America's Heartland - Episode 320

Episode 320
	It's "Once a Year Wonders" in the world of agriculture. Jason Shoultz visits an Oregon grower who harvests everything just before Christmas.This Christmas tree grower supplies trees to customers all across the western United States. Still in the spirit of the season, Pat McConahay travels to Ferndale, California where farmers take their tractors out of the field for a one of a kind tractor parade. Then Jason Shoultz heads to Iowa where pumpkins are a big and colorful business from October through holiday pies at Thanksgiving. Pat visits a farmer who specializes in Easter Lilies. The bulbs are grown in Oregon and shipped across the United States to flower just in time for spring. And America's Heartland host Paul Ryan travels to southern California to visit the biggest poinsettia grower in the country. Business is booming when his plants are blooming.

Holiday Harvest
Jason Shoultz travels to the Willamette Valley of Oregon to meet Joe Sharpe. He’s a Christmas tree grower who directs a small army of workers and equipment to ship more than 700 thousand trees to retail dealers all across the United States. He has even shipped to Singapore! See what goes into making a “green” Christmas possible for tens of thousands of families.

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Colorful Caravan
Ferndale, California is a small town that celebrates Christmas in a BIG way. Every year this small dairy farm community of some two thousand people holds a very colorful holiday parade. Farmers in the area decorate their farm equipment with thousands of lights for a unique caravan down Main Street. It’s a parade you won’t see anywhere else .

Bountiful Birds
Rob used to work on Wall Street but gave up the life of a stock broker. He and his uncle saw the potential of raising poultry in New Haven, Vermont. His farm has some 20 thousand turkeys and 75 thousand chickens. As you might expect, when Thanksgiving and Christmas roll around, Rob and the whole family get very busy shipping out birds for holiday tables.

Harvest & Hayrides
Steve Black loves Halloween and the harvest season. Steve is one of many farmers who’ve had to diversify to make his farm profitable. For Steve, that means “agro-tainment.” Jason Shoultz stops by for a harvest season visit and discovers how this Iowa corn operation has changed to make agriculture pay off in quite a different way.

A Blooming Business
Paul Ecke Ranch in San Diego County grows and ships the majority of the millions of poinsettia plants that have come to signify the Christmas holiday season. Paul Ryan visits the giant nursery to explore the history of the plant, the great variety of colors and debunk some common myths about poinsettias being poisonous.

Lilies of the Field
Lilies are one of the most beautiful plants in the world. Pat McConahay explores the history of what’s become an Easter symbol and learns about a small group of farmers in southwest Oregon who grow almost all of the lilies in the United States. It’s a detailed process that involves many steps and takes years to go from bulbs in the field to flowers in your home.

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The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, Farm Credit, and the United Soybean Board make presentation of America's Heartland possible.

Additional production and promotion assistance is provided by
The American Soybean Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Cotton Council, U.S. Grains Council,
National Association of Wheat Growers, and the National FFA Organization.