Any tree farm/nursery growers here on tbn?

spruce Deere · Jun 9, 2012

To be able to sell trees, nursery stock, your farm products must pass state inspections for bugs, noxious weeds, fungus. AND If you are gunna sell into foreign countrys such as Canada, California and the new one Washington state, you need a thing called a phytosanitary which is like a state inspection but has government smeared on it.

So, you asked what makes a tree unsellable.... If the state finds a harmful bug infestation in your stock or noxious weeds growing amongst marketable stock, or a contagious fungus in your stock, you cannot sell anything till the pest is removed from stock. State can quarantine your stuff if it see's the need..... Could ruin a seasons worth of selling...... A hale storm at the wrong time can do severe amount of damages to trees..... One amorous buck proud of his antlers can do untold damage to trees if not guarded properly.

Hay, well The best way I found how to do hay is not to, allergies solved that. Soy beans, I don't know. Never have grown them. Sure there is caveats with those too.

techwrtr2 · Jun 10, 2012

So it's not an appearance thing then. I can see where .gov wouldn't want you to sell trees with bugs etc. Moving stuff around without care seems to cause us problems.

JT on a JD · Jun 10, 2012

Not quite a tree farm/nursery, but I do have 75 pecan trees on 5+ acres in Central Texas. If the rains cooperate, I might be able to pull in a small harvest for the first time this fall!

spruce Deere · Jun 10, 2012

Well tech, Aesthetics are in the eyes of the customer. Some like short, full trees and some like a layered tall or a layered short tree. Some like blue trees some like green trees....:laughing: Important thing is I make sure they are healthy and free of noxious anythings

JT I know what it is like to wait years in growing trees for a harvest, of any kind. If I could shove all of the rain we are having lately, averaging an inch per 24 hours here and going on a week now, I would graciously oblige.:thumbsup: And welcome to TBN!

ncnurseryman · Jun 10, 2012

Tech, it is very much an appearance issue as well. People expect perfection on a plant and that is often difficult to do when working with hundreds or thousands of plants. They all do not grow the same, some do well, some do not. You just have to try and provide the best conditions for growth and keep a constant watch on them and it is a year round maintenance concern as well. It's like any other agricultural endeavor, you are at the mercy (somewhat) to nature. You just don't hear about the nursery industry when the news talks about agriculture issues. That revolves around food production.

techwrtr2 · Jun 10, 2012

I'm not critical of the need you have when it comes to what the customer will buy. Most folk seem a bit foolish.

What I am pondering is if I could convince sellers to offload trees they'd otherwise junk. I need trees but really don't care if they are perfect. Heaven knows they won't stay perfect where I'm planting. Only thing I care about is that they grow and not carry disease.

ncnurseryman · Jun 10, 2012

Probably so, I always have a heavy discounted scratch and dent sale to move plants that are good but maybe not full retail quality. I am thankful for folks like yourself that can see that a not perfect specimen can still turn out to be a nice tree or shrub. I often plant them at the nursery and at home and they often thrive. I hate throwing them out and would rather sell them at a discount than not at all.

spruce Deere · Jun 10, 2012

Oh, 10-4 on that

We sell some of the the "phugly" trees at a discount. Still costs to dig'em and such.

Furu · Jun 10, 2012

ncnurseryman said:
. It's like any other agricultural endeavor, you are at the mercy (somewhat) to nature. You just don't hear about the nursery industry when the news talks about agriculture issues. That revolves around food production.

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.

Tractor Seabee · Jun 10, 2012

Furu said:
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.

Ain't that the truth. We only lost a few more dead alders last winter. I doubt I can even burn as fire wood all that stuff before it rots. Some is virtually inaccessible in wet areas except with a long winch line. Luckily my wet areas are not on the county/state maps as wetlands so I can selectively pull out stuff for firewood. Due to liability issues I will not allow others to cut firewodd and there is not a big enough return/labor to try and market it as cordwood; getting too old for that anyway.