Tree Farm (Christmas Trees), Thoughts?

[ImCheap]

The site has large group of people who dare to do something most others would not, one reason I like to come here.

To make a long story longer, we have about a 3 acre lot that we have lived on for the past 25 years. When we bought the place it had very few trees, today its loaded with trees, to give some scale the first year we bought the place we planted 1,000+ trees. We planted mostly pines, fur, etc., over the years we dug up and sold a few, gave some away, enjoyed cutting down Christmas trees for our own family use to keep the grove healthy.

One most enjoyable part was selling Christmas trees to people who like to come and cut one down, this was short time for us being that we did not have that many trees we wanted to be removed, I would guess we sold around 100-200 Christmas Trees.

I have run across a small 20 acre plot that at one time was a Christmas Tree Farm, for a tad less than $100k. Seriously thinking of buying and growing some Christmas Trees. The tree farm is way over grown with I would guess 20+ year old trees that would need to be logged/removed.

We know how to grow trees, that's the easy part, don't expect it to make much $, especially at first, it takes a good 6-7 years to get a tree. However do you think this could be a self supporting hobby? Would love to pass this on to my kids, that is if they want it plus make enough to get a vacation out of it at some point.

Anybody do something similar? Off the cuff I don't think 20 acres is enough but I maybe surprised!

We would start harvesting trees right around when we turn 55 or so, time is running out if this something we want to do:)

[TheAnonOne]

Do you really love harvesting trees? It sounds like it needs to be a labor of love and not for the money .. $100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS)*for emphasis* is a hell of a lot of money for some trees..

[Optimiser]

After the 7 or so years it takes for the trees to reach the right size for harvesting, how much would you expect to make annually on a 20 acre lot?

[ImCheap]

After the 7 or so years it takes for the trees to reach the right size for harvesting, how much would you expect to make annually on a 20 acre lot?

Some off the cuff numbers, a WAG:)

I would say on this 20 acre piece after you take out the barn that currently exist, small pond and few access roads a person would get 1,000 trees/acre. That would give you room for 20,000 trees. Take 20,000 / 7 year cycle would yield roughly 2,800 trees/year. $10-20 profit * 2,800 trees =  $28,000-$56,000/year.

If we were able to sell half of them for a profit of $12,000 that maybe good enough!

[ImCheap]

Do you really love harvesting trees? It sounds like it needs to be a labor of love and not for the money .. $100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS)*for emphasis* is a hell of a lot of money for some trees..

Growing trees has/is a passion, it is something we have enjoyed for many years, just have not done it on this scale before! Forgot to say you get a pole barn in the deal too:)

[zombiehunter]

Do you really love harvesting trees? It sounds like it needs to be a labor of love and not for the money .. $100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS)*for emphasis* is a hell of a lot of money for some trees..

Yes, but you still have the land.

Speaking of which, what's the 20 acre site like?  is it road and utility accessible?  Could is support growing of things other than Christmas trees?  Could is support, say, 20 lots developed into houses once the tree farm has run its course and you're wise and old?  Could it be split in two, with one part sold and one part given to family?  There are a lot of possibilities here, and raw land is generally a good investment over time, no?

Funny you should post this, I was actually thinking the other day how easy it would be to plant 2-3 Christmas trees per year for a couple years, and then you'd have a steady supply every year to cut one down and put it up in the house, maybe give away or sell another 1 or 2.  Same idea, tiny scale.  Very frugal compared to shelling out money on another person's farm, and much more healthy for the environment than the plastic fake trees.

I just looked on google and it says 7-12 years to mature, is that your experience?  Do you grow from seed or sapling? 

[ImCheap]

Do you really love harvesting trees? It sounds like it needs to be a labor of love and not for the money .. $100,000 (ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS)*for emphasis* is a hell of a lot of money for some trees..

Yes, but you still have the land.

Speaking of which, what's the 20 acre site like?  is it road and utility accessible?  Could is support growing of things other than Christmas trees?  Could is support, say, 20 lots developed into houses once the tree farm has run its course and you're wise and old?  Could it be split in two, with one part sold and one part given to family?  There are a lot of possibilities here, and raw land is generally a good investment over time, no?

Funny you should post this, I was actually thinking the other day how easy it would be to plant 2-3 Christmas trees per year for a couple years, and then you'd have a steady supply every year to cut one down and put it up in the house, maybe give away or sell another 1 or 2.  Same idea, tiny scale.  Very frugal compared to shelling out money on another person's farm, and much more healthy for the environment than the plastic fake trees.

I just looked on google and it says 7-12 years to mature, is that your experience?  Do you grow from seed or sapling?

Go for it, in our area you would get a 6-7' tree in about 6 years. We can buy small number of trees from the county for about a $1 each, they will be seedlings 1 foot or so tall. My kids knew nothing more than taking Christmas Trees form the back yard!

[Gone Fishing]

Aside from the $ side of things, also consider the labor requirements.  A lot of things that are fun on a hobby scale become a lot less fun on a commercial scale. 

