What brings more money? Hardwoods such as walnut or oak, maple? Any kind of special wood like bald cypress? Some kind of deciduous? NUT TREES A five-acre plot of mature nut trees can generate a full-time source of income if managed well. The best and newest method is to use permaculture to create a natural forest, with taller nut trees, especially walnut and chestnut trees for the upper floor, and shade-tolerant nuts, such as filberts, for the lower floor. Grow seedlings of dried fruit trees to sell them in one part of the surface can provide additional income. When larger trees are fully grown, they can be selectively harvested for their valuable wood, which can cost several thousand dollars for a single tree.
Growing walnut trees can be particularly profitable, as wood is extremely valuable. Nut breeders have developed new cultivars that yield younger and are more resistant. Best of all, these new cultivars produce even larger and tastier dried fruits that are very easy to break. These improved trees have meant greater appeal, so tree nurseries have seen strong sales from homeowners who want to be able to harvest their own nuts.
Even if you only have a small piece of wooded land, let your trees grow for a profit. According to consultant forestry engineer Jim Birkemeier, a well-managed hardwood tree, such as a red oak, growing in southern Wisconsin adds 1⁄2 to its adult diameter each year. Combine that annual growth rate with the increase in premiums for larger, quality logs and, in general, the increase in log prices, and you get total value growth rates of 20 to 30 percent per year for managed timber masses, he says. That's why forestry at Jim's 300-acre Timbergreen farm near Spring Green, Wisconsin, and other forested land he manages, focuses on waiting for trees to maximize their growth before harvesting them.
The trees that are cut down at each felling can be sold as low-quality wood, pulp wood for paper and pallets. Later, when they are larger, they are sold as logs for sawing or plating. Tall fruit tree seedlings can be mechanically planted and manually pruned season after season to ensure that each pear tree has a branchless trunk up to a height of 30 feet or more. Many different trees are suitable for felling systems, including woody trees such as oaks, ash trees, alders, hazelnuts, etc.
Nearly all growers plant more than 2000 trees per acre, so if you own or can rent just one acre of land, you can start growing Christmas trees. One of the most obvious ways to take advantage of growing trees is to plant trees that produce fruit or nuts. But those trying to make money growing trees might also consider that the fact that human beings enjoy being close to trees can also generate financial benefits. Landscape designers often use these wonderful trees as part of an arrangement or as a stand-alone specimen tree. Christmas tree production is a popular and profitable tree crop for more than 20,000 growers in the United States.
From apple trees to yew trees, there are hundreds of popular trees that can be grown and sold to homeowners, landscapers, and retail nurseries. With an increasing awareness of plastic problems, real trees are increasing and artificial trees are increasing less popular. Former monoculture tree farms, with row after row of nothing but trees, with little land between the trunks, are rapidly being replaced by a “greener” and cost-effective system called agroforestry.