A32—Lancaster Fanning, Thursday, December 24,1981
December
BY JOYCE BUPP
Staff Correspondent
YORK While most farmers
across the mid-Atlantic area were
parking away their pickers and
cleaning out the combine bins,
harvest of a different nature was
just getting underway at Strath
meyer Forests, Inc., Dover.
And the crop that Fred Strath
meyer and his sons began
gathering in late November has
already been growing in the fields
for some ten years.
The Strathmeyers are growers
of Christmas trees, about 500 acres
worth of them, spread across sites
in York, Adams, Cumberland and
Columbia counties.
They also sell over two million
evergreen seedlings annually, a
large percentage of that wholesale,
bare-root nursery stock marketed
to other Eastern commercial
Christmas tree growers.
A fourth-generation business,
Strathmeyer Forests family
nursery and tree operation in
cludes Fred Strathmeyer, his sons
Fred, Jr., Gary, Tim and Brian,
still in college, plus sister Robin
who, with her husband, returns
home weekends from State College
out alongside the curving slopes of the Strathmeyer tree farm
in southern York County.
Freshly-cut broad and bushy evergreens from the
Strathmeyers tree farms are fed into the back of the eight
horsepower motor Howey Christmas tree baler machine....
for a compact shipping package.
Harvest - what else but Christmas trees?
to lend a hand during this busy
holiday season.
Great grandfather Strathmeyer
began selling holiday trees back
during the Great Depression, and
Fred’s father expanded the
business into plantings of
evergreen stock. With four sons all
actively interested in the nursery
growing, wholesaling and retailing
angles, Fred who heads the state’s
Christmas Tree Growers
Association, has continued to
expand the “tree farm,” and the
nursery part of the business that
has outdistanced Christmas tree
production.
■ The bulk of the 15,000 trees being
sold by Strathmeyers this season
was cut off acreage at the farm
near Airville in southern York
County. About one-third of those go
out to York area customers from a
'retailing site on Roosevelt Avenue,
under the management of son
Gary.
Trees grown at Strathmeyers
begin life as seeds, planted in the
Fall in raised, outside seed beeds,
and left to,, germinate over the
winter months as evergreen seeds
would do in the wild state. Most
popular seeds with the Christmas
Gary Strathmeyer stands up a potential York
Christmas tree for customer Eugene Shaffer of
tree trade are species like
Douglas, Fraser and Concolor (or
white) firs, and Scotch and white
pine.
Seeds from carefully selected
strains are purchased from sup
pliers across the nation. Douglas
fir seed, for example, is brought in
from Colorado, and Fraser seed
comes from North Carolina.
After germinating in the seed
beds, the evergreen sprouts are
fertilized, kept moist, and shaded
during the hottest weather. At the
end of two years, they’re moved to
field transplant areas, and
carefully spaced at planting so that
each two-year seedling has about 6
inches in each direction to en
courage sturdy root growth and
branching.
With two more years developing
In the transplant sites, the four
year-old plants are ready for their
final trip to permanent growth
sites in the Christinas tree plan
tations.
Because the seedlings already
have their sturdy four-year start,
Strathmeyers and their wholesale
customers find quicker field
growth from the small trees, with a
lower mortality rate.
In their final location, maturing
Christmas trees need minimal
individual care. Trees with double
“leaders,” or two branches poking
out qf the top instead of a shapely
and symmetrical single one, have
one of the leaders lopped off.
Only after the trees have another
few years of growth in the per
manent fields does it become
necessary to shear them annually
to promote branching and the
classic Christmas tree shapliness.
Pest control consists mainly of
controlling weed growth, using a
spring spraying to control the
annuals, with a swipe during the
fall at the perennial types, using
Roundup. Although occasional
insect of fungus infestation may
occur, many of these cause only
unsightlessness or discoloration,
not actual physical harm to the
tree.
“There are numerous diseases
that can hit evergreens,” says
Fred Jr. “But we’re not yet af
fected much by that problem
because we’re still in our first
plantings. After a sight is
replanted a couple of times, then
diseases can build and become a
problem.”
He credits York County as being
a healthy area for evergreen
growth, since heavy winter storms
that damage tree branches are not
too common. Strathmeyer’s close
location to the metropolitan areas
in southcentral Pennsylvania is an
added bonus for both sales and
holiday trees and for the landscape
nursery business.
Before a Starthmeyer Christinas tree customer hauls his
purchase home for decorating, Gary “gift-wraps” the
evergreen, sending it through a device that encloses the
branches loosely in wide mesh plastic net, for ease of han
dling and branch protection.
Hauled from the fields on wagons, the Strathmeyer trees
will be loaded on trucks for delivery to retailers in dozens of
locations across the eastern seaboard of the country.
After the tree harvest crew
selects and sells a number of trees
in an area of cutting, the
evergreens are fed, one at a time,
through a baling machine a
specialized piece of equipment that
compacts the branches and wraps
each tree loosely with a plastic
twine. Baling the trees reduces
chances for limb breakage and
allows the compacted trees to be
loaded, trucked and handled with
greater ease.
The harvest and delivery is
handled by Fred, Fred Jr., Tim,
and a crew of full-time men and
several part-time employees
either vacationing or moonlighting
from another job.
Gary is in charge of the retailing
business, operating from an out
side site located on York’s
Roosevelt Avenue. Only in use for
the second year, the retail site
opened to customers on December
2 and will stay in business till
Christmas eve.
(Turn to Page A 33)