CORBETT, Ore. — Needing more Christmas trees than he had room to grow, Tom Norby hit upon an elegant solution: plant them closer together.

As prices picked up after a severe market glut that hit the industry years before, much of the crop at his Trout Creek Tree Farm hadn’t yet reached a harvestable age.

Meanwhile, Norby lacked enough open ground on his 50 acres near Corbett, Ore., to plant enough new trees to meet expected demand in the future.

“I couldn’t get trees into the ground fast enough to fill what was going to be a hole in my inventory,” he said.

Norby’s dilemma has been felt across the Christmas tree industry, which drastically reduced planting during an infamous episode of oversupply about a decade ago.

Near the height of the glut in 2009, farmers in Oregon, the U.S. industry’s top producer, planted about 5.5 million trees. That’s down 44% from five years earlier and roughly 1 million fewer trees than they sold, according to USDA.

As the surplus faded, growers didn’t have enough mature trees ready to sell, owing to the drop in plantings years earlier.

Shorter rotation

Producing smaller trees on a shorter rotation has helped alleviate the problem for farmers such as Norby.

Rather than endure a gap in production several years ago, he decided to plant the available open acreage at double the normal density.

While those trees couldn’t be grown to full size, they’d be ready to cut in less time and at least generate some income.

“You can harvest them a lot sooner than a large tree, was the thinking,” Norby said.

Nowadays, about 30% of Norby’s production is devoted to “tabletop” trees, which he sells to a regional chain store.

Not only are they more efficient to harvest, but they generate more money per acre despite having a smaller price tag, he said. Harvesting a larger number of trees on a shorter rotation more than makes up for the lower revenue per unit.

Tabletop trees generally sell for $10-$20 wholesale, roughly one-half to one-third the price of regular-sized trees, depending on species and height.

Norby and other growers have likewise found the diminutive specimens are popular among consumers with limited space and aching backs.

“You still get that feeling of having a live Christmas tree in the house,” Norby said.

The USDA doesn’t categorize Christmas tree sales by size, but anecdotally, the trend toward tabletop Christmas trees is on the upswing.

Trees shorter than 3 feet still represent a fraction of the overall market, but farmers say the niche has grown to a respectable size.

Traditionally, only about 500,000 tabletop trees were sold annually in the U.S., but in recent years that number has quadrupled to 2 million trees, or roughly 10% of the 20 million trees Americans buy annually, estimated Cubby Steinhart, co-owner of McKenzie Farms in Oregon City, Ore.

“It’s probably the fastest growing part of our industry,” he said, adding that demand for smaller trees began increasing about 15 years ago.

Estimates of annual Christmas tree sales vary widely. While the National Christmas Tree Association figures about 21 million trees are sold each year, the USDA pegs the number at fewer than 12 million worth $357 million.

Tabletop phenomenon

The tabletop tree phenomenon isn’t just driven by urban and older consumers who’ve scaled down to smaller trees, Steinhart said. Tabletop trees have also been embraced by holiday travelers who want a festive atmosphere even when they’re not home.

“They’re not spending the full amount they would if they were having Christmas at home,” Steinhart said.

Among zealous holiday decorators, tabletop trees serve as “secondary items” similar to wreaths that supplement a full-size tree, he said. They’ve also been invited into the homes of non-Christians, who want to join in the spirit of the season, he said.

Retailers appreciate small trees because they don’t take up much valuable square footage during the holidays and are easy to handle, so they don’t require as much labor, he said.

Artificial Christmas tree manufacturers have largely forsaken tabletop trees, typically focusing on products that compete in the full-size market, Steinhart said.

In other words, smaller trees aren’t necessarily replacing full-size trees as much as they’re adding to the industry’s sales and preserving its market share.

‘Whole new market’

“We’ve opened up a whole new market who probably wouldn’t have a tree at all if it wasn’t for tabletops,” he said.

Tabletop trees have proven to be a good fit for children, convincing the Kirk Co. to develop “elf trees” with these young customers in mind.

“All my grandsons and granddaughters love having trees for their own bedroom,” said Gary Snyder, the Oregon City-based company’s owner.

Each tree is tagged with an “elf code” that conveys information about the elf who grew it on a special company website, teaching kids about the various aspects of Christmas tree production.

“It aligns with the jobs on the farm,” said Mike Jones, the company’s business manager.

Whether they end up in the hands of a child or an older consumer, “elf trees” are meant to provide centerpiece quality at a petite size, Jones said.

Elf trees are the cream of the tabletop crop, selected for their superior structure and proportion by workers specially trained for the role, he said. “They’ll come out and grade just for elf trees.”

The concept of these high-end tabletop “elf” trees has continued to prove successful since it was introduced more than a decade ago, Snyder said.

“From day one, it’s really done well,” he said.

Trees offer advantages

Though the company thinks the term “shortage” is thrown around too liberally, the four-year growing cycle for tabletop trees does have practical advantages in a tight market.

The 10-year cycle for full-sized trees leaves farmers vulnerable to “father time and mother nature,” Jones said.

However, last year’s “heat dome” has especially thrown a wrench into the production process, as many seedlings died during the spell of record-high Northwest temperatures, he said. “You’ve lost a year in your cycle.”

