Christmas trees are a billion-dollar annual business in the U.S., not counting decorations, so they can be a boon to business people who can use a little extra green in the holiday season.
“So far, tree sales have been good as we have expected,” said Sande Ferrante of Wallkill View Farms, which has been selling Christmas trees for some 30 years from its roadside farm store in New Paltz. Both the farm and the stand are family owned and have been in business since 1960. Trees and wreaths constitute the close of a long season.
“We have people who will come up a long way to get their tree,” said Ferrante. “We have been selling trees for 30 years and always had high quality trees so we do have a lot of repeat business, a lot of customers up from Westchester County and a lot of locals.”
The farm gets its trees from Christmas trees farms in Pennsylvania, selling Fraser and Douglas firs and Colorado blue spruces. Ferrante said that business hasn”™t changed much over the years except for one important improvement. “The trees are sheared better and are fuller than they were 30 years ago; the quality is better,” he said.
Fir trees have the best needle retention, he said, and the favorite size is about 7 to 8 feet, costing about $50.
The tree sales add up to big business. About 28.2 million farm-grown Christmas trees and 11.7 million artificial trees were sold nationally in 2008, according to Christmas Tree Growers association figures. Sales were down in both sectors from 2007, with the artificial tree sales down 35 percent, while real trees were down about 10 percent.
New York state ranks seventh nationally for Christmas tree production with about 1,000 Christmas tree growers, according to the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture, and harvests about 350,000 trees annually, valued at about $9 million, according to the state Department of Agriculture.
Fraser and Balsam firs are the most popular varieties in the state, according to the tree association. The average amount spent on a farm-grown tree in 2008 was $37. For artificial trees it was $61.
Â
The more adventurous tree lovers can journey to a farm and cut their own holiday centerpiece. Among the many tree farms in the Hudson Valley is Indigot Creek Christmas Tree Farm on Camp Stadie Rd in Middletown.
Â
Owner Richard Nicholas says that although tree growing is a side business, he spends time at the farm all twelve months of the year. But that the store is open, so to speak, only about eight days a year on weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.
He said that growing Christmas trees is a matter of delayed gratification, as it takes about a decade for him to produce a fir tree sized and shaped for brightening living rooms. He said the trees he plants are received from nurseries at aged two years.
He first planted trees in 1990 and said that although the market has been “pretty stable,” the farming has changed in his area, due to the influx of deer populations. “Deer can devour certain species of Christmas tree stock,” he said, especially in the winter months when there is now cover, deer brows on the tips of plants, producing misshapen trees. So he now grows exclusively blue and white spruce, which are deer resistant.
He said that his business is weather dependent in a different way than for other farmers since a single bad-weather weekend can cut substantially into his seasonal take. But even that is part of the program.
“That”™s the beauty about a choose-and-harvest Christmas tree farm: If it doesn”™t get sold it will grow for another year,” said Nicholas. “Everyone wants a big tree.”
