land. Antonio took advantage of the opportunity and began growing cabbage and pickling cucumbers. Today, Antonio's son, Jack, and grandson, David, carry on the Fazio legacy, operating JD Ranch (so named for Jack and David) on much of the same ground Antonio originally farmed. Taking advantage of Sauvie Island's fertile soil, JD Ranch grows wheat, cabbage, field corn, raspberries, strawberries, marionberries, beans, broccoli, grass seed and, of course, some 600 acres of chipping potatoes. "Our crop consultant says being a crop consultant in the Willamette Valley is the hardest job in the world," David's eldest son, AJ, says with a chuckle. "He's got to know how everything grows, because you can grow pretty much everything here except tropical fruits." WWW.POTATOGROWER.COM 15 David Fazio (second from left) and his sons (from left) CJ, DJ and AJ plan to keep the farm in the family for generations to come. Because of the wet weather common to the Willamette Valley, Fazio potatoes are on an intensive spray schedule to protect from fungal diseases such as late blight.