Any tree farm/nursery growers here on tbn?

[Tractor Seabee]

You experts out there! How do you identify those maple trees the music instrument wood suppliers are looking for. Right when we were buying this place a guy wanted to cut 4 maples he claimed were that type. He was going to pay $10K for them.

Ron

 

[spruce Deere]

Not that I am a nursery manager like you two but growing trees for commercial/timber purposes is certainly always at the mercy of nature. The ice storm we had this past January took out over 95% of one of my stands for a loss of just about 10,000 trees. I only lost 12 years of growth. As unfortunate as I was I know people who lost 80 year old trees to the same storm and the timber is not even salvageable as timber just firewood. Nature is always in control we just think we are.

Fully understand x2. My other line of "work" is working for a large timber company that owns timber stands from Washington state to main.

When timber stem is snapped be it ice or wind it usually shatters the wood several feet from the break. Not to mention its like trying to clean up a very large pixy-sticks game and not really safe. Really cuts into marketable timber and production when a stand gets hit like that.

A partner farm that grows tens of thousands of aspen really gets nervous when the wind starts or hail is in the forecast. Aspen are amazingly wimpy when they are young whips. A strong wind his plantation looks like a miny blow-down forest, even with the help of steaks holding the tree. A hail storm beats the leaves clean off trees.

Wind does not really get me to bad in the tree farm, but hail at the right stage of growth of the trees, is not good. Robins seem to enjoy snapping the new lush, soft and fragile leaders out of the spruce and pines also...

 

[GILLYS CHILLI FARM AUSTRA]

One thing I want to remind all you farm guys is that people still need to have shelter and to eat whether there is a recession or no recession. So I suggest you grow some edible crops too because not many people like working on farms but they all like eating.

 

[spruce Deere]

One thing I want to remind all you farm guys is that people still need to have shelter and to eat whether there is a recession or no recession. So I suggest you grow some edible crops too because not many people like working on farms but they all like eating.

Your right, I damm near forgot........ with the chit pot of gardens I till, some very large and have expanded or installed for different organic market growers and the growing 'farmers markets'. There must be some kind of demand for food......

Ummm, no reminder needed here. Growing food has got just as many caveats, if not more counting government B.S on growing produce for humans. We all can't be vegi, grain, cow growers or More importantly, don't want to be or cant be.

I see you are relativity new to TBN, and your comment proved that handily also.:thumbsup:

Anyhow, welcome to tractorbynet.

 

[Daronspicher]

We are out shopping for ag land now. We've considered properties in the 6 to 12 acre range where less than 6 isn't much of a hobby farm, more than 10 starts to run away from our budget.

One place has about 130 maples in a grid that really need pruned up and thinned out before they grow into each other. They are getting pretty big for retail,sale.

Another place is flat as a pancake and growing corn wall to wall.

As we drove around several counties in northern Illinois, we started to notice many dozens of places where it seems people decided to venture into the nursery business jus in time for the new housing market to go completely flat as their stock became mature for sale. Forward 5 years and it seems so many of them are overgrowing their space.

If we buy the blank place, I'm thinking of offering the maple guy 5 bucks a tree to come get some of those maples out of his way (plus whatever it cost me to get a tree spade for the weekend).

Are you seeing this in other regions also?

-Daron

 

[GILLYS CHILLI FARM AUSTRA]

This type scenario happend in the gloriously beautiful Yarra Valley region in the eastern Melbourne Australian Green Wedge areas once used for raising and breeding horses became too expensive for horses, cattle, sheep grazing so it seemed everyone decided grape growing would be a better value added activity. That probably started 20-25 years ago and as you can imagine Grape growing is not as easy as growing potatoes and corn and the setup costs were somewhat higher and there were quite a few vinyard farmers go broke along the way with banks foreclosing often enough along the way.

Some of the investors who came along later were better heeled [Collins Street] doctors, lawyers and superannuation syndicates who could afford the luxury of keeping this land green in grapes and treated pine poles in rows and looking good in their social circles. Other larger companies got into developing high end wines like Domaine Chandon Mo? & Chandon 1] or Mo?, is a French winery and co-owner of the luxury goods company Mo?-Hennessy Louis Vuitton. Mo? et Chandon is one of the ...
- Yarra Valley Netwww.yarra-valley.net.au
Domaine Chandon is situated in the picturesque Yarra Valley, 50 kms to the east of Melbourne, on the Maroondah Highway between Coldstream and ...+Show map of Maroondah Highway, Coldstream VIC 3770. and the De Bortoli - Yarra Valley Estate are examples of those who made it.

