Should you start a Christmas tree farm. 3 positives and 3 negatives to think about.
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- Опубликовано: 5 июл 2024
- Many people are considering starting a Christmas tree farm. Should you take the plunge. In this video I talk about 3 obvious positives and 3 negatives to owning and operating a Christmas tree farm. We are in our 19th year of public sales after another 10 years of growing for just friends and family. East Fork Christmas trees is located in Ridgefield Washington. #Flanagan Homestead
The following link is to the sedond half of this video. Talking about my story in starting a farm
• Christmas tree farming... 
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There are so many other businesses to get in to if you just want a business to make money. This is a way of life you must love as I did. You need to have a good source of income for the first ten years at least to start a Christmas tree farm. We operated retail lots buying wholesale from other farmers. I do agree that it is a wonderful business. We had many customers who we only saw once a year, but they were friends. Every year they would share photo's of their tree from the last year. I also agree that finding decent labor was difficult back in my time ('70's - '80's). I can't imagine what that must look like today.
One last thing, you have to have contracts with your partners. You can be the best of friends when you start, but life has a way of intruding and changing things over the years. I was forced out of this business in '84 by my great friends. Happy that things have worked well for you Rob. I still miss it so much.
Thanks for sharing your story. So similar to mine. It has been a blessing. You are right. We need a contract. We have been planning to write in for the last ten years. Never get around to it and just head out to the field.
Hello Rob , informative video as usual, looks like you and the Mrs. raised a fine bunch of hard working young men, congrats. Tree farming looks very rewarding, if you’ve got the patience for the payoff, and nice that your a part of your customers Christmas, such a great time of year. Have a good day
You have great content, just started to watch your videos.
Thank you. Welcome aboard. Filming a new video right now on how much it actually costs to grow a Christmas tree. Hope to publish this week.
Rob, great insights as always. Thanks for sharing. I’m harvesting larger wood off of 20 acres right now (with a forestry contractor) It looks daunting now that most of it is cut but I’ve been fortunate to have great learning opportunities from a number of Christmas Tree associations here in Nova Scotia and of course your channel! On my lot, balsam for regeneration will take place on some of it but planting will play a big role. Genetics of natural regeneration are an issue and also some areas just need more density. It’s an interesting project. It’s 150 acre lot that I now own that has been in my family for over 80 years. Its my happy place - a place I will be spending lots of time in the coming years. I’ll be wholesale farm for the most part. I’m 48 and wish I had started earlier!! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!!
I understand property like that being your happy place. To be clear is some going back into timber and some Christmas trees? I am working on a short video now where a small piece of property went from forest to Christmas tree to a combination to timber now.
@@FlanaganHomestead thanks for the reply. The plan is 100% Christmas Trees for that 20 acres. The other 130 acres has been cut over the years at various times and is growing timber. Some natural regeneration and some replanted. The entire lot is in an active forestry management plan. There are 20 identified stands that all have various prescriptions. Of course most of those are managed by a forestry contractor because of the sheer size.
Im in North Carolina at 5000'. We have 25 sloped acres. I think we might start Fraser Fir's this year.
Excellent. I hope your slopes aren’t too severe
Looking to start a Christmas tree farm in WA as well :) glad to see y’all be successful 🥰
excellent. what part of Washington are you in.
@@FlanaganHomestead western! Just north of Puyallup
Thanks for the info. I live on 45 acres in SE Michigan and u-cut and tree lots are huge here. Been thinking about Clearcutting 10 acres of my woods and planting an acre a year or so and seeing how it goes. I don't think I'd want to got he u-cut route, wholesale seems more up my alley, sure less money, but I'm just trying to find a way for my land to pay for itself than the other way around.
Wholesale is a good route to go too, especially if there is not a lot of people around for u-cut. I would suggest planting more than one acre that first year for wholesale. They don’t all grow at exact same rate. You can get a year early harvest with the fast growers. Also if there is high demand like this year when you have a crew and equipment out you can cut and ship more trees.
I like your family story,. Hope Jesus is your reason!
Thank you. And Jesus is the reason for not just this season but all!
Nice videos just stumbled upon your channel recently thanks RUclips. Im same age as you were when you started and we have a 2 year old. What advice would you give in finding the right piece of land? Land is around $10,000 an acre here Upstate NY. We were looking at 5-10 acres near our home which should give us opportunity to grow using the 5x5 planting method and room for parking barns etc.
Well. I wish formable land would go for that rate around here. First thing I would do is talk to someone and make sure that it can grow trees well. I have seen well-intentioned people try to start a Tree Farm and the soil wouldn’t allow it. Next if you plan to do a uncut try to get it close enough or at least an easy route from a population base that will come out and buy your trees. Finally if you are successful at a u-cut will you have space for parking. A small U-cut (10 acres) on a nice weekend could have 50 cars there at one time. Don’t want to much slope, or wet spots.
Hello Rob! We just bought our first Christmas trees for the Spring 2022 planting, and your videos have been amazing! Thanks so much for putting in the time to make them. You are a huge inspiration for those of us newbies! Any suggestions on sources that might help us out as we get started?
Thanks for the kind words and glad I could help. Where are you located? Besides what I had learned from my grandpa. After I started farming I was not shy about seeking advice from established farms close to me. Technically we were competitors but they were good to me and helped give understanding of farming in our specific area. We developed a relationship where we could help each other out.
@@FlanaganHomestead we are located in western Kentucky. The land has historically been row crop (wheat, beans, corn and tobacco), but we are looking to gradually turn things over to Christmas trees. There aren’t any Christmas tree farms around us for us to compare to, but I’ve had soil samples taken and talked to several nurseries and our Christmas tree association, and it looks like our land should do well. Just ordered my first trees last month, and now I’m looking for some resources so I’m ready to put them in the ground next spring.
@Sharp90210 congrats and best of luck. Are you planting bare root or plugs? Are there no farms because of growing climate, or market or some other reason? How far would you say it is to the closest tree farm.
@@FlanaganHomestead we are planting plugs+2. I believe the nearest farm to us is about 40 miles away. I’m not really sure why there aren’t any farms closer… according to all the research I’ve done, it looks like we should be able to grow Christmas trees just fine… guess I’ll find out in a year or so, lol
@@Sharp90210 excellent, if trees grow well there and no one else is growing them you can own the market.
I tried to watch your video in the comments but it seems to be private?
I recorded it then scheduled it to be released this afternoon. I thought if I gave you the link you could see it before the release. Apparently I was wrong. Sorry for the confusion. It should post this afternoon or tomorrow. I forget which one. I am. Or at the computer right now. Thanks for watching.
Im In ur class
Who is this
@@FlanaganHomestead carlos