How's it Growing?
We counted! Doing the year end inventory of how things are.
As you may know, farmers are required to inventory their products at the end of the year. This year, my father helped me walk the rows and count the trees that are still alive. We had planted 100 each of Fraser Fir, Canaan Fir, Norway Spruce and White Pine. It turns out that many of them fell to the drought in 2023 and the results are rather sad:
- Fraser Fir 1 still alive
- Canaan Fir 1 still alive
- Norway Spruce 45 still alive
- White Pine 68 still alive
For you math people out there, that is a 28.75% success rate!
This invites all kinds of questions. Why did 1 of the Fraser Fir and Canaan Fir make it? We found out after planting that our elevation is much too low for Fraser Fir (native to Mount Mitchell area at least 2,000 feet above sea level and it probably is too low for Canaan Fir (which grows in higher elevations in WV). This was a hard lesson to not fall prey to the marketing claims of your supplier. I have since attended some Christmas Tree workshops with more experienced farmers who shared with me that the Firs just don’t like to grow in the Piedmont of Central Virginia.
The Norway Spruce and White Pine are doing quite well, but you still wonder, why such a high loss rate? Did we clip the roots a little too much? Should we have amended the soil a bit more? Should we do soil tests on the tree plantation? Should we have dug deeper holes? The answer is likely yes, to all.
Still, we are encouraged by the results. They say you pay for your experience and in this case, the value was there. Sure, we lost a hundred dollars or so on the dead plants, but we now know what grows well and where and I can easily replace the trees with new Norway Spruce and White Pine in the spring.
Meanwhile the wild pine trees are proliferating all around the perimeter – perhaps I will study their growing conditions next!
