About Us

Treefarm For Sale

Introduction

Who You Are

Growth Trends

Why It Works

Future Directions

Low Hanging Fruit

Seasonal Cycle

Due Diligence

How It Works

Next Step

What You Get

Notes

Future Directions

The farm is ready to grow. There are many possibilities, many directions that beckon. Some additional money needs to be spent. Some of these projects just mean more work. Some require considerable development and cash input. This is the overview. Most of these options have a note further on that gives a bit more detail. Spend some time with the notes. Set up trial spreadsheets using some of the provided numbers. See what you think. (If you do it as a google sheet, we can interact over it.)

Trees

This section is stuff that can be started now, and that mostly requires work, and not cash.

• Increase marketing for seedling tree sales. Note: Seedlings

• Increase the production of shelterbelt trees, especially poplar. I used to try to maintain inventory of 200 of each shelterbelt species. Now I try for 500 to 1000, and I'm still selling trees before they are ready. Note: Shelterbelt Production

• Increase the production of caliper trees. The present growbag system can produce 1.5" trees from a seedling a a few years, with very little attention. Using the next size bag, this can be increased to 2" Note: Caliper Trees

• Expand edible landscaping niche. At present we sell several kinds of apples, cherries, plums, saskatoons, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, as well as some oddities such as grapes, sea buckthorn and goji berries. Directions to go: Russian pears. Develop our own in-house grafting to produce more varieties. Container gardening of blueberries and dwarf cherries. Most edibles are bought ready to sell. This is fast turn around, but requires additional marketing. Note: Edible Landscaping

• Expand Ornamentals niche. We bring in 10 of this, 20 of that to test the waters. About half do well. I look for interesting plants that are not sold by the big box stores. Note: Buyingfor_Resale_ Like fruit, this is fast turn around, with a marketing bottleneck.

• Expand native trees and shrubs. There is increasing interest in xeriscaping and native landscapes. Large market in reclamation, smaller one in landscaping. Note: Native Trees City of edmonton has a trial program where growers can plant native species in big planters in the city, with a sign from the vendor. They will water the planter. We were asked to participate, but declined for now.

• Create a plug facility to grow 1 year old trees in 120 ml plugs. This is primarily a support action for all of the above. Many species are not available as small trees. Note: Plugs

• Branch into perennials, especially native perennials. [No note yet]

Land Use

Most of the items in this section have no direct immediate payoff. Instead they are infrastructure changes, or they have payoffs a decade or more from now. These are significant if you like the idea of teaching workshops. Many of these can become income streams in their own right, but may be distracting from your primary focus.

• Start in-planting sugar maple, and silver maple into the existing bush and along the edges., along with oak, black walnut, and other shade tolerant trees Notes: Sugar Bush
• Start setting up agroforestry demo plots. Some of these can develop into income streams. Some will just be used to teach others. Notes: Wildcrafting
• Add more shelterbelts, creating more edges. Notes: Shelterbelts
• Plant seed orchards of desirable trees, once you work out the tricks to grow from seed. Notes: Seed orchards
• Use some of the remaining land for field grown trees. Caution: This is how everyone else does it. Margins are tight. _Notes: Field Trees
• Set up a field operation for cut-your-own-Christmas Trees. We get a few dozen calls a year about this. Notes: Christmas Trees

Cash Flow, Brand Awareness and New & Expanding Markets

• Additional features on website Note: Website

• Add installation options for people willing to pay. Note: Installations

• Create a better retail experience. Note: Retail

• Added value items to the sale: Fertilizer, irrigation, weed barrier, bulk peat moss. If the farm uses it, we should consider selling it.

• Dip into perennial production, carrying things that are NOT carried at the big box stores.

