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Under the tinsel and lights of the holidays is a big business in Indiana. The Christmas tree in your home, school or business may very well have come from an Indiana Christmas tree farm.

Tucked between our corn-and-bean-covered hills and flatlands, another crop has taken root: Christmas trees, hundreds of thousands of Christmas trees. Pine trees and fir trees are tended, trimmed and cared for 11 months out of the year to become the focal point in millions of homes each December.

According to the 2002 agriculture census (taken every seven years) and the National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA), Indiana ranks 12th nationally in number of Christmas trees harvested with 186,000 out of the 20,808,000 the country provides.

Our total of 5,630 acres makes us the 15th largest state (447,000 acres nationally). Indiana ranks 16th in the nation with its 373 farms out of 22,000 across the country.

Although no recent figures are available, Christmas trees are a multi-million dollar business that employs hundreds of Hoosiers.

And it isn’t easy money. “It is very, very hard work,” says Judy Reifenberg, secretary/treasurer of the Indiana Christmas Tree Growers Association (ICTGA). “The mowing, the weeding, keeping the bugs down takes so much time. Trimming is a huge operation. They all get touched and the tops cleaned off.

“But it is fun. It is a full-time job my husband and I do in our extra time.”

Indiana Christmas tree farms come in many sizes. Some sell thousands of trees each year; some sell no more than 100 to 125 trees.

The Reifenbergs, who own and operate St. Joe Christmas Tree Farm near Fort Wayne (www.stjoetreefarm.com), maintain 23 acres and 20,000 to 23,000 trees. This year they will probably harvest about 1,200. The rest will be harvested in later years.

That’s how it works. Each year a tree farmer chooses what parts of his blocks of trees are ready. They will receive a final trimming, be cut down, then either set out on the retail lot or baled and loaded on a truck to be shipped to a retailer.

Although most people prefer Christmas trees with that easy-to-spot triangular shape, most trees don’t grow that way. The Scotch and white pines commonly grown in Indiana have no particular natural shape. The trees must be trimmed and shaped before they look like a traditional Christmas tree.

Around the first week in June, earlier depending on the part of the state and the weather, the trimming begins. That process needs to be finished by the beginning of July so the trees fill out for harvest.

The cut ground receives new plantings from seedlings the farmer gets from a nursery to restart the cycle of plant and harvest.

Unlike a corn crop that may be planted, grown and harvested all in one season, Christmas trees take five to 10 years, depending on the species and how tall the farmer wants them to be. A Christmas tree farm takes at least five years before it reaches a financial break-even point and a few years beyond that to begin to show a significant profit.

The NCTA wrote this about the hardships of the business: “Much of the normal cultural work, such as mowing, shearing, and pest control, must be done within the growing season, and frequently when the weather is hot or disagreeable.

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