Generally trees and grass (I did not test the grass at this time) are very expensive when it comes to Exporting a scene.
If it is not optimized further by RL devs, then it would be hard to export a scene with a lot of greens.

NOV 29 release had a problem with skipped scene frames partially due to the trees in the scene.
I have this project with 4 trees (all are NoweySpruce) and nothing else. in NOV 29 I could only export 3 frames before export failed.

Same project in JAN 18 is exporting with better rate. I did not have failed export. But by Animagic and my experience it is still broken (FT