[TrMama]

From a totally uneducated about tree farming perspective, it sounds like a great way to make some money farming. Will you live on the land? Or will you have to commute? Will you need to buy equipment for planting, pruning and harvesting? Could you sell cut trees wholesale to seasonal tree lots?

[ImCheap]

Aside from the $ side of things, also consider the labor requirements.  A lot of things that are fun on a hobby scale become a lot less fun on a commercial scale.

This is exactly what I'm worried about, I don't really need/want another full time job. Reason why I'm looking for someone who has done something similar. I don't mind hard work, rather enjoy it most of the time if I'm doing it for myself, but realize its fine line where it starts to look to much like work.

I guess its cheaper than buying a big boat:)

[ImCheap]

From a totally uneducated about tree farming perspective, it sounds like a great way to make some money farming. Will you live on the land? Or will you have to commute? Will you need to buy equipment for planting, pruning and harvesting? Could you sell cut trees wholesale to seasonal tree lots?

Will commute, its about 20-30min drive thru the country side. Could build a house or make a take a corner of the barn to sleep in, I don't really see that happening.

[mbl]

We've been growing our own Christmas trees for about 20 years.
Get the seedlings from the Cornell Cooperative Extension quite inexpensively.

We don't sell them.  We donate to churches and friends and family.

That being said, if you're going to allow people to cut their own, you'd have to have liability insurance and whatever else you'd require as a business.
Tax ID and whatever else you'd need to protect your personal assets.

Sounds like you'd have to sell a lot of trees to make it a viable business venture.
Is there a big enough market to move that many trees.
I would imagine your biggest customers would be retailers who would purchase an inventory of trees.
That would be the best way to market it.

Will you be trimming and maintaining the trees so that they grow nice and shapely?
The first year putting in a large number of seedlings requires a lot of TLC as you probably already know.
It's one thing to do it on a few acres, quite another to do it on 20 acres.
Who will be your laborers?

[ImCheap]

We've been growing our own Christmas trees for about 20 years.
Get the seedlings from the Cornell Cooperative Extension quite inexpensively.

We don't sell them.  We donate to churches and friends and family.

That being said, if you're going to allow people to cut their own, you'd have to have liability insurance and whatever else you'd require as a business.
Tax ID and whatever else you'd need to protect your personal assets.

Sounds like you'd have to sell a lot of trees to make it a viable business venture.
Is there a big enough market to move that many trees.
I would imagine your biggest customers would be retailers who would purchase an inventory of trees.
That would be the best way to market it.

Will you be trimming and maintaining the trees so that they grow nice and shapely?
The first year putting in a large number of seedlings requires a lot of TLC as you probably already know.
It's one thing to do it on a few acres, quite another to do it on 20 acres.
Who will be your laborers?

We have a 40 acre Christmas Tree Farm one block from our place, its much closer to the city and in its 3rd generation, they seem to do well with a come and cut deal at $80-$90/tree. I would guess I need to sell my trees for about $40-50 given the distance. Watching the neighbors tree farm it appears the one guy takes care of the 40 acre farm on his own except for the 4 weekends that he sells them, then he has what looks to be a pile of family and friends over. Its a part time gig for him as well, its paying for his kids college as it did for his college.

I have thought about just stopping by the neighbors place and seeing if could help him out, that maybe a better plan!

[TrMama]

I have thought about just stopping by the neighbors place and seeing if could help him out, that maybe a better plan!

That sounds like an excellent plan. I'm currently testing out a possible post-FIRE side gig. I've only done one day so far and it's been very enlightening.

[ghsebldr]

Since I can't delete this post I am changing it to this

[katsiki]

How do they get $80-90 for a tree?  It seems around here you can get a tree from the store or a lot from $35-50.

[Thegoblinchief]

$1,000-$2,000/acre is a pretty poor return on ag land, though perhaps not terrible given the low time investment.

[ImCheap]

  Don't know what part of the country you are in but the trees we grow in pots are in most parts of the country that are Zone 7 (0-10 degrees) and even used as Christmas trees in the Southeast US.

We are in Zone 3b (-30 to -35)

  If you're in the right zone and interested PM me. I don't mind sharing with members here but don't feel like broadcasting the particular type of tree.

Thanks for the offer, wish I was in your zone, sounds fun. When we planted a pile of spruce as seedlings those 25+ years ago we sold a mess of them when they were still small enough to fit in a #5 or #7 bucket, if I recall it took about 3-4 years to grow them to 2-3 feet, many people bought those for a hedge of sorts.

[lthenderson]

I think I would be investigating the overall trends. The trend has been going towards artificial trees and according the National Christmas Tree Association, only 25 to 30 million real trees were sold in 2013 while 350 million are growing on farms currently. 80% of the population displays artificial trees only. Not real encouraging numbers for someone just thinking about getting into business seven years from now.