Though the turnaround for elf trees is quicker, they do require earlier pruning than full-size trees, Jones said. That investment pays off, even if a tree doesn’t ultimately meet the high “elf” standards.

“It will grade real nice because you’ve given it all that care and maintenance at the early stages,” he said.

Separation debate

Opinions diverge sharply among farmers about whether tabletop and regular trees should be grown in the same field.

The Kirk Co. favors the strategy of planting them together at a higher density, then thinning to a traditional spacing once the tabletop trees have been harvested.

Norby relies on a similar approach, ensuring the remaining trees remain aesthetically pleasing by not crowding them.

“Come hell or high water, you have to take out those tabletops,” he said. “You have to take out every other tree. Either they’re a salable tree or they go in the burn pile.”

Other growers believe it’s more practical to grow tabletop trees in fields solely dedicated to that market.

With the amount of work needed to shape tabletop trees, the regimen isn’t cost-effective for trees that will end up growing for several more years, said Jason Hupp, whose family runs Drakes Crossing Nursery and grows Christmas trees near Silverton, Ore.

“There’s way too much labor involved per tree,” he said.

It’s possible to continue culturing tabletops to achieve marketable full-size trees but the added expense isn’t worth it, Hupp said.

Growers should also be leery of planting tabletop trees on speculation because the market isn’t big enough to absorb unnecessary volume, he said.

“You have to have a customer who will take the right amount,” Hupp said. “It’s a decent crop to grow if you have the market, but if you don’t, it can come back to bite you pretty hard.”

Brent Hiatt, who farms near Sublimity, Ore., grew trees for both markets simultaneously and harvested the tabletops until they ran out.

All his remaining trees have since aged out of the category but the demand for smaller trees was strong enough to make the venture worthwhile, he said. “I’m definitely going to consider it in future plantings.”

Tabletops can successfully be grown among trees intended for the regular market as long as farmers are prepared to tinker and adjust, he said.

That tends to be easier for smaller producers, Hiatt said. “A wholesaler will come at this differently than a choose-and-cutter.”

Some farmers sell tabletop trees only reluctantly, usually at the behest of wholesale buyers who want a variety of sizes to offer the public.

Casey Grogan, production manager at Silver Bells Tree Farm, said he doesn’t focus on the tabletop market but will abide by a customer’s wishes.

Without acreage slated specifically for tabletops, such orders require Grogan to harvest young trees that he’d rather grow to 6 or 7 feet tall.

“You can sell that for a lot more money,” Grogan said. “We’re saving our ground for our regular spacing.”

Changing course

Guerrero Farms planned to sell Christmas trees at tabletop sizes but has recently reconsidered on at least a portion of their acreage near Amity, Ore.

The family bought the property after it’d recently been planted with a hazelnut orchard, which they then intercropped with Christmas trees.

Initially, the Guerreros intended to cut the Christmas trees at a young age and sell them as tabletops, since the two species can only coexist for a limited time before the field becomes too congested.

Partly due to the steep drop in hazelnut prices, though, they instead chopped half the hazelnut trees from the intercropped field earlier this year, said Gustavo Guerrero, whose family owns the farm.

Tabletop trees are too small a portion of their total sales to justify harvesting more of them, so the family is opting to let them grow larger, he said. As for the rest of the intercropped acreage, the Guerreros are still waiting to decide which type of tree to remove.

“We’re really just going to see what makes more sense market-wise,” Guerrero said.

Another variation

Some tabletop trees aren’t grown on traditional Christmas tree farms at all, but are re-purposed nursery stock.

Bauman Farms sells live 3-foot-tall Christmas trees in decorative containers along with normally harvested ones at its farm stand near Gervais, Ore.

Rather than traditional fir varieties, most of the potted trees are golden cypresses, whose rapid growth allows for an economical $20 price tag.

According to USDA, 250 farms annually sell 350,000 live potted Christmas trees worth about $12.5 million.

Consumers can only display such trees indoors for a relatively short time without threatening their long-term survival, said Brian Bauman, the farm’s general manager.

“Live trees can’t stay in the house very long,” he said.

The shock of freezing outdoor temperatures can kill trees that have emerged from dormancy after more than a couple of weeks inside a warm home, Bauman said.

“All the sudden, that tree starts waking up,” he said.

Live potted trees should be acclimatized in a garage before being brought indoors or back outside, said Chal Landgren, Christmas tree specialist at Oregon State University.

Even then, the abrupt shift in conditions can be tricky.

“The difficulty of the live potted trees is it depends on the weather before and after,” Landgren said.

Kraemer’s Nursery near Mt. Angel, Ore., began selling spruce and cypress species as live potted Christmas trees about eight years ago after customers requested them.

“We started small, and it’s grown into a decent little market,” said Barry Gregory, the nursery’s sales manager.

Potted spruces and cypresses are seldom a family’s main Christmas tree, instead serving as secondary decorations that ultimately get planted in the backyard, he said.

Kraemer’s Nursery sells the same species during the spring gardening season, but the trees offered at Christmas time aren’t just leftovers, Gregory said.

Trees are grown specifically for each season based on the forecast demand, as if they were different crops, he said. Decorative containers are used for Christmas-themed plants, some of which are also adorned with bows.

“It’s not an afterthought, it’s a planned effort,” Gregory said. “We sell more in spring than we do at Christmas, but it’s a nice little bonus at the end of the year.”