Christmas tree farms overcome dry summer & fall

LENNOX, SD (KELO) — We're approaching harvest time at South Dakota Christmas tree farms.

Growers say trees will be plentiful for the holidays despite the dry summer and fall.

Christmas trees are more than just a cash crop at Tannenbaum Tree Farm near Lennox.

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"I find growing the trees is a bit of an art form," Tannenbaum Tree Farm owner Tim Wassom said.

But the evergreen artistry is tested every year by weather.

"We've had years when it got so terribly hot and dry that we were planting young trees out that we lost with over 90-percent of what we planted," Wassom said.

Tim Wassom says timely rain in June made all the difference for his crop.

"And that really helped the younger trees and even the old trees take off. But then it didn't rain for months so that probably hurt the younger trees that weren't rooted in as well. But the bigger trees that are established, they did pretty well this year," Wassom said.

Riverview Christmas Tree Farm near Canton is already hearing from customers eager to cut their own trees for the upcoming holidays.

"We're starting to get a lot of emails, text messages, phone calls. We also have a pre-tag event here in two weekends where folks can come out and tag their tree before they cut it, so slots for that are starting to fill up," Riverview Christmas Tree Farm owner Todd Gannon said.

Riverview Farm installed an irrigation system three years ago that can shoot 3/4 of an inch of water over an area spanning a football field in about 12 hours' time.

"And so, every 12 hours, we're moving to a different section of the field. If we run 24 hours a day and get two pulls a day, we can cover the farm in about five days," Gannon said.

Gannon says this is as good a crop of trees as he's had in five years, making this holiday season a cut above the rest.

"As South Dakotans, we just work hard to adapt and overcome," Gannon said.

Riverview Christmas Tree Farm opens for the season on November 23rd.

Tannenbaum Tree Farm opens on Black Friday.