Christmas tree farms around the world are increasingly turning to drones, artificial intelligence (AI), satellite imaging, and laser scanning to manage their fields more efficiently.
As the Christmas season nears, tree sellers are once again filling streets and town squares across Europe, stacking rows of firs destined for homes, offices and public spaces.
Behind the scenes, however, the way those trees are grown is beginning to change.
In Denmark, some farmers started using drones to map their fields and artificial intelligence (AI) to count and measure trees.
Denmark is Europe’s second biggest Christmas tree producer after Germany and the world’s biggest exporter, according to the Danish Christmas tree association.
In a case study shared with Euronews, the Serbian AI firm Agremo said a family-owned Christmas tree farm in Denmark replaced traditional manual counting with drones- and satellite-based imaging and analysis, reducing time spent walking the fields and limiting human error.
Agremo’s AI uses machine learning and computer vision to “teach the software how the tree looks,” and it can learn to “recognise the trees in the drone imagery,” according to Luka Živković, Agremo’s head of sales.
Christmas trees typically take around a decade to reach harvest. That long growth cycle makes regular monitoring of tree health, growth and yield essential for farmers.
Many growers previously relied on workers to walk fields and count or measure trees manually, a process that could take days and still produce inconsistent results.
The Serbian company said its system can map a 100-hectare plantation in around 30 minutes and count trees within 24 hours with an accuracy of up to 98 per cent.
“Some big nurseries that we work with (have) more than 100,000 trees, so measuring them and counting them would take them first a lot of labour and then a lot of time,” said Živković.
The AI tool also gives each tree an ID, allowing tracking of growth and sales.
‘Exciting time for Christmas trees’
Experts say drones can help farmers “save time and money”, as they can operate during early hours and reduce the need for manual labour.
In the United States, North Carolina State University supports growers through its Christmas Tree Extension programme, which provides research-based, practical guidance to the local industry.
North Carolina is one of the country’s leading Christmas tree-producing states, with around 33,000 acres (about 13,350 hectares) under cultivation.
At some farms, drones are now taking on work that previously required five to ten people, according to William H. Kohlway IV, a Christmas tree production specialist at North Carolina State University in the United States.
“It’s a really exciting time for Christmas trees,” Kohlway told Euronews Next.
He said drones have moved rapidly from experimental tools to everyday equipment over the past three to five years, particularly for larger growers. Some producers are now investing in multiple agricultural drones because of their effectiveness in the field.
Kohlway said the rapid growth is partially thanks to Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR), a laser-based surveying technology, that can scan entire plantations in detail.
Drones can also carry out targeted spraying, applying fertilisers or herbicides to just the parts of the fields that need them.
“In fact, a lot of the guys who used to mainly do the stuff have now become drone operators, and they love it because they don't have to haul a backpack. They can just have the drone do the heavy lifting,” said Kohlway.
Unlike in Denmark, many Christmas trees in North Carolina are grown on slopes, where conventional machinery struggles and the risk of accidents is higher.
Autonomous ground-based drones, effectively robotic mowers, are being developed to work in areas that may be difficult or dangerous for humans to reach.
“We have some Christmas tree fields at like 60, 70 degree slopes. And a lot of mowers cannot handle that kind of steep slope. So the ones that are just now coming out are heavy-duty, kind of tank tread-based flail mowers, that can actually handle our inclines,” said Kohlway.
The true cost
Despite the promise, barriers remain.
The cost of drones hovers around €25,600 and software, along with training requirements and strict aviation rules, can make adoption difficult, particularly for smaller growers.
The Danish Christmas Tree Association also says that currently, “drones are used by big companies for inventory assessments only”.
“Danish growers vary a lot in size from small family companies (5-10 hectares) to big enterprises with more than 500 hectares. Therefore, their challenges are different, and their ways of dealing with the issues are equally different,” the association told Euronews Next in a statement.
Still, experts say interest is growing.
“Despite those small hurdles, a lot of people are really pushing to go into those things [drone technologies],” said Kohlway.
“And the adoption rate is rapidly increasing and as the drones get better every year and the price goes down and our growers become more technologically savvy, it's honestly a great thing to do because it's also bringing in a lot of the next generation of growers,” he added.
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