I have a couple of idle acres of gently sloping coastal pasture behind my house, and I'm considering this as an option to put the land to some good use, after a friend put the idea into my head over the weekend.
Any experience, suggestions, or tips will be appreciated. Don't see that much info on google about it. So I'm doing the thing I shoulda done first and asking TexAgs. Maybe someone will have an even better suggestion for me.

Maybe pecan depending on soil. What is tr soil type? Clay, sand, silt? You could do a hardwood mix.

We have a "tree farm" on one of our places. It pretty well maintains itself and we never water the trees. Nature takes its course and we occasionally sell a few.

My recommendation would be to disk up and then drag whatever size area you are plannning on doing. Around December when there are a million acorns and whatever else, I would say get a plastic sack full of them and plant them roughly 2" deep in the dirt every 20' or so. Not all of them will grow, but I've had pretty good luck this past year with the handfull that I planted. You can also buy some palms, pines, or other trees if you want some diversity and mix them in too. After you get them in the ground, just let them do their thing. If it goes 2 weeks or so without raining you may want to spend some time hitting every spot with water. One thing you may need to do is fence them in so deer/cows/hogs don't eat them. As soon as they start coming up, critters will be after them. In my experience, it's not near as hard to grow trees as you will read on the internet. I'm pretty lazy with it and have had good luck.

I you are planning a container grown tree farm, water is going to be your first consideration. Being above ground, they dry out much faster than anything planted in the soil so availability & volume are going to be very important. Since you are a small operation, find a niche & fill it. Don't compete with the big guys on common species. There are some great native plants that are hard to find in nurseries simply due to lack of supply. Pick a few of them & specialize in quality plants.

I've been playing with container grown natives for 25 years as an over-sized hobby. I really enjoy fooling with native plants to see what I can grow. You can go ahead & start planting things for fun & experimentation. If you don't like taking care of a couple of hundred as a hobby, you won't like taking care of a couple of thousand as a source of extra income. Before you invest much money in it, I'd do a whole lot more homework. Visiting those with expertise & experience is invaluable & will save you a lot of grief....and money.

b.astutus, Sound like your operation is similar to what I have in mind now. Please email me at markgriser at yahoo dot com so we can discuss in detail. Thanks!

Email sent. I'm no expert by any means but I'll tell you what I know & who some experts are.

Coastal and containers will be a problem, you'll have to kill it out. Agree 100% with the water issue. Focusing on uncommon trees like Burr oaks, hickory, etc. might be the way to go... something the customer can't find at a home depot.

My horse did a pretty good job of that (removing the coastal). It's mostly weeds now, but I get the point of dealing with an aggressive competitor. A little roundup to the rescue should suffice. On the other hand, do I want bare ground, and have to deal with mud when it rains? Weeds will hafta be controlled as well, of course.

1. You'll need a good drip irrigation system.
2. To command good prices, you'll need to prune and shape well throughout the growing process.
3. Unusual species are nice, but you'll have more demand for common types. Due to the downturn in the economy, growers have not reinvested in their stock the past 4-5 years. There is a major shortage of Live Oaks (and others) looming along with accompanying price increases. Food for thought.

Why containers?

You can plant them and then have them harvested by a buyer. You get about half the amount but it is about 1/5th the effort. The harvesters can do a lot of damage so you have to watch them. YOu also would not need the trailer, bobcat or whatever you move the trees with etc.

We looked at this several years back. It looked good once you start having a crop. I figured it would take 4 years to go from a sapling to something worth selling. We had a circle system and we figured it would work for up to 3" caliper trees.

You can buy a 100 saplings that can be shipped over night for something like $50. That will save you a year.



[This message has been edited by BBDP (edited 10/9/2012 10:42a).]

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This is the kind of insight I'm seeking. Thanks fellas. I may be interested in both containers (for my small two acre tract), and in the ground plants for another 30 acre tract (an old field) I have that is idle now. It is good deep soil located along I-10 in Comfort.

Keep 'em coming!

Whatever species you decide to grow it/they need to be drought tolerant & disease resistant. Last years drought should have reminded everyone that Texas is facing (already in) a severe water shortage and outdoor watering is & will be the first to be restricted. Homeowners that want nice landscapes will become more educated about plant needs out of necessity. Oak wilt is s very major problem throughout central Texas so I have quit planting any type of live or red oak species and only plant trees that don't get it.

b.astutus, are you up for giving a tour of your operation? Where are you located?

If you go containerized, be prepared to pick up trees when the wind blows them over.

FBG- I really don't have a facility to tour. Wish I did but I don't. I have a couple of hundred random natives growing in containers in a corner of my back yard and another couple of hundred growing at my work place but that's about it right now. That sounds like more plants than it really is. If you have one gallon containers, they are six inches across. That equals 4 pots per square foot so you can put 400 in 100 square feet. Even five gallon pots are about 12 inches wide so that's about 100 per 100 square feet. I never pack them that close together but you get my drift.
Just out of A&M I did live on & take care of a container tree farm for an absentee owner so I got some experience there. Ever since I've always had natives growing in containers as a hobby. I do have a lot of trial & error experience in those species I've toyed with. I'm all about the KISS method since I don't have any facilities to get fancy. I work in a youth camp setting in western Bell county. Oak wilt has wiped out nearly all of our live & red oaks so a lot of what I grow at work are replacements for our dead/dying trees. I grow them & let the kids plant them. Since we only have a couple of inches of soil covering the rocks, I usually dig the hole, back-fill it & let the kids dig it out again at planting time.
Places like the wildflower center in Austin, the Texas native plant society chapters, numerous native plant books, & other hobbyist like myself are good sources of general information for those that are interested. Some of the books do try to make some things too complicated. I learned some simple tricks from an old native plant hobbyist 25 years ago that have served me well.
Maybe one of these days I'll have a place to try some species that I call "Holy Grail" species like Texas madrone. Beautiful trees with unlimited potential that as far as I know have never been produced on even a limited basis. There is definitely a trick in growing them that has eluded folks for a long time. I've heard theories & tried a few but with poor results. There are several other plants that fall into that category that have super potential in landscapes but have never been produced commercially for various reasons.
Double Eagle is very correct about the blow down problem. I minimized it by running a very taunt single strand of heavy wire the length of each row. This wire was about 4-5 feet high & attached to steel fence posts at about 20 foot intervals. The taller top heavy trees could be loosely tied to the wire to stabilize them. It's a real hassle to right the trees & redo all the drip tubes after every big wind.


[This message has been edited by b.astutus (edited 10/11/2012 3:14p).]

I have been considering this same idea in the South Texas Valley.

I also wanted to incorporate longterm investment species that I could try and max out over a 40 year period.

I was briefly involved in the container business. A guy told me to put palm trees in containers and retire off them in 30 years. I think it was sago palms.

I've thought about and done limited research on tree farms for many years. The question I've never been able to answer is where to sell the trees. You are competing with large commercial operations.

The hard to find native is an idea I need to explore.