Bulk bags shipped to Oregon

Who fills bulk bags in Oregon

Grass seed, cleaned and bagged

The Willamette Valley between Portland and Eugene is known for growing grass seed, mainly ryegrass and fescue. The crop is swathed and combined in summer, then hauled to seed cleaners around Albany, Tangent and Junction City, who clean it, test it and bag it.

Seed is alive and needs air, so the bag is new, uncoated and unlined. A document pouch holds the seed tag, and a duffle top fills fast under a cleaner's spout. Grass seed is light, so a 2,000 lb SWL bag is limited by volume long before weight; a taller bag holds more.

Cleaners want bags on hand before the first trucks of harvest arrive. Tell us the bags per lot and the cleaner's ZIP, and we'll plan bales by the trailer up I-5.

Straw left after the seed harvest is baled, compressed and much of it exported as livestock roughage. The valley also grows clover, wheat and specialty seed, and cleaners handle many small lots in a season, which means many bag tags and careful counts.

Hazelnut orchards and nursery yards

Hazelnuts are grown across the Willamette Valley and harvested in early fall, swept off the orchard floor once they drop. They're washed, dried and sold in shell or cracked into kernels.

Both are food: new bags, food grade where the packer asks, with a liner for kernels. No used bags for nuts.

Oregon's nursery growers in the northern Willamette Valley use potting mixes and soil amendments, and some of those move in bulk bags. These aren't food or static-sensitive loads, so an inspected 6:1 bag can go round again.

We'll quote new and used side by side for these jobs, and we'll ask whether bags are hung from a forklift or set under a frame, because that decides the loops.

East of the Cascades

I-84 follows the Columbia River Gorge east from Portland past Hood River and The Dalles to Pendleton, then climbs into the Blue Mountains toward Idaho. The Gorge can see high wind and ice, and the climb east of Pendleton can close in winter.

That country grows dryland wheat around Pendleton and potatoes and onions under irrigation near Hermiston. The Klamath Basin in the south grows potatoes too. Fertilizer for those fields wants coated, lined bags; seed wheat wants uncoated new bags.

Central Oregon around Bend, Redmond and Prineville is reached on US-97 and US-20 rather than an interstate. Its fill lines are mostly feed, construction and the seed farms of Jefferson County, and a load there usually comes over the Cascades on US-26 or down US-97 from I-84 at Biggs Junction.

The Columbia's south bank around Boardman and Hermiston is irrigated farmland and food processing, known for watermelons as well as potatoes and onions. Processors there turn potatoes into frozen and dehydrated products, and the dehydrated powders ride in new, lined bags.

Carrot seed, coast dairies and Malheur onions

Around Madras in Jefferson County, irrigated fields under the high desert sun are known for hybrid carrot seed, along with garlic and grass seed. Seed from those growers needs new, uncoated bags and careful labeling so each lot stays identified from field to cleaner to buyer.

On the coast, Tillamook County is dairy country, fed by heavy rain and rich pasture. Dairies there buy minerals and premix in bags, and damp coastal air makes storage under a roof important; a pallet of bales left out on wet gravel wicks moisture up into the bottom layer.

In the far east, Malheur County around Ontario and Nyssa shares the Treasure Valley with Idaho and grows onions, sugar beets and seed. Those farms are closer to Boise than to Portland, so a load for them often rolls up I-84 from the Idaho side.

Down south, the Rogue Valley around Medford is pear country, and the Klamath Basin near Klamath Falls grows potatoes, hay and grain on an old lakebed. US-97 runs south from Klamath Falls into California, a route that skips the Siskiyou grade on I-5.

Docks, rivers and empties

The Port of Portland sits where the Willamette meets the Columbia, and barges run up the Columbia and Snake to inland grain terminals. Coos Bay on the south coast is the state's other deep-draft port.

For a quote, send product, SWL, top and bottom, liner and the fill ZIP. After the cleaning season, book a pickup for empties with a count and photos; 5:1 bags go to recycling.

Seed cleaners in the valley often export through Puget Sound or California ports, so the bag order may need to cover containers as well as domestic trailers. Tell us where the seed ends up, and we'll size the bags for the longest leg of the trip.

Upriver, Hood River's pear orchards and the cherry orchards around The Dalles line the Gorge, and growers there take lime, gypsum and fertilizer off the same I-84 trucks that serve the wheat country.

• Bag count and whether they're 5:1 or 6:1
• A photo of a bale and a label
• Dock hours and forklift on site
• What the bags last held