page_title: Christmas tree cultivation
section_title: Harvest
hierarchical_section_title: Christmas tree cultivation / Cultivation / Harvest
caption_attribution_description: Customers at a Christmas tree farm cutting down their own Christmas tree.
context_page_description: Christmas tree cultivation is an agricultural, forestry, and horticultural occupation which involves growing pine, spruce, and fir trees specifically for use as Christmas trees.
  The first Christmas tree farm was established in 1901, but most consumers continued to obtain their trees from forests until the 1930s and 1940s. Christmas tree farming was once seen only as a viable alternative for low-quality farmland, but that perception has changed within the agriculture industry. For optimum yield and quality, land should be flat or gently rolling and relatively free of debris and undergrowth.
  A wide variety of pine and fir species are grown as Christmas trees, although a handful of varieties stand out in popularity. In the United States, Douglas-fir, Scots pine and Fraser fir all sell well. Nordmann fir and Norway spruce sell well in the United Kingdom, the latter being popular throughout Europe. Like all conifers, Christmas trees are vulnerable to a range of pests.
context_section_description: Christmas trees can be harvested and marketed in different ways. Some operations are known as "choose-and-cut" or pick-your-own farms, which allow customers to walk through the planted land, select their Christmas tree and cut down themselves. Wholesale operations are more labor-intensive because they usually require the farmer to complete tasks such as baling, cutting, moving the trees to a roadside pick-up, and loading the harvest. In addition, this work must be completed during a very short period in November. Growers also harvest trees by digging and balling the root and selling the trees as nursery stock or as live, reusable Christmas trees. This last option allows trees to be harvested earlier than the usual six- to ten-year period required to grow a mature Christmas tree.
  Larger farms began using helicopters to move tree harvests during the 1980s. One 1,200-acre (490 ha) farm in Oregon lacked road access, so it began using helicopters to move up to 200,000 Christmas trees per year. Helicopters reduce the amount of time between harvesting and market, cutting it from up to two weeks down to as little as three days.
  Not all natural Christmas trees harvested are grown on plantations. In British Columbia, Canada, for example, most of the 900,000 trees harvested for use as Christmas trees came from native pine and fir stands. The British Columbia Ministry of Forests and Ranges allows any resident of the province to cut a Christmas tree for free from Crown Lands, provided the individual receive prior permission in writing from a forest officer.  In the United States, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management offer permits for individual tree cutting on government land, mostly within the National Forest system.
caption: Customers, armed with a saw, at a typical "choose-and-cut" Christmas tree farm
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