• Pursue government and large corporate contracts. Note: Government Contracts

• Develop more ways to market. At present we have a good website, and use kijiji heavily. We tried adwords for 2 years, and found that overall it increased web traffic by about 10%. _ Note: Branding_

• Run workshops for a fee. Becoming a hub for teaching people about trees, we not only add another income stream, but this builds brand awareness.
  Note: Workshops

• Pursue agroforestry. Find out what can be grown as a useful product within a poplar bush. Shiitake mushrooms? Black Walnut? Hazelnuts? Once you develop some expertise, this is another workshop course. Associated with this is Poplar bush reforestation.
  Notes: Wild Crafting

• Make SFTF a destination for reasons other than tree shopping. If you have restroom facilities, then groves in the woods could be used as a wedding destination. Family Reunions. Camping BnB. Notes: New Destination

Heading for the Future

• Get in front of climate change. Start testing trees for the climate of 2040 now. Notes: Climate Change
• Breed a better columnar aspen. Notes: A Better Swedish Aspen
• Siberian Larch organic fence post and flooring, and get a carbon credit for it. Notes: Carbon Farming

Infra-structure Required for Expansion

• Soil mixer. Present one is adequate for current needs. A better mixer would run about $20,000 U.S. but would be able to handle the heavier mixes we use, and do so at about 4 minutes per batch. I recommend H. C. Davis for this. Note a 10 HP motor (mentioned in their spec sheet for a 1 cubic yard mixer) at full load draws 28 A at 230v 3phase. It may be possible to use a smaller motor with lower gear ratios. Or by using a variable frequency drive. This overall implies a 50 A service out to the potting table. I’m still not up to speed on this.

• Additional well. We are irrigating about all we can with our 5 gpm supply. Another well, constructed closer to the trees would at least triple the water available. Approximate cost 12-20 thousand Canadian. A 25 gpm well pump at 100 psi (at the bottom of the well) needs a 2 HP pump. Again a variable speed drive makes the pump far more efficient and saves wear and tear on the system. 7A current running at full power.

• Cold room for seedling/bare root tree storage. At present we try to get bare root stock either sold or potted within 3 weeks of arrival. Deliveries are staged to keep to an approximation of this schedule. A cold room that is kept just above freezing can extend this period by several weeks, and allows consolidation of multiple delivery orders into a single package. It also allows us to answer the requests that come in June.

We have one at present, made from a 12x12 shed with 10 barrels of water that freeze to ice. The outside of the shed is wrapped with bales. In 2017 we had ice to the end of May. In 2018 we stuffed all cracks with additional straw. I expect this to give us an additional week.

An ice based cold room would use R40 e walls and R60 ceiling, but otherwise is just a shed. Given the way seedling demand has been growing, I would make a cold house about 24 feet square. Construction would put the ice below the floor in a 16 foot square x 5 foot deep well, covered with duck boards. A coil of several hundred feet of 1/2” low pressure drip line would lie in the bottom, with another several hundred feet placed outside on a frame that shed snow. Coils filled with anti-freeze. A thermostat would run whenever the outdoor temp was below freezing. In this way by winters end the entire mass of water along with the ground below it would be frozen solid. Need: Water line nearby (hose) to top up the ice pit from evaporation, small amount of power to run ciculation pump. Power for lighting and fans inside the cold house. Potential lessons in sustainability with strawbale construction.

• Powerline to the potyard. This is necessary for a new well, but would also allow for greenhouse fans, electric soil mixer (much quieter), and other equipment to speed production. Estimated cost $4 thousand, based on buying used poles from Fortis and doing most of the electrical work other than final hookup at the transformer.

• Restroom facilities. To host workshops, have a reasonable retail presence, and a decent work environment, we need separate restroom facilities at the tree yard. If you do this, oversize the septic field to use as hookups for workers accommodation. And if you are going to do that, make a dump point for RV's here for a workshop or wedding. Restroom facilities need not be conventional. This is a classic opportunity to demonstrate technologies such as composting toilets, Sunny John's, etc. This can reduce expense substantially, but may run into permitting issues.

• Put in a couple of mobile homes or RV's as crew quarters. Offering accommodation goes a long way in getting help. (Locations tie in to powerline. Complications of sewer?)

• Set up with Workaway and Woofers to get short term temp help at low cost. (The house has 3 bedrooms, and a basement, but this may be crowded. Couples may appreciate the privacy of an RV even if they take meals with you.)

A lot of these things are inter-dependent. Water is fairly easy for seasonal buildings. Power is a matter of having the right capacity when you start so you don’t have to redo it later. Sewer is far more difficult.

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