Growing Christmas Trees in Eastern Iowa

Japanese Iowa (KCRG) – Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, it’s lastly socially acceptable to hearken to Christmas music, enhance your home, and buy your Christmas tree.

Although it’s been dry this yr, tree farms say there have been loads of timber to go round.

The scent of pine timber, prepared to embellish with lights and ornaments, is an iconic custom to have fun the season.

Jacob Dohmen, son of Frank Dohmen, proprietor of the Dohmen Christmas Tree Farm in Mechanicsville, grew up caring for the beloved timber.

“We first began promoting Christmas Timber once I was an adolescent, and numerous the folks that had been in class with me or that I knew once I was youthful, now they’re having households similar to me, and you realize, we’re, we’re form of passing it on to the subsequent technology and beginning our custom too,” Dohmen recalled.

Farmers like Mark Banowetz, proprietor of Cedar’s Edge Evergreen Market in Ely, additionally work exhausting all yr, beginning with spring planting.

“In March, April is after we begin placing the timber within the floor, all of the seedlings. These are usually, um, normally about two-year-old seedling, possibly a two or three-year-old seedling, they could solely be 14 inches tall.” Banowetz defined.

The climate performs an important function within the evergreens’ well being, and dry summers can result in brutal winters.

“Principally, you consider a tree as form of like a straw, it’s drawing moisture up by the bottom, and if there’s no moisture within the floor sooner or later, the moisture is misplaced out of the tree, so we get winter desiccation, which implies the needles right here will really flip brown.” Dohmen described.

Christmas timber take a number of years to develop. Due to this fact, dry situations in earlier years can contribute to shortages.

“Primarily like in 2020, there was, form of the Midwest on the whole form of had a loopy spring climate the place it warmed up, after which it froze, so there are Christmas tree growers or the seedling growers that misplaced all their crop due to that climate points,” Dohmen remembered.

Although Iowa has had a reasonably dry yr and a few farms have suffered, Banowetz says this previous spring was good for his timber.

“This yr was distinctive. A yr with the rain within the spring, we had good rain, it was form of staggered out, we had good warmth, we didn’t have actual, actual sizzling days. You realize, we had just a few sizzling days however not a steady month-long of excessive temperatures, so our seedlings didn’t dry out this yr.” Banowetz stated.

Working exhausting to share a legacy.

“There’s one thing possibly magical about popping out to a farm and getting a Christmas tree collectively and creating these reminiscences.” Banowetz illustrated.

That not solely lights houses but additionally hearts with Christmas Spirit.

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