Written by Vince Wheeler

Growing Fruit Trees For Profit

I’m excited by this option. Almost anyone in the country can find fruit trees that grow perfectly within their region. If you identify a few of them, you can make big money.  This won’t happen overnight. It takes a few years to build up to a full time income from growing fruit trees. Most trees require about three years to reach market size.

Based on my research, a three year old fruit tree sells for about $50. You can get this tree potted for about $2. That’s a huge upside. Keep in mind, not every tree will survive. Bugs, weather, bad genetics, and other things can all cause you to lose trees. It’s almost a guarantee that you will lose trees.

I’m planning on losing 50% of my trees over that three year period. My goal is to plant 4000 trees per year. Within three years, I should be able to consistently sell 2000 trees per year. At $50 a tree, that’s $100,000 usd per year. Even with a 20% overhead, which is very high, it will still leave me with an $80,000 profit. I feel like I can manage growing 4000 trees per year, with a maximum of 12,000 trees. Keep in mind, we’re speaking about trees that are about 1 foot by 1 foot and less than 3 or 4 feet tall. I need to germinate the seeds, plant those seeds in their pots, and water them as needed. I can even create drip irrigation to ease this effort. If I add fertilizer to the drip irrigation, I can further streamline this process and reduce man-power/man-hours invested. The real goal is to plant them and forget them. Using automated systems to reduce workload and make the process easy and profitable.

If It Turns Out Growing Fruit Trees To Sell Individual Isn’t Worth It

Since I live in a small community, It is possible that the time/effort to sell 2000 trees a year is overwhelming and thus not worth doing. If this turns out to be the case, I will grow fruit trees to create secondary products. Jams, jellies, and even the fruit itself my all turn out to much more profitable than selling fruit trees by themselves. It’s always a good idea to create a “plan b” or even a “plan C” when designing your income streams. For example, I plan to grow jojoba plants, but only so I can sell the oil (wax ester) directly to consumers. I will create products from my jojoba that I can sell directly to you or others. It’s important to consider the variety of methods to produce income on your off grid homestead.

Finding The Right Fruit Trees To Sell For Your Region

The first thing you need to do is figure out what Plant Hardiness Zone you live in. These zones are created to help identify how many days/hours of freeze your region get per year. Many fruit trees require a specific amount of hours below freezing to produce fruit. Search for your zone by going to this Department of Agriculture link: Find Your Plant Hardiness Zone

With this information, you can now search for fruit trees that grow well in your area. What Kind Of Trees Should I Grow

For me, I plan to grow Pomegranate, Meyer Lemons, Mexican Limes, Loquat, and probably some sort of orange tree. I may change this based on new information or results I experience. I’d advise you to take the same approach. It’s good to start with a plan, but be flexible and adapt to what you’re seeing with your trees.