PRINCE ALBERT, Sask. – In about a month, Ray Gaudet will pay a visit to the dead.
In a bit of macabre market research, the Prince Albert, Sask., Christmas tree grower will visit piles of discarded holiday trees, trying to figure out which evergreens still look fresh despite spending December inside a house.
It will help him decide how to better supply the tree lots he helps fill throughout the Prairies and into North Dakota and Montana.
About one-third of the tens of thousands of firs, spruces and pines he supplies are from his own tree plantation. The rest are cut in British Columbia and Eastern Canada.
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Drought has affected his own trees, slowing growth so they don’t fill out as lush as he would like. This has been an unusual year, with people starting to call in September to ensure their tree orders.
He has also had American brokers coming north with semi-trailers looking for Canadian trees because unseasonal freezing hurt the U.S. supply.
During his 14 years in the Christmas tree business, Gaudet has seen the shift between artificial and real trees, with each now taking half the market.
He has also seen the fall of Scots pine in favour of the new king, balsalm fir, because of its “bouquet,” and the greying of the Christmas tree farm business.
At 45, he is one of the younger tree farmers still in business.
There are fewer than 20 tree growers in Saskatchewan, but Gaudet is connected to the Canadian scene as a member of the national association’s board. He said rural depopulation makes it harder to find the seasonal labour he and other growers need to look after the trees.
“The industry is aging, people slow down, they’re not planting, and the kids don’t want to take over the blue collar, toiling work,” Gaudet said.
“This is typical of agriculture. Families are smaller and farms are bigger.”
Each year on his 450-acre plantation, seedlings are planted, the taller trees sheared to make them bushy and tags applied to identify those to cut in the fall. In the lead-up to Christmas, he and his 20 employees ship up to five semi-trailer loads a day of baled trees.
Gaudet said the Christmas tree business is a long-term investment. It costs $1 to put a seedling in the ground and then nine to 15 years for it to grow to harvest size.
“You have to keep reaching into your pocket,” he said.
With the trend to a drier climate, he is considering buying more land near the Saskatchewan River to irrigate a new plantation.
Gaudet was a dentist’s son but got into farming as a commercial honey producer.
He left that business after American subsidies squeezed Canadian producers. His brother, who had conducted a grower survey for the Quebec government, recommended he try the Christmas tree market.
It is not for the easily discouraged. Gaudet, a self-admitted workaholic, works 12-hour days in November and December.
He said nine out 10 people who plant seedlings leave the business before taking their first tree harvest.
“Money doesn’t grow on trees,” he quipped, which is why he doesn’t want to push his two children to be “enslaved” on the farm.
“I want them to have their childhood,” he said.
“What’s most important for kids is to create desire in their lives for what they want to become.”
Gaudet also wants his trees to be the best they can be, especially during their show time. That’s why he runs experiments in his tree warehouse, looking for what keeps them green. He said trees are like flowers. When they’re plucked, they need a new cut before being placed in a vase.
Christmas tree trunks should also get a fresh cut at the bottom to allow the water vessels under the bark to open up. The tree stand reservoir should be filled with hot, but not scalding water. The tree needs to gulp in water during its first week on display, up to four litres a day.
Don’t let it dry out or an air pocket will block up the vessels and the tree will dry up and drop its needles.
As for adding Aspirin, sugar, commercial tree preservative or other concoctions, forget it. Plain warm water worked the best in all Gaudet’s test trees.
If you don’t heed his professional advice, he’ll be shaking his head over your tree on the scrap heap.