But over the last few years there has been a big glut of grapes being produced and sometimes the grapes dont get picked and offered free to others who might like to make their own vino. In 2009 we had a BLACK FRIDAY BUSH FIRES which resulted in smokey grapes rendering them of no value for winery crushing. So going back to people rushing in for the next big thing with product which takes years to evolve like grapes, trees its been proven humans don't learn from historical mistakes because we suffer from the herd mentality.

The Dutch Tulip Bubble of 1637, the share market bubbles of South Sea Bubble. ... South Sea Bubble - Learn about England's disastrous stock market crash in the early 1720. , the "Dot Com Bubble" really began in April 1997 and ended in June 2003, the recent GFC in 2008, but there have been lots of those and every generation seems to forget history each time.

Having said all of the above ...tree growing produces wood for fuel if all else fails with housing bubbles unless you can sell to people like Donald Trump with cash upfront...lol. We have all types of bubbles where people lose everything when values of share certificates and Greek Bonds become worthless, but land does not disapear and the grass just keeps growing...for the next guy to work the miracles of real growth...enough of my ramblings from Australia.

 

[spruce Deere]

We are out shopping for ag land now. We've considered properties in the 6 to 12 acre range where less than 6 isn't much of a hobby farm, more than 10 starts to run away from our budget.

One place has about 130 maples in a grid that really need pruned up and thinned out before they grow into each other. They are getting pretty big for retail,sale.

Another place is flat as a pancake and growing corn wall to wall.

As we drove around several counties in northern Illinois, we started to notice many dozens of places where it seems people decided to venture into the nursery business jus in time for the new housing market to go completely flat as their stock became mature for sale. Forward 5 years and it seems so many of them are overgrowing their space.

If we buy the blank place, I'm thinking of offering the maple guy 5 bucks a tree to come get some of those maples out of his way (plus whatever it cost me to get a tree spade for the weekend).

Are you seeing this in other regions also?

-Daron

Yes and no. Like gillys chilli states historically with other markets, there was a rush of new hopefuls into growing trees. Lots of which knew very little about growing quality stock, hoping to spend little and come out rich in later years with minimal finger lifting or "work". Result was stock of less quality and marketability come maturity of trees. When markets soften and people tried to sell there so-so trees, it was even harder to make sales and many just abandoned there low work, get rich in later years with a field of trees wish...

True, markets soften a bit but if a person put forth effort on sales and had top quality stock to sell there was still a market.


One does not have to be crazy to farm, it does help..... one trick to farming is not to put all of the eggs in one basket.

Any more tree/nursery growers before this thread gets totally spun off course???

 

[Happyman]

Any more tree/nursery growers before this thread gets totally spun off course???

Yep!
I grow Christmas Trees in Virginia. Just started a few years ago so we still have about 6 years to go before we are ready to start selling. This is a choose and cut operation. We plant about 600 trees per year and eventually will have 8 acres in Christmas trees. Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce, Leyland Cypress, White Pine and Scotch Pine. It's been a real tough start trying to figure out which species will grow in our soil. Unfortunatley we can't grow Fraiser Fir, which is the most popular in this area. We're only at 400' above sea level and Frasier Fir's like at least 2000' :confused2:

 

[spruce Deere]

Hello there happyman

Been thinking about christmas tree marketing a few of our blue spruce, we thought of a walk threw, u-pick we cut deal, seems fun and might be another form of income.... I need further research such a venture.

 

[Happyman]

Hello there happyman

Been thinking about christmas tree marketing a few of our blue spruce, we thought of a walk threw, u-pick we cut deal, seems fun and might be another form of income.... I need further research such a venture.

Check to see if you have a local, regional or State Christmas Tree Growers Association. I'm on the board of the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Assoc. and actually joined about 2 years before starting to plant. It's a great way to learn about the business, talk to other local growers and decide if it's for you, or not. Try INLAND EMPIRE CHRISTMAS TREE ASSOCIATION

 

[speedbump]

I have a partner who knows all about Palm Trees. He planted about 700 Palms of different varieties. Mostly Date Palms. Some Queen's and some Cabbage Palms (I can't spell Washtentonions). They have been in for almost 11 years. Some are 12' and some are 1' and all in between. I think all the land in Florida has been mined for Phosphate and that's why the ground is so different from one place to another. The real estate fiasco has brought the price down to almost nothing, so there they sit. We also have three different diseases that are killing them randomly. Nobody seems to know what it is or how to eradicate it.

