Mississippi Christmas tree farms prepare for holidays after several rough years

On his farm just outside of Jackson, Don Kazery estimates he's got between 1,700 to 2,000 trees growing. As a family walked through trying to pick one out, he pointed out the different species there.

Kazery said that drought this year was minor -- but in 2023 and 2024, it was severe. Kazery estimates that he lost over 100 trees in 2023. 

"When you're dealing with a tree, whether it's a big tree, a little tree, it takes time sometimes, in some cases, for symptoms to show up," he said. "So with the drought, we still are having effects from the '23 drought." 

Robert Smith, who co-owns Smith Tree Farm, said that Christmas tree farming is a year-round enterprise. 

"As soon as we get through with Christmas this year, we'll start planting and base pruning and staking trees," he said. "As soon as spring comes, probably February or March, we'll start spraying chemicals."

"It's not just a little two or three week deal like a lot of the lots in town have."

All that means that it's a lot of work that gets lost when growers face challenges. 

"The freeze, I think, got one year's crop, and then the drought got another year's crop," Smith said. "We try to get trees of marketable size in three to four years to where you have a good eight to nine to 10 foot tree."

They plant every year and Smith said they're on a seven-year rotation. So losing one year's crop means in three years, a farmer might not have any marketable trees.

"I know of a couple of them that just closed -- just closed down because the drought's killed so many trees they had," he said.

Smith's also the Mississippi Director for the Southern Christmas Tree Association. He says things there are some natural advantages to growing Christmas trees in this region. 

"Our growing season is so much longer," he said, compared to growing seasons further north.  "We can grow a tree in three years or better: an eight foot tree, it takes them six or seven years to get the same size tree." 

And usually, the climate produces enough rain for good growth. On the flip side, insects and disease present some issues for tree growers in Mississippi. 

"The other thing is we're in the South; our temperature is warm enough and hot enough in the summer that we can't grow the northern trees like the Fraser Firs and the Blue Spruce," he added. "We more or less just try to develop a variety of tree that would grow down here: a locally-grown tree." 

"And that's what a lot of people want, is a locally-grown tree." 

Kazery said that he's working with Mississippi State University to help do research on tree resiliency against the many challenges during growing. Smith said that variety is one way to help with tree quality generally. 

Another industry boost in new growers coming in. 

"They're wanting to get back to farm life," Smith said. "They're having a few acres and they want to plant a few trees on it." 

The association does workshops and meetings to help get new growers situated and educate them on things like diseases or tree marketing -- in fact, Smith said that people who aren't farmers sometimes attend the meetings and decide to start Christmas tree farming from there. 

And, he says, the more, the merrier. 

"We're not in competition with each other, we are all in the same deal trying to grow good Christmas trees," he said. "And if another grower knows something better than I do, then I'm willing to try that to see if I can improve my trees." 

At the end of the day, both Kazery and Smith said that they love what they do and the part they play in both Mississippi agriculture and the holidays. 

"We provide something that very few people in this industry can do, and that is a Christmas tree, a live Christmas tree," Kazery said. "Everything we have, we grow, and the families that come out, we're part of their tradition." 

Smith started farming with his dad, and now he works with his grandkids. He said customers are the same way, bringing their kids to keep on the tradition.

"It's a labor of love," he told MPB. "It's a lot of work goes involved in it, but you know you get a feeling whenever you see a family come out and pick a tree out, you're bringing joy to them."