News Articles

September 2004

How Come You are Making So Much Money? asks author Bill Warren in TreeTalk (Georgia Christmas Tree Association, September ’04). “. . . you need to maximize the income from selling trees as much as you can if you are going to prevail in this business. Even so, income from this activity certainly will not make you rich. So the question is are you charging enough for your trees? . . . Higher prices for food, fuel, and household goods will eventually result in much higher expenses to you for raising and selling your trees. Probably this will be much sooner than you would hope for. I would submit if you sell out early in December you are not charging enough. If everyone who visits your farm buys a tree you are not charging enough. And if you do not price some large high quality trees for high-end customers, you are not charging enough. . . You shouldn’t work for free or at best two labor grades below prisoner of war. Think about it.”

Pacific Northwest Growers Adopt SOD-Free Certification Program (Christmas Tree Outlook, Fall ’04, Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Assn). “Even though it’s ‘extremely unlikely’ that Christmas trees grown in Oregon and Washington have been or will be infected with Sudden Oak Death (SOD), growers in both states nonetheless are having the trees certified by their respective states to assure buyers that they have nothing to worry about. . . . Essentially, both Oregon and Washington are following the testing protocol developed by USDA.” Both Gary McAninch (ODA’s nursery and Christmas tree program supervisor) and Tom Wessels (WSDA Plant Services program manager) “believe that the chances of any Christmas tree grown in a managed plantation in Oregon or Washington testing positive for SOD are very slim. . . . ‘Even if a harvested Christmas tree were to be infected with SOD, there’s not much of a chance the disease would spread to trees in the wild,’ said Wessels, ‘because the tree is put up inside a home and then chipped or dumped into a landfill.’”

Choppers Chop Harvest Costs reports Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association’s Christmas Tree Outlook (Fall ’04). “Each November, helicopters from around the West converge on Oregon and Washington for the beginning of the Christmas tree harvest. Northwest Christmas tree growers have been using helicopters to harvest their crops for over a quarter of a century now, and with great success. The biggest advantage, all will tell you, is the very significant savings involved in moving trees from the field to trucks or to staging areas.” One plantation manager notes, “What’s going to make or break you is the pilot . . . safety is also important. . . . Wind plays a very important role.” The article notes, “Helicopters come from as far away as Texas and Alaska for the Northwest Christmas tree harvest. During the peak of the season it has been said that there will be two hundred or more operating between Medford and Seattle.”

Archived articles
2006: Current | Jan - Mar
2005: Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | July | Aug | Sep | Oct
2004: December | November | October | September | August | July | June