Small Tree Farm

Listening to Horticultural Friday on talk of Iowa and suddenly struck with inspiration. What if I started a little tree farm and offered sapling to people? Both people in my area and people on the forum. This would of course be at no cost except shipping.

Trees I'm sure I could grow: mulberry, walnut, shagbarks hickory, oak, and Kentucky coffee tree.

Opinions?

 

Nice idea, but you might run into legal issues for the same reasons that transporting firewood can be problematic.

 

That's possible. Will have to look into that.

 

We get saplings and small bushes from our county each spring. They are very cheap. You may want to check out your competition.

 

Wouldn't really call it competition, just trying to do a nice thing.

 

Well if its a hobby go for it. I love to plant things and watch them grow.

 

This has spurred a thought in my brain.
I'd like to mark an Oak sapling out in the woods, then take monthly pics with a yardstick next to it.
Do it every year to track growth, then put together a slideshow of the pics.
Who's up for a slideshow of a nice slow growing Oak? Cool, I'm on it like white on rice in a white bowl full of milk in a snowstorm.

 

In my state, one has to have a nursery dealers lisc. and a retail merchant certificate at the bare minimum. Then you get to pay sales taxes every month. Being a Not For Profit, might bring its own set of challenges which I cant comment on.
You need to be able to prove they are disease free, etc.

Indiana DNR sells saplings in bunches of 50 and 100 for next to nothing. Literally cents a piece. If your state sells saplings, just order them, and distribute and charge the associated costs to the people with no profit. You would still need the above liscensing.

 

Check this out. http://www.extension.iastate.edu/forestry/
And contact this guy.
Where Can You Find Information?
Contact: Dr. Jesse Randall by email or call 515-294-1168

They ought to be able to answer any questions that you have..

 

Thanks guys. I will shoot him and email in a bit.

 

Honestly, all those trees you listed are:
1.) TERRIBLE yard trees for those wanting to plant at a residence (litter your yard with nuts, pods, and brightly colored bird chit)
2.) Pretty freely available locally if you want to yank seedlings from the woods and transplant them to build timber stands. Your stress on the seedling and survival rate will be much higher if you pluck and plug within hours of each other.

Not knocking you, but just keeping it real.

If you want to do it as a hobby that has some intangible value, grow trees that AREN'T common to your area (ornamentals, evergreens, etc). You'd probably move more trees and drive up your satisfaction factor.

 

The hickory and the coffee tree are uncommon to my area. Point taken on the others, but wouldn't be surprised if someone wanted them. I wanted a mulberry tree once, now it's a big tree in my yard.

 

Fruit trees, maples, and flowering crabs, and blue spruce are about the most sought out tree around here. Most of the ones I have seen sell well are good size trees in heavy containers or with big burlap tightly wrapped root balls. There is a place not far from here that plants hundreds of small trees and sells them when they get some size to them. Fields of them growing in neat rows. He keeps the row neat and trimmed. Has to fight bugs and disease. Then there is the Maine winter! Fertilizing has to be done only at the right time to discourage late year growth that is not likely to harden off enough to survive winter. Then there are deer and mice that like to eat!
Very different from tree farms where they stick the shovel in, pull the each to open it, drop in a bare root seedling then pull out the shovel and the earth falls back over the tree roots. This can be done for evergreens.

 

Maples are like a plague here, at least reds and silver. More sugars would be good.

 

The ones that sell are not the domestic ones, but do very well in this climate. These have a predictable shape and fall color. The ones we call red maples have a deep burgundy colored leaf. They are not domestic.

 

I mean the actual red maple. They were planted a lot up this way, and they are all up and down the street I live on, part of a beautification project way back when and now they are dropping branches, limbs Etc. Took mine down three years ago, couldn't be happier.

 

Those are sunset maples. They are a engineered/hybridized variety.

 

Common names can often lead to confusion, especially when the same species is on several continents. I believe what savemoney was referring to is also commonly called a Norway Maple (Acer platanoides). There is a specific "cultivar" that has the deep crimson leaves. I don't think they are so much "engineered/hybridized" as they are referred to as a cultivar which means that they occurred naturally and someone has taken cuttings to keep the genetic properties of the tree over time. Googling "sunset maple" all of the links refer to the traditional red maple (Acer rubrum) which is also called a swamp maple or soft maple. That's the tree that Grizzly Adam was referring to. When in doubt, the Latin scientific name wins out over common names.

 

Right. But not all Norway maples are red. Crimson king Norway Maple is one like shown in your photo. Like most things here in Maine, names are often tight to the point. If you walkes into a nursery and asked for a red maple, you would be shown a varity of red Norway maple.

 

I agree.. Most Norway's are green. The two that were in my front yard while growing up were green. The one in the next door neighbor's yard was crimson. Green Norway's are often confused for Sugar Maples since the leaves are so similar in shape. My father was trying to buy a sugar maple years ago and got stuck with a Norway that is still growing in his yard. Which only supports my argument that when the common name is in doubt, use the latin name... Acer Rubrum (Red Maple), Quercus Rubra (Red Oak),