It takes more than tinsel and lights to create the perfect Christmas tree

Decorating the Christmas tree is the fun part. Once the fir branches have been showered with glittering baubles, a few straggly bits of tinsel and a tree-top angel, all that is left to do is stand back and admire the glow. The hard work is done.

But it's not just untangling the wires of multicoloured lights or even hauling the six-foot tree home in the boot of the car that is hard work. Farmers have spent up to 15 years planning and 10 years growing the trees, coping with high investment risks, oversupply in the market, adverse weather conditions and the threats of disease, fire or theft.

It's a full-time job, according to Coillte, the semi-state forestry company, not simply a case of planting the trees and waiting for seven or eight years to harvest and collect the profits.

Coillte Christmas Tree Farms was set up when Coillte was founded 12 years ago and it owns four farms - one in Wicklow, one in Roscommon and two in Tipperary.

"It can take eight to 10 years to grow the tree to the right height and, before that, there is another two years for the plant to develop from the seed stage, so you are looking at the best part of a 14- to 15-year project," says Mr Liam Quinn, manager of Coillte Christmas Tree Farms.

"We would be trying to predict what the market will be like in 15 years," he adds.

"In the last few years, there has been a shift in Ireland from the traditional shedding tree - the spruces - to the non-shed varieties like Noble Fir and we had planned for that."

This year, Coillte has more than 200,000 trees for sale in domestic and export markets.

Thinking decades ahead is an essential prerequisite for most forestry enterprises but success is still far from guaranteed. Profits in the Christmas tree industry are exempt from tax but can be difficult to make, according to Mr Noel Moran.

There is "quite a big learning curve" in the industry, he says.

Mr Moran is managing director of the Emerald Group, the largest non semi-state Christmas tree plantation managers in the State, whose core staff of 35 doubles during this time of year.

"An awful lot of people in the market just fall by the wayside during the first few years."

The company will produce and sell around 180,000 trees this year, but estimates a total of 240,000 for 2002 and a figure as high as 430,000 by 2005.

The Emerald Group is an 11-year-old company and so has completed its first cycle of growing at its plantations in Wicklow, Wexford and Carlow. More than €10.8 million (£8.5 million) has been invested in the company.

"It's not like manufacturing, where, if you discover something is wrong with machinery in the morning, you can fix it in the afternoon," says Mr Moran. "You could be five years into the crop and discover that, although you have trees in the ground, they're not saleable trees. It is pretty unforgiving."

Selling Christmas trees may be the definitive seasonal trade but production is a year-round business. After the spring planting and summer cultivating work, most major sales to wholesalers will be completed in August and September. Harvesting usually takes place from the first week of November until now, with exports shipped overseas in the last week of November.

The European market, dominated by Denmark, is vital to Coillte Christmas Tree Farms and the Emerald Group. Both companies export about 80 per cent of their trees.

"We would be a very small part of Coillte in terms of overall turnover but we are important because we are exporting and competing in overseas markets," says Mr Quinn.

Coillte exports to Britain, France, Switzerland, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany - the country where the Christmas tree tradition began.

Some 50 per cent of Coillte's exports are to Britain. The British market is also important for Emerald, which set up a production depot there in 1995 and use it to forward a proportion of its deliveries to wholesalers and retailers, usually garden centres, on the continent.

"It is a developing market, certainly, in terms of quality expectations, although we are not quite on the same level in terms of quality here as the UK or Danish markets," says Mr Moran.

Quality is becoming a watchword for the Irish industry. Each grower should have a quality statement in his or her plantation management plan that includes how forestry guidelines for care of the environment and water quality will be respected, according to the Irish Christmas Tree Growers Association (ICTG).

The ICTG has appointed a full-time quality officer, Mr John O'Connell, who is building up a national data base of growers, listing species, age, plantation size and predicted harvest years.

"The days of going to the top of a mountain and cutting down a tree are gone," Mr O'Connell says. "Customers are much more discerning now in terms of quality. We are trying to move away from the image of people selling Christmas trees on the side of the road and bring the whole industry upmarket."

On December 12th, Mr Joe Flynn of Tipperary Christmas Tree Farms in Clonmel will receive an ICTG award for best tree. During the ceremony, he will present the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, with one of his prize-winning trees. This marketing tradition, borrowed from the US, is in its second year in the Republic and is designed to raise the profile of the industry as a professional business, says Mr O'Connell.

The main aim of the ICTG is to foster the production and promote the sale of "real" Irish Christmas trees, stressing a range of benefits from providing seasonal local employment to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Forty per cent of Irish households opt for "real" Christmas trees, according to Mr Quinn.

"We would always urge people to buy a real tree because they are more environmentally friendly. Artificial trees are made of plastic so are non-renewable but a lot of local authorities have recycling schemes in place now for real trees," says Mr Quinn, a member of the ICTG executive.

But although they may not be renewable in terms of energy, artificial trees are reusable and easily stored in cardboard boxes the other 11 months of the year.

After years of investing, planting, growing and harvesting natural Christmas trees, there is still the risk that the public may eventually shun the smell of pine in their living rooms in favour of the latest fibre-optic, even ready-dressed, plastic kind.