Couple moves tree business to rural Amiret
By Per Peterson
Lance Dorschner has always had a passion for agriculture, be it grains, animals or plants. Now, he’s taking that passion to another level.
Dorschner and his wife, Emily, are owners of North Central Reforestation, LLC, which specializes in growing trees from seedlings. The couple, which took over ownership of the business the first of the year, is in the process of relocating it from Evansville to an acreage just north of Amiret on Lyon County Road 9.
“I’ve always liked agriculture — any aspect, whether it’s corn and soybeans, livestock, trees, vegetables, flowers. I’ve always enjoyed working with living things I guess you could say,” said Dorschner, who earned an ag business and marketing degree from Southwest Minnesota State University in 2012. “This started off as kind of a hobby … I was going to have a couple hundred trees maybe, and it turned into this.”
Lance said he spent last year living out of the Evansville business’s office, as he completely immersed himself in the business. He learned all about working with immature trees, seeding, packaging, and all the care that goes into raising trees.
The Dorschners — Lance is from Marshall, Emily from Cottonwood — purchased about 10 acres of pasture land north of Amiret, and the business will occupy about 4 to 5 of those acres. Lance said purchasing the land was a lengthy process, as it took about two years to finalize.
“The bank was on board and everything, but we had to find land,” he said. “We happened to kind of stumble upon this.”
When the operation is up and running, there will likely be more than 1 million seedlings on site. Last year, while still in Evansville, the business produced almost 1.25 million trees (including bare-root trees which are brought in from a provider).
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.