Sales at Christmas tree farms healthy after long, dry spell
Sales are booming, and tree farmers say crops are only now showing recovery from an extended drought.
By ROBERT KING
Published December 6, 2003
[Times photos: Kevin White]
Lacy Lapio of Lutz and her sons Michael, 3, and Brendan, 18 months, search for the perfect Christmas tree at Ergle Family Christmas Tree Farm in Hernando County on Friday. Tree farm operators say abundant rain has made for greener, fuller trees this season.
Ergle Family Christmas Tree Farm worker Sami Luis helps 3-year old Michael Lapio cut down a Christmas tree Friday. Michaels' family moved from Texas, and his mother, Lacy, found the tree farm by searching online.
Heading into one of their most important weekends of the year, the folks at the Ergle Family Christmas Tree Farm near Dade City are smiling at their prospects.
In the early days of the tree-cutting season, business has been booming. And owners Tony and Debbie Harris say a year of abundant rainfall seems to have made the trees a little greener, a little fresher and possibly a bit fuller than in the recent past.
"This year's crop has been amazingly beautiful," said Tony Harris. "Sales are up. Everyone seems to be in a shopping, spending mood."
Forgive Harris for a little holiday exuberance. Christmas tree growers have been looking for hope since 1998, when the state was hit by a lengthy drought, the effects of which are still being felt in an industry where it takes four or five years for the crop to mature.
The drought, it seems, is the Grinch that keeps on giving headaches.
Michael Songer, president of the Florida Christmas Tree Association, said this year's rains were a welcome blessing. But he noted that it is still hard to find a Florida-grown tree taller than 8 feet.
"This year has been good, but the drought years before it have hurt this year's harvest," he said.
The Ergle farm lost 11,000 trees to the drought in 1998. Two years ago, the Lazy Lay Acres Christmas Tree Farm, also near Dade City, lost a year's worth of seedlings that weren't helped by the drought.
"We've just never recovered," said Jewel Lay, the farm's owner.
This year, the rains fell early and often. In fact, a little too often.
Lay said the constant dampness caused many of his trees to succumb to disease and fungi.
"It's more or less a break-even deal," Lay said of the Christmas tree business.
The Ergle farm was partially flooded this summer by the Withlacoochee River. When the water receded, about 75 tall Leyland cypress trees were dead. Harris chopped them down, but hasn't decided yet whether he will replant the area. The farm usually gets $24 for a 6-foot tree, $28 for a 7-footer and $32 for an 8-footer, the most common heights.
State agriculture officials say more than 120,000 Christmas trees are harvested each year in Florida. The most common Florida-grown trees are the sand pine, the Leyland cypress and the prickly tree that most native Floridians grew up with, the Southern red cedar.
In the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture census, Florida ranked 21st nationally in terms of revenue from Christmas tree harvest.
As happy as Harris is this season, he looks wistfully at yellowed newspaper clippings from the 1980s that carry pictures of the Ergle fields when they were full of tall, fat trees of green.
Those were the days when Harris could count on afternoon rainstorms every day during the summer. Before the drought, the Ergle farm relied purely on the heavens to provide water for the Christmas trees. These days, miles of black irrigation hose snake through the farm.
"In the past, it wasn't hard to grow a tree," said Harris. "I hope the rain cycle is going to get better."
To supplement their businesses - and cater to the tastes of transplanted Northerners - Florida growers truck in trees from states such as North Carolina and Michigan. Popular imports include the Fraser and Douglas firs, Scotch pines and blue spruce.
Already, the Ergle farm has sold three semitrailers full of imported trees this year.
Janet Johnson, a clerk at South Sumter Middle School in Webster, has been taking her kids and grandchildren to the Ergle farm for years. And she says she has never bought a bad tree there.
But when she was looking for a big tree to fill her school's front office, the $95 she plunked down went for a 10-foot-tall Fraser fir that arrived Sunday from North Carolina.
When it came off the truck, Harris said, it still had snow on it.
- Robert King can be reached at 352 848-1432. Send e-mail to rking@sptimes.com
