Household after household wander between rows of pine and cypress bushes. Dad and mom examine value tags and shapes, imagining how their stars and ornaments may look. Youngsters run via the cool December air and toddlers bounce alongside in wagons as all of them seek for the proper tree to chop down and take house for the vacations.
Jeffery Seiler’s household has run this 15-acre Christmas tree farm close to Seguin for greater than 40 years. He took over full-time from his father in 2001 and sees lots of the similar households come 12 months after 12 months.
“I’ve lots of repeat prospects. Folks have been coming right here a very long time,” Seiler stated.
Christmas bushes have been grown commercially at farms in Texas for many years, however trade specialists say the provision of Texas-grown bushes has exploded since 2020.
Texas added 100 new Christmas tree farms between 2017 and 2022, in accordance with knowledge from the U.S. Division of Agriculture. The acreage of Christmas tree farms practically quadrupled in that point.
There are a number of farms within the San Antonio space.
Quite a lot of that progress needed to do with the pandemic, stated Frank Raley. He leads Texas A&M’s Forest Service tree enchancment and nurseries division and stated Christmas tree growers benefited in 2020.
Households had been desirous to go open air and minimize down their very own Christmas bushes at native choose-and-cut farms throughout the pandemic, Raley stated. That pattern has caught.
“It actually blossomed throughout COVID,” he stated, including that some farms have added different vacation actions like Christmas pictures and sleigh rides to usher in prospects.
It’s been constant, regardless of challenges from droughts. Seiler crops round 2,000 bushes a 12 months and opens the day after Thanksgiving.
Christmas tree growers and retailers are laser-focused on sustaining this new recognition and competing towards the unreal tree market.
“Shopping for reside Christmas bushes in our trade is a plus,” stated Stan Reed, govt secretary of the Texas Christmas Tree Growers Affiliation. “The competitors is between reside Christmas bushes and synthetic bushes.”
Origins of Texas Christmas bushes
Texas-grown Christmas bushes don’t initially come from Texas.
Raley stated researchers at Texas A&M have been working with the Virginia Pine for the reason that Nineteen Eighties. They supply Texas tree growers with seeds and work collectively to breed extra adaptable bushes.
He stated researchers have bred bushes for adaptability and form, attempting to get bushes with the precise department distribution and energy.
“A lot of the farms are in East Texas, starting from Texarkana to Houston,” Raley stated. “Between the soils and the local weather, these circumstances are good.”
Seiler grows lots of Virginia Pines, together with the Lob Lolly, a local Texan tree, and Leyland and Carolina Sapphire cypress bushes.
The Virginia Pine has been round so lengthy, Raley added, that it’s now thought of a landrace. Meaning it’s not native, however it’s tailored to the Texas setting.
“They’ll stand a drought,” Raley stated. “They don’t do nicely in moist circumstances.”
Farmers can develop a six- to eight-foot tree in round 5 years, Raley stated, and replant after each vacation season in anticipation of Christmases that gained’t happen for years.
Meaning farmers need to stability this 12 months’s demand with progress for future years.
“I nonetheless see bushes on the market, however I’d save them for subsequent 12 months,” Seiler stated when surveying his farm.
What sort of bushes are offered at industrial heaps?
You may not see a kind of bushes at Christmas tree heaps in San Antonio. That’s as a result of most Texas-grown Christmas bushes are choose-and-cut. Many bushes at native heaps are from wholesalers in different components of the nation. Almost 4 million bushes had been harvested in Oregon in 2022, for instance.
When you’re shopping for a Christmas tree in San Antonio, it could be coming from Oregon’s McKenzie Farms.
Jim Donohue owns Vacation Hills Christmas Timber, which has 12 areas all through South Texas, together with in New Braunfels, Boerne and now downtown San Antonio.
Yearly, he brings in hundreds of bushes from the Pacific Northwest. Timber are packed into refrigerated vehicles full of 1,500 kilos of ice to maintain them contemporary till January, Donohue stated.
A lot of these are fir bushes and take longer to develop — seven to 9 years for Douglas Firs and as much as 12 years for Noble Firs, which Donohue known as the Cadillac of Christmas bushes.
Donohue stated massive farms like McKenzie additionally observed a rise in demand throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Wholesale Christmas tree farms within the Pacific Northwest have an oversupply now due to that bump in demand, he added.
“We’ve really dropped our costs this 12 months as a result of there’s such an oversupply within the Pacific Northwest,” Donohue stated. “Clients are noticing that on the lot stage.”
Shopping for reside
Reed and the Texas Christmas Tree Growers’ Affiliation see the 2 choices for reside bushes — shopping for choose-and-cut and heading to your native Christmas tree retail lot — as completely different markets. However competitors between these two choices isn’t as essential as competitors with synthetic Christmas bushes, he stated.
Donohue additionally talks up the significance of reside Christmas bushes. That’s why he was keen to drop his costs this 12 months.
“For me, the custom is extra essential,” he stated. “Promoting an actual Christmas tree is extra essential than incomes an additional $2.”
Donohue is optimistic that reside bushes will probably be extra aggressive available in the market this 12 months. A overwhelming majority of synthetic Christmas bushes are made abroad — 85% are made in China, in accordance with the Nationwide Christmas Tree Affiliation — and now are topic to tariffs.
Dwell Christmas bushes are additionally extra environmentally pleasant. They use much less plastic than synthetic bushes.
If Texans need reside bushes, although, they’ll have to maneuver rapidly. Seiler tells prospects that almost all of his greatest bushes are already gone. Final 12 months, he closed up store after the second week of December. This 12 months could possibly be even sooner.
That’s a pattern throughout Texas, Reed added.
“When you wait till the second week in December, you may not get something,” Reed stated.
