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3. Sharecropping - Several Christ- mas Tree farmers are getting older and thinking about retiring. There are opportunities for new farmers to get into the business by sharecropping with existing farms. The new farmer would have to take over some portion of the farm operation based upon a financial arrangement with the farm owner. This would poten- tially allow the new farmer to im- mediately be in the business with a revenue streamwithout substan- tial outlays for equipment, etc. This option also benefits the farm owner with tax and other benefits. The remaining portion of the article will assume the reader is doing option 1 above, starting a farm from scratch. Several of the points below would ap- ply to options 2 and 3 above also.

• Forrest & Linda Hamilton, staffing • Cheryll Green, staffing • Ron & Loraine Hoke, staffing • Sue Bostic, staffing • Jeff & Sandy Miller, staffing and takedown The goal is to get consumers to Experi- ence a Real Virginia Grown Christmas tree, to get back to basics, to carry on family traditions with a truly ‘Green’ eco-friendly tree. The State Fair had its highest attend- ance record since 2011 with over 250,000 attending during a great sunny weather stretch in a wet summer and fall. Food sales and carnival sales both increased as well as increased participa- tion the the livestock exhibitions, 4-H and FFA youth competitions and youth arts and crats entries. The 2019 State Fair will a run from September 27 to October 6.

Do You Want to Get into the Christmas Tree Business? Written by Paris Rasnic, Moose Apple Christmas Tree Farm Tips and Recommendations Background: My wife and I operate a Choose & Cut Christmas Tree Farm in Berryville, VA as a true Agri-Tour- ism-Business. Northern Virginia and the DC metropolitan area provides an unlimited potential customer base. Our biggest problem is lack of trees to sell. There is a shortage of Choose & Cut farms in Northern Virginia and that provides a great opportunity for anyone that would like to start a Christmas Tree Agri-Business. Purpose of this article: This article is to introduce future farmers to some tips and recommendations and also where to look for help. For example, MENTORING with an existing tree farm. There are basically 3 ways to get into the Christmas Tree Farm busi- ness: 1. Start your own farm from scratch. Will take about 8 years before you have trees ready for sale. 2. Buy an exist- ing es- tablished farm . Should be able to have trees to sell first year.

A. How big? It depends upon how much time and effort you want to put into the farm and agri-business. I will try to provide some guidelines to help you decide. For the sake of discus- sion, let's assume the trees are being sold for an average of $60 each in Northern Virginia. The prices are climbing and in 8 years, the averages should be much higher. If you plant your trees on a 5 by 5 grid for 7-8 foot trees, (larger trees would require a larger spacing) you could get up to 1,500 trees per acre. On my farm I separate the rows by 8 feet and get ap- proximately 1,000 trees per acre. Seedlings take approximately 8 years to become 7-8 foot trees. Therefore, you can plan on selling approximately

VCTGA at the Floyd County Fair

Robert O’Keeffe, Rifton Farm and Nursery, and VCTGA Direc- tor, and Eric Underwood, Willow Springs Tree Farms, set up and staffed an exhibit at the Floyd County Fair in August promoting “Experience a Real Virginia Grown Christmas Tree”.

VCTGA News Journal ‒ Winter 2019 VCTGA News Journal – Winter 2019

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