I know you have some experience with Christmas tree farms. We looked into it pretty hard back in the late 80's. We were advised to start small, stagger the ages of the trees in different plots so we'd get a quicker harvest but be able to manage the learning curve because it wouldn't be overwhelming if a problem popped up. A one acre problem is easier to deal with than a 5 acre problem when you're just getting in to something. We'd have initially planted an acre of seedlings, an acres of 1 year olds, 2 year olds, and 3 year old trees and been able to start harvesting Christmas trees 3-4 years after planting. Then one more acre of seedlings each year after that. Once we got up to 10 acres in trees, we'd clear cut the oldest acre and start it over with seedlings. I don't know if this could be done with fruit trees, but I don't see why not. We've seen plenty of projects on TBN where the project do-er got overwhelmed or ran into a string of bad luck that was completely out of their control and ended up wiping the project. Anyhow, its just a way to lessen the chances of overwhelming failure VS going all-in on something. Kinda like the stock market!
For us, in the end, we decided the labor on Christmas trees was too intensive VS planting a forest of multiple species and managing it for veneer timber. We planted in '89 or 90 and the crop will start being harvested around 2040! :laughing: We went with alternating rows of pines and mixed hardwoods. The pines are single species (white) and they are expected to start dying out at about 50 years, which is about the time the mixed hardwoods are thickening up their trunks nicely. The pines grow fast in a pyramid shape, which forces the hardwood rows between them to stress for sunlight and reach straight up. The pines are around 40' now and the hardwoods are poking out past the tops nicely today. We got our first crop of acorns in there last year. Plenty of deer and turkeys. I think there's 7 species of oak, walnut, hickory, tulip poplar and a few others. That way a disease or pest probably won't wipe the entire crop. The white pines are the only mono species and they are at the point that if they go, the hardwoods will be OK now. Well, don't want to hijack the thread. Will keep watching the OPs progress.
