Growing Commercial Christmas Trees

The Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association's Executive Director, Bryan Ostlund chatted with me about the pragmatics and details of Christmas tree farming. "Do commercial Christmas tree growers plant seeds or what? First of all it depends on the nursery. Most nurseries plant a seed and that produces a seedling. That process takes 2 to 3 years. It takes a while to get through the nursery process. Once it's ready to go out into a field for a Christmas tree grower, you already have material which is 2 to 3 years old and Christmas trees for a Noble fir which is our most commonly produced species now, it can be 8 to 9 years in the field to produce at 7 to 9 foot Christmas tree which is the range of our most popular size. It seems to me that's a lot of work and a lot of time. Is there any money in that business? I frequently say and I think it is fairly accurate that in order to be a Christmas tree grower you have to have a fairly clear crystal ball and a cast-iron stomach because trying to forecast that far out seems crazy. You also have to put money into those Christmas trees every year until you harvest so it's 7 to 9 years down the road. And you're trying to guess what the markets going to be like when that Christmas tree is that it's harvestable size.