Farms and Conservation

Read a great article recently in the Missouri Conservationist magazine about Christmas Tree farms working in conjunction with the conservation department.  Provides great information about farms starting out and how they operate.  One of the featured farms is Meert Tree Farm, members of NCTA.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/114456728/MO-Dept-of-Conserv-Article

It's tree time again!

Thanksgiving is the earliest it can be on the calendar this year (Nov 22) so we're already at "tree time." We thought we'd share a few tidbits from the autumn before many tree lots and tree farms open up on Friday. Interesting email question from October, with my reply in GREEN.

From: Alyssabeth
Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2012 4:13 AM
To: NCTA-Rick Dungey
Subject: Fake Tree Hazard

Hello,

My name is Alyssabeth.  This is my daughter first Christmas and she will be 9 months old.  We bought a fake tree a few years back before we had any kiddos.

My concern is I went online to find out about Christmas tree safety for the little ones only to find out that most fake trees contain lead. And so do Christmas lights. I am now freaking out and ready to toss my tree and all the lights into the trash. I don't know if i should because my Christmas tree box box and such say nothing about containing lead. I am worried. My tree is from China I purchased it at a retail store called Wal-Mart. Its a 6.5 foot Jackson Spruce Model Number : M-P70501.

Basically i want to know if i should worry or what i should do. About Christmas lights as well. 

Please tell me you can help me out here with advice and such.  Thank you for your time and consideration

Here’s some of the information we have gathered about the plastic, tree-shaped decorations.  http://realchristmastrees.org/dnn/Education/FakeTrees.aspx

The one thing I can guarantee is that a fresh, farm-grown Christmas Tree is a plant, and therefore does NOT contain lead.

Here are some other things going on as we head into the harvest and sales season.

Trees for Troops kicked off it's 8th year this week with the shipment of trees bound for troops deployed overseas.  Read about it here Trees for Troops Facebook Page

The White House Christmas Tree will be delivered and presented on Friday, November 23.  Look for great stories about the tree and this year's Grand Champion farm presenting the tree, Peak Farms from Jefferson, NC.  The Estes family are the owners.  Great people and a great story.

The NCTA web site got an overhaul this year, both aesthetically and programming-wise.  The "tree locator" has a new functionality based on a map generator, rather than just a list generator.  Check it out.  www.realchristmastrees.org

It won't be long now before we start getting lots of email questions about trees ...how to pick one, how to care for one, how to recycle one.  You can browse old blog entries to see some of the more common questions we get and the answers to see if the answer to your question can be found.  Of course, you are always welcome to send us an email anyway.  We'll be happy to answer it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Tree and Drought

Lots of media stories out there about how drought in some areas are "hurting Christmas trees". Not a lot of understanding how a Christmas tree farm is managed though. Summer weather patterns don't really impact trees harvested later this year. Those are more mature trees with well-established root systems so they're not as susceptible to seasonal weather patterns as are younger trees. Low rain fall, excessive rain fall, early cold snap, bugs, disease...any number of those types of environmental factors could cause a tree to go into dormancy earlier than typical. Regardless, by the time they are harvested around Thanksgiving or later, the environmental conditions on the farm have changed much since summer time anyway. The seedlings farmers planted in the Spring however, can be damaged by excessive or insufficient rain fall. Mortality rates of newly planted seedlings can go up due to weather extremes. This is the risk any farmer faces regardless of the crop being raised. Consumers should not worry about the quality of trees they can find this year no matter what the weather was like in the summer.

Guest Blog from New Jersey Farmer

Guest blog from a farmer in New Jersey. We're not advocating one way or the other, just thought it would be interesting to share.

Subject: anti-farm laws not the answer Dear farmer friend, I received a request from an animal rights group seeking my farm’s support of a bill in the NJ State Senate. The authors of the bill claim that it will outlaw farmers’ abuse of animals by “using pens so small that nursing pigs cannot stand up or lie down.” It seems that they also feel that this law will “level” the playing field between those big greedy corporate conglomerates and us nice little friendly family farms (kind of a clever way to get our support, don’t you think?). I know of not a single NJ farm where pigs are in pens so small that they cannot stand up or lie down. Perhaps this group does. If so, I wish they would tell me the name and address of those farms. Although I no longer raise livestock (I grow choose and cut Christmas trees), I have had many years of experience raising pigs in the past. It is important to provide appropriate pens for nursing sows so that baby piglets are not crushed by the mother. What may appear to the inexperienced observer as a “cruel” process of restricting a sow’s movement is actually a method of keeping the babies alive. When I raised pigs, the farrowing pens were about 10’ x 10’ and had, what we referred to as, baby bumpers on all sides. The mother would lean against a wall and basically “flop down” to a prone position. Without the bumpers, babies would get squished without the mother pig even realizing what she had done. There may be a very small minority of farmers who actually abuse animals. That, I find despicable. But there are already laws on the books and more than adequate agencies to enforce those laws. I don’t buy into the concept that family farms (like mine) are in conflict with “industrial operations,” as this group implies. There is more than enough room for all of us in this country and I do not consider farms larger than my own to be the “enemy.” I have always been very reluctant to support new restrictions on agricultural endeavors. It’s hard enough being a farmer these days without “Big Brother” placing restriction after restriction on our activities. I believe that farmers (both small and large operations) have the best interest of animals as a top priority. I am sure that members of this group have only the best intentions in promoting new laws regarding farming. However, I have found that so many of the animal “rights” organizations simply don’t understand (or don’t wish to understand) the nature of farming. Farmers are good people. And left alone, we will do the right thing...for our farms and for our animals. It is for that reason that Shale Hills Farm cannot endorse this legislation. Mike Garrett Shale Hills Farm Sussex, NJ

Learning in a new language

A student named Anna Galovich translated one of the lesson plans in the RealTrees4Kids! online curriculum for a communications class project and it's really good. Kind of a neat story.

Here's the original lesson plan in RT4K! http://www.realtrees4kids.org/sixeight/cycles.htm and here's the translation page she did http://webhostinggeeks.com/science/realtrees-4kids-et

Factory or Farm?

So you often read comments here or on the NCTA site saying something like "you either have a real tree grown on a farm or a plastic decoration made in a factory" ...something like that.

Factory vs farm.

Pretty clear choice really.

So this article came out describing a factory in Thailand that makes plastic tree decorations out of raw materials made in China and even it's having a hard time competing again factories in China making the same products.
http://bit.ly/vXseol

I'm sure David Addington at the Heritage Foundation would be proud. According to him, real Christmas trees grown here by American farm families don't have an image problem and don't need to do any marketing to compete with fake trees made in China.

Americana History

Quick post...


Someone sent this link to us. It has some awesome old photos of shop fronts during Christmas time and old family photos with Christmas trees during the 20s. Check it out: http://www.papatedsplace.com/Christmas1920s.html


I found this awesome commentary article by Brad Stanhope. The comments are particularly amusing.http://bit.ly/skfTfB


Airports can be...well, to be honest, somewhat drab and depressing. But sometimes, when they are decked out in Christmas decor they can be uplifting. Earlier this month I had to travel to a meeting and connecting through O'Hare airport in Chicago I was impressed with the terminal for K and H concourses. I actually didn't mind connecting through O'Hare that day. The photo is from my phone so it's not the best but I wanted to share anyway. Talk about "decking the halls"!