Christmas tree farming: Is the shaker a necessity on a U-cut Christmas tree farm? How we set up our

Okay Hello rob here from the flanigan Homestead i get a lot of people asking Is a shaker a must and in my opinion it Absolutely is My wife and i snuck out here early today With us some other family members before We opened our season got our trees and We shook a couple trees and we’re going To show you what a shaker looks like and Maybe a good a couple things to help set It up so it’s a more effective so people Are asking if you need a shake or not You absolutely do Mine is a little bit beat up right now This gasket that goes over the top we Keep putting it in there but it it falls Out it’s important because when you’re Shaking the trees tons of needles end up Falling in here and then it fills up The engine case or the motor casing and Then it takes uh the belt And all the needles jumping off the belt So this is normally on here Tight but we end up leaving it loose so That we can turn off the motor and clean Out the the needles One of the interesting things About the shaker Is uh This is the on off switch normally There’s no bulb right there there’s an Air bulb that normally sits on the Ground and you stomp on it and it turns

On and then you stomp on it so you can Turn it on and off hands-free but Due to a couple years out here in Freezing weather the plastic got or the Rubber got Brittle and it broke so uh We’ve been for a couple years picking it Up and blowing To turn it on and off and especially in A covered year with my eight-man crew All trading off back and forth we didn’t Think it was really good so we finally Got smart And uh just i think it was 15 on amazon There’s a remote on off switch and then You plug it in To your power source here And Basically I can now Hands-free put this around my neck or Whatever you can also Do it from the switch here so Anyway If it breaks you know 15 on amazon takes Care of it If you’re gonna be here at the shaker For a while just put it here Otherwise we’re all good yeah Okay when we first got the shaker we Thought ah you know it’s shaped so they Can bolt it on to some boards or whatnot And we thought okay we’ll just bolt it On some boards and we were shaking and

Digging holes into the ground and Sliding all over the field and that Didn’t work so the next year i don’t Know if you can see it it’s about a six Foot round Concrete pad that we poured here so it’s Nice and firm and we put half inch bolts Anchor bolts these are the same bolts When i built my house and we put these In the foundation and then leave them up So these are nice and strong and they’re Out here you might wonder why We didn’t set the bolts exactly on the Shaker and we did that for a good reason We didn’t know if we were going to move To a bigger shaker we didn’t know Uh if these there’s a smaller bolt that Fits through the holes that actually Holds the shaker down and if we concrete Those in and those rusted out and broke Then we’re stuck so we wanted stronger Bolts in the concrete and we expanded Those out beyond the form of the shaker And then So those are there and then we bolted This to some boards and it holds down Tight so we can run the shaker and it’s Not going to bounce around If we want a bigger shaker we can expand It if the smaller bolts break that hold The shaker we could put new ones in the Wood really easily but it’s hard to get New ones in the concrete Well you’re

T’s on the clock you’ve got some Discount It’s my nephew tyler He’s a good workhorse If you’re wondering A healthy tree that’s full like this Will lose a lot of needles the outside Needles should be green The inside needles that aren’t getting Sunlight and generating energy through Photosynthesis are just stealing from The tree so On the inside of a big thick noble like This the needles of a healthy tree will Be dying and falling out so you’ll find The brown ones in here And this tree is going into my mom’s House and she’s said she’s not taking a Tree home unless it’s shaking because You don’t want all these needles in There they’re going to be coming out A lot Oh [Laughter] I don’t know we’ll see hadn’t even Thought about it Not right now Wow that was quite wiggly he gets a good Vibration One of the things you got to be careful Of we tie the tops of our trees you’ve Seen that in the videos if the tops are Bent and we we tie branches on there This one’s going to get cut off a little

Bit but we’ve Shaken a number of trees where the stick That was tying the top was still in There and that extra weight gets the top Spinning around and we’ve actually spun Off some tops and flipped off so if for Some reason you have something still Tied on the top when you put in the Shaker Cut it out before you do that Okay so we just shook two healthy no Thick nobles well one norman and one Noble the noble the thicker noble had a Lot more needles in it but all these Needles Are from two trees and they were good Healthy trees Because they were big and wide and full There was inside needles that came out Just another beautiful day for selling Christmas trees here in the pacific Northwest Rain rain rain Okay Thanks for joining us today when my Family came out to get our christmas Trees and we showed you the shaker Thanks for joining us on the flag and Homestead where christmas trees are my Business teaching including horticulture Is my job and outdoor projects are my Passion and hope to see you all soon Here at esport christmas tree farms