LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Christmas Tree: Christmas Tree Farm
built 141 days ago
As October settles in, Wisconsin Christmas tree farmers sweep out their sheds and sharpen their cutting tools. The wholesale harvest usually starts the last weekend in October on the Treml Tree Farm in Butternut. Owners Mike and Marge Treml tend 30 acres of trees, working with a crew of seven to 10 workers to cut and bale 2,000 to 2,500 trees each year. Wholesalers buy about 75 percent of the crop. The Tremls sell the remaining trees to area residents and visitors — usually hunters stopping for their trees as they head back to Illinois or even Florida.
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In the past, Christmas trees were often harvested from wild forests, but now almost all are commercially grown on tree farms. Almost all Christmas trees in the United States are grown on Christmas tree farms where they are cut after about ten years of growth and new trees planted. According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agriculture census for 2002 (the census is done every five years) there were 21,904 farms were producing conifers for the cut Christmas tree market in America, 180,897 hectares (447,006 acres) were planted in Christmas trees, and 13,849 farms harvested cut trees. The top 5 percent of the farms (40 hectares / 100 acres or more) sold 61 percent of the trees. The top 26 percent of the farms (8 hectares / 20 acres or more) sold 84 percent of the trees. Farms less than 0.8 hectare (two acres) comprised 21 percent of the farms, and sold an average of 115 trees per farm.[16]
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Most Christmas trees in Canada are produced from tree seeds put in seed beds for a period of two years before they are moved to transplant beds. The transplants remain in the transplant bed for a period of three years. They are then moved into Christmas tree farms. It will then take between7 and 10years before the trees reach 2metres and are therefore ready to be harvested.
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Christmas tree quality grades have been in place since 1965 in Ontario, Canada, and were included under the provincial Farm Products Grades and Sales Act.[22] While the grades in Ontario are law, in the United States the grading system is not mandated. In fact, it is common for U.S. growers to develop their own grading systems.[34] The grading systems established by individual jurisdictions are often in the spirit of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) grading scheme, even if they are not entirely based upon them.[35] The Department of Agriculture's United States Standards for Grades of Christmas Trees took effect on October 30, 1989, covering "sheared or unsheared trees of the coniferous species which are normally marketed as Christmas trees".[29]
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Christmas tree farms sprang up during the depression. Nurserymen couldn't sell their evergreens for landscaping, so they cut them for Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferred because they have a more symmetrical shape then wild ones.
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The most hazardous and second-most common pesticide in North Carolina Christmas tree farming is Di-Syston 15-G, a powder traditionally applied with a bucket and measuring spoon. “If one grain gets in your boot, and your foot sweats, by the end of the day, you could be dead,” says Richard Boylan, an alternative agriculture agent with the North Carolina State University Cooperative Extension.
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Christmas Tree Farm