I should have raised Cows on those four acres.

 

[Little Red Tractor]

I'm in "upstate" (a subjective term at best) New York. We bought 12 acres of an existing Christmas tree farm and are trying to plant about 100 trees every year and harvest enough to pay the taxes on the land and break even on costs, no more than that--so far we're still in the hole. We're losing trees to something that suddenly turns the trees brown and kills them with a season. We've lost a couple dozen in the last 18 months or so. Any ideas?

 

[spruce Deere]

I'm in "upstate" (a subjective term at best) New York. We bought 12 acres of an existing Christmas tree farm and are trying to plant about 100 trees every year and harvest enough to pay the taxes on the land and break even on costs, no more than that--so far we're still in the hole. We're losing trees to something that suddenly turns the trees brown and kills them with a season. We've lost a couple dozen in the last 18 months or so. Any ideas?

Almost sounds like a mite problem lil' red tractor. Find a tree that is showing stress and look at the needles, limbs closely for spots, webbing or other not right things. Find something on them an do a google search or take a sample to your county extension office for identification.

Mites are an issue with different x-mas tree plots around here. They can operate in cooler temps giving them more of a window of opportunity for destruction.

 

[spruce Deere]

Check to see if you have a local, regional or State Christmas Tree Growers Association. I'm on the board of the Virginia Christmas Tree Growers Assoc. and actually joined about 2 years before starting to plant. It's a great way to learn about the business, talk to other local growers and decide if it's for you, or not. Try INLAND EMPIRE CHRISTMAS TREE ASSOCIATION

Thanks for the info happyman. I belong to a growers association, KVNG , but due to the markets over the course of the last few years members are few. Went from 40 active members to 20 last I checked.

X-mas trees are a tight market here. Hard to sell locally, due to all the national forests around here. X-mas trees are hard to sell when you can cut one for free, sorta, from state or forest service forests. The farms that do x-mas trees here started getting into ornamental growing of trees a while back, same reason i was thinking, for a broader market.

Gunna take some creative ideas and ingenuity.... The wife and I have got some ideas from looking at different tree farms back east and talking to a partner tree farmer who use to reside in Maine. All takes a little time and money, both a valuable commodity.

 

[JeffreyOwen]

Hello all,
I am not a nursery owner but I am the only mechanic for a 4 farm wholesale nursery here in Michigan. I enjoy watching the potential buyer haggle over the price of the "fugly" trees and plants. Even a fifty cent discount seems to excite some ! lol

 

[GILLYS CHILLI FARM AUSTRA]

Many people are just plain too scared to spend, so if someone is prepared to spend but haggle over 50 cents, then thank god they still inclined to part with their money. Thats my point of view if you can imagine no-one wanting to buy anything at any price, except food if things get real bad economically speaking.

 

[GILLYS CHILLI FARM AUSTRA]

A question for speedbump...

i want to remove some cabbage palms planted too close to my house and need to know how the root system is as far as foundations are concerned before i try dig them out. Can you help with some crucial removing information.

I had tried to sell them they probably 25-40 years old before getting a BH to dig them out but after several attempts and no inquiries i decided to give them a drastic prune/cut but really do wish to remove root ball too. Are they deep rooters etc

They too close to house for two main safety reasons...i'm concerned about roots affecting house foundations and secondly the tree tops catching fire during our high bush fire seasons in summer.

We had a bushfire disaster come through our area during 2009 [ look up Google 2009 BLACK SATURDAY BUSHFIRES] but we never got touched whereas many other homes in district were burnt to the ground and lives lost. So we have to prepare to remove any plants which could catch fire and spread to the house or outbuildings too easily. But wild fires as less able to be avoided but we have to take reasonable steps to protect us for future potential problems. I was very luck y in 2009 as i have some beautiful 100 year old shady cyprus trees 50 feet away from my house and they did not catch fire to pose a risk to my house...but im keeping them.

My brothers house not far from mine was encircled by fires which burned his verandas and part of his roof while his family were inside and he with water hoses trying to put out the flames, but the heat got so intense that he had to go back inside for protection from radiant heat. Some others in other arewas must have thought that bath tubs or water tanks would have saved them...but sure did not.

I believe you are having some severe bush fires in your north western areas, so you'd know about mother nature at its worst.

 

[JeffreyOwen]

I agree, any spending is a welcome thing. Here in our area we are seeing a trend of established homes and businesses adding to or completely changing their greenery. We used to sell mainly to contractors of new structures but with construction down things are changing, thankfully.