[Goldielocks]

If the land is $100 k, how much will you get for logging the big trees?  In my cousins' area, people buy land like that to make money on logging then sell the remaining land... ( with stumps). If you get $25 k, your potential profit is better with a tree farm.

[Smokystache]

I had a summer job trimming Christmas trees so they would shape-up nicely. I don't remember how many acres I could cover per day or week, but I do know that the summer trimming/shaping is something you could teach a 9-year-old how to do.

And consider keeping that pole barn. Add some over-priced hot cider and Christmas knick-knacks (or allow some holiday crafters/knitters to rent a table/booth there on the weekends) and you've got some easy additional income.

[Cwadda]

Sure, why not! Offer lower and see what happens. As long as the property taxes aren't bad, you enjoy doing it, and can make a little profit, I see no reason not to give it a try.

[Petunia 100]

The site has large group of people who dare to do something most others would not, one reason I like to come here.

To make a long story longer, we have about a 3 acre lot that we have lived on for the past 25 years. When we bought the place it had very few trees, today its loaded with trees, to give some scale the first year we bought the place we planted 1,000+ trees. We planted mostly pines, fur, etc., over the years we dug up and sold a few, gave some away, enjoyed cutting down Christmas trees for our own family use to keep the grove healthy.

One most enjoyable part was selling Christmas trees to people who like to come and cut one down, this was short time for us being that we did not have that many trees we wanted to be removed, I would guess we sold around 100-200 Christmas Trees.

I have run across a small 20 acre plot that at one time was a Christmas Tree Farm, for a tad less than $100k. Seriously thinking of buying and growing some Christmas Trees. The tree farm is way over grown with I would guess 20+ year old trees that would need to be logged/removed.

We know how to grow trees, that's the easy part, don't expect it to make much $, especially at first, it takes a good 6-7 years to get a tree. However do you think this could be a self supporting hobby? Would love to pass this on to my kids, that is if they want it plus make enough to get a vacation out of it at some point.

Anybody do something similar? Off the cuff I don't think 20 acres is enough but I maybe surprised!

We would start harvesting trees right around when we turn 55 or so, time is running out if this something we want to do:)

Currently thinking about doing something similar.  Following because I am so interested. :)

[Petunia 100]

After the 7 or so years it takes for the trees to reach the right size for harvesting, how much would you expect to make annually on a 20 acre lot?

Some off the cuff numbers, a WAG:)

I would say on this 20 acre piece after you take out the barn that currently exist, small pond and few access roads a person would get 1,000 trees/acre. That would give you room for 20,000 trees. Take 20,000 / 7 year cycle would yield roughly 2,800 trees/year. $10-20 profit * 2,800 trees =  $28,000-$56,000/year.

If we were able to sell half of them for a profit of $12,000 that maybe good enough!

I've read you plant them in 5 x 5, so about 1,500 trees per acre.  Do you not plant in 5 x 5 rows?  Do you have a different method you feel works better?

[jbfishing]

You might have a forester evaluate the value of the existing timber as over grown christmas trees grown at a high densiy without any precommercial thinning are way overstocked and are likely competing with themselves resulting  in skinny trees that might be dying.  Will you make money logging these or will you have to pay to have them removed so you can replant?  How much site prep is needed, can you leave all those 20 yr old stumps in the ground?   They are a lot bigger than 7 yr old stumps left after a typical christmas tree harvest and might tie up alot of nitrogen as they decompose.  How is the soil health?  I would be concerned that this over grown tree farm striped the soil of nutrients for 20 years with no inputs and no chnace to recover. You might be able to find some technical assistance fromyour state's university extension service, the county soil conservation service, or the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service.  Best of luck to you.

[Villanelle]

And consider keeping that pole barn. Add some over-priced hot cider and Christmas knick-knacks (or allow some holiday crafters/knitters to rent a table/booth there on the weekends) and you've got some easy additional income.

I don't know where you are OP, but this seems like it would be a great moneymaker to supplement the actual trees if your math and research suggest the trees themselves will make a small profit, if you are interested in putting in the extra work for a few weeks a year.  Make it an experience, not just a place to chop down a tree.  Anything you can do to frame this as an experience--make memories with your family!--would draw a crowd.  This is what most pumpkin patches do now.  It's not just a place to go and grab a pumpkin.  There's a putting zoo and a bounce house and a guy dressed as a giant pumpkin with whom you can take pictures, and a store that sells seasonal crafts , and a snack bar.  So you have a Santa and a snack bar and a craft booth and a place where kids can do a small Christmas craft. 

[chasesfish]

I think you are looking at a hobby, not a business.   I've looked at couple christmas tree farms in my career, usually its family owned land with a very low cost basis, then they're selling the trees into the major retailers (Costco, Home Depot, Lowes).

20 acres is about the right size for a "You Cut" christmas tree farm.  Just make sure your land supports a nice riding or stand/behind lawnmower as you'll need to keep the brush cut down.  On a per hour basis, you won't make a ton, but you will also enjoy the tax benefits of running a "farm" and if you enjoy it, go for it.