The business of Christmas trees in North America

There are more than 20,000 North American Christmas tree growers, 95 percent of the trees they produce are sold or shipped directly from the farms. On each of the 1 million acres (4,000 km2) planted in Christmas trees annually there are usually about 2,000 trees, the number of trees that survive to harvest varies from 750–1,500 depending upon location. Christmas trees take an average of 6 to 10 years (from transplant) to mature for harvest and each year 73 million new Christmas trees are planted.

There are 3 major growing regions in North America: the Pacific northwest, the northeast region of Canada and United States, and the Appalachians region of North Carolina and surrounding states. North American exports are commonly the highest quality in foreign markets.

In 2002, in the United States, 21,904 Christmas tree farms covering 1,800,000 hectares (1,800 km2) of cropland accounted for the 20.8 million Christmas trees cut.[8] Of those farms, 686 harvested 100 acres (0.4 km2) or more, which accounted for over 196,000 acres (793 km2) of the total area of trees harvested. That same year, there were only three U.S. Christmas tree farms with more than 10,000 acres (40 km2) of cropland in production.[8] The total U.S. crop in 2004 was valued at $506 million with $143 million attributed to the nation's leading producer in 2004, Oregon. This state was followed in production numbers by North Carolina, Washington and Michigan. In 2012, 24 million trees were sold at a retail value of over $1 billion.[

Trees are grown across the United States in varying conditions, Christmas trees are grown in all 50 U.S. states including Alaska and Hawaii. Other states produced smaller number of trees. For example, in Alabama there are almost 100 Christmas tree farms which average 800 trees annually. Ninety percent of Alabama's tree farms are "choose and cut" type operations which allow customers to visit and cut their own live Christmas tree. Pennsylvania was home to the most American Christmas tree farms in 2002; the state boasted 2,164 farms. Oregon, however, had the most land devoted to the crop with 67,800 acres (274 km2) being used for Christmas tree farming. Between 2002 and 2012 the production of Christmas trees had declined by over 60% in several US states including Kentucky, Montana, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and even Wisconsin, whom harvested 994,594 less trees in 2012.

Of the 40 million live Christmas trees sold in North America each year about 5 to 6 million are grown in Canada. In Ontario, the markets are mainly dominated by sales of the Scots pine and the white spruce.

For the years 2008 and 2010 around 800,000 Christmas trees were grown in Mexico on 500 hectares of land. The USDA reported in 2011 that the majority of Christmas tree production in Mexico took place in the State of Mexico, 60 percent.  However, tree production still took place in other Mexican states.
Reproduced and adapted from Wikipedia