Larry Goebel is looking at his phone as the rain pummels his family farm stand — Goebel Farms in Armstrong Township. “The radar shows it's not gonna quit,” he said.
Around Thanksgiving they transitioned from selling pumpkins and hot cider to selling Christmas trees (and hot cider.) Like most tree farms, about half is sold right around Thanksgiving. They sold more than 600 that weekend.
Goebel Farms is one of only four Christmas Tree farms in southern-most Indiana — at least according to the Indiana Christmas Tree Growers Association. There are two others near Evansville — Sycamore Valley Tree Farm and Kohlman’s Christmas Tree Farm.
The bulk of the tree farms are closer to Indianapolis and north.
Despite the rain, Larry's son Jeremy Goebel has to take a three-wheeler with a flat bed trailer out into the weather — and find the tree a customer has tagged to take home.
Jeremy said customers can pick the tree — they just have to be a minimum height of seven feet. “They pick out a tree — they tell us where it's at, and then we go cut it for them,” he said. “We bring it back into the barn, shake it, trim any branches they might want trimmed off, and wrap it up for them if they want it wrapped.”
“We’ve spoiled our customers,” Larry said.
About 25 million natural Christmas trees are sold annually in the US. However, the number of growers and farmland has declined since 2002 according to the American Farm Bureau.
Larry Goebel said they used to sell about 1,500 trees in a season; now it’s closer to 1,000.
Jeremy fires up a chainsaw under the lessening rain to fetch tree number 957 of the season.
This is for Marsh and Grace Davis who just moved to New Harmony.
“So we have a big house, and our family's coming in, so we wanted to get back into the tradition,” Marsh said. “So it's been a few years since we actually had a tree, but when we do, we always get a live tree, but usually from the hardware store. This is great coming out and seeing it in its natural state.”
The most popular tree sold nationally is the Frasier Fir. But Frasier Firs south of Indianapolis are more likely to get root rot and die, Larry Goebel said.
“You can't raise a Fraser fir, but these Turkish Firs that we're planting, Mediterranean Firs that we're planting, they are resistant to Phytophthora root rot, and they get a huge taproot, so that makes them survive — but it takes them a long time to get that taproot and get going.”
They switched to the Turkish Fir a few years ago. Now they grow fewer trees and get better results. These trees still take around 15 years to reach seven feet in height.
Once Jeremy gets the tree back to the farmstand he straps this Turkish Fir into the shaker to discard any dry, loose needles.
According to the American Christmas Tree Association, tariffs will increase the cost of imported artificial trees by 30 percent. Christmas lights will cost even more.
But there doesn’t seem to be any advantage for natural tree growers. Larry said sales are flat — but not bad.
“We've sold a lot of reefs, a lot of greenery,” he said. “We still have apple cider, fresh apple cider, frozen, if anybody wants apple cider. I've sold a lot of ‘Charlie Brown’ trees, and just, it's been good, but not, not anything better.”
The Davis’ tree is bailed and placed in the back of their pickup truck.
Marsh said it’s natural trees all-the-way for them. “We don't like a lot of plastic. And it's a smell … there's nothing like a natural tree.”
Support independent journalism today. You rely on WNIN to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Give to grow our local reporting today. Donate
