SCIO, Ore. — Queener Farm does a lot with one crop, but perhaps that’s expected when the acreage includes 130 different varieties of apples.

The organic operation offers apples and apple products at its farm stand, U-pick fruit, subscription boxes through its Apple Adventure Club, scionwood and fresh cider for drinking and homebrewing.

The farm even sells apples to the Eugene School District and provides a few bins to boutique cideries.

Diversity is key

“It’s incredible how much diversity there is with just one commodity,” said Christina Fordyce, 28, who owns the farm with husband Graham Fordyce, 29.

The Fordyces purchased the 40-acre property in March. They have big plans to expand beyond the apple harvest, which should be around 30,000 pounds this year.

Apples cover about 7 acres, hazelnuts 21, and the rest of the farm is bare ground.

The Fordyces aim to become licensed to press other farms’ cider, introduce more tree fruit such as plums, add vegetable crops and bring in sheep. They’re considering holding events in the loft of the 1930s barn.

“There’s all this room for growth,” Graham Fordyce said.

For the time being, they don’t have any employees.

They acquired the Scio-area property because Fordyce Farm, which Graham’s family operates near Salem, has 68 acres and was supporting five households.

“We’ve been needing to expand for a while and this fit in so nicely in terms of what we were already doing,” Graham Fordyce said.

His grandfather started Fordyce Farm in the 1950s. Today, the operation has a certified kitchen and about 100 different varieties of crops.

Farm stays, too

Queener Farm also includes an apartment listed on Airbnb that started taking bookings in August.

Graham Fordyce said the farm stay is an amazing educational tool. A family with two little girls visited and “they both said they wanted to be farmers by the end of their stay here,” Graham Fordyce said.

The Fordyces met as toddlers and were part of the same homeschool group as children. They reconnected after Christina Fordyce graduated from college and “it became very apparent we were looking for the same things,” she said.

Their three boys, James, 5, Damien, 3, and Charlie, 8 months, all love apples.

“They’re pretty much always eating apples. James has even started to be able to identify a few just by looking at them,” Christina Fordyce said.

Graham Fordyce said the plan is to pass Queener Farm on to the children. “We don’t insist that they are farmers, but that’s the hope,” he added.

Queener Farm was settled by pioneer Andrew Jackson Queener, and apples were planted starting in the 1980s. In the 1990s, then-owners Tommie and Peter van de Kamp started collecting apple varieties. Jeannie Berg then acquired the property and did even more top grafting.

Berg switched the farm to a nutrient-based approach to control disease, where sap is analyzed for 20 different nutrients. She continues to serve as a consultant for the farm.

A hard cider workshop will be offered from 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 22 at Queener Farm.