Amid wild cost fluctuations and extreme weather conditions, a small army of workers toiled for years at Wyckoff’s Christmas Tree Farm in Belvidere, N.J. The goal? Producing this year’s crop, including this seven-foot Norway Spruce, which is sold for $105.

It begins with planting 10,000 young trees annually on 70 acres, said John Wyckoff, the owner. That cost him $50,000 this year, before fertilizer and clearing land. “We throw money in the dirt, and pray for the best,” he said.

The biggest expense is labor, with about 30 percent of a tree’s cost tied to year-round care — from shearing and shaping it by hand, to the frenetic cutting season after Thanksgiving, when up to 40 people work.

The annual cost for tree fertilizer peaked in 2021 at $35,000, he said. That is up from $15,000, before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine drove up the price. It has now stabilized at around $20,000.

After a customer picks out a tree, workers remove loose needles and wrap it in a web of twine using a baler machine. This year, Mr. Wyckoff paid $1,380 for 12 boxes of twine.

Five baler machines, which cost a total of $69,000, are stationed near customers’ cars, where two workers slide each tree, base first, into the whirring cylinder.

Then there are the vehicles. Mr. Wyckoff has a dozen tractors, including a used 2002 model he bought last year for $80,000, nearly as much as when it was new. Like many farmers, he prefers the older tractor’s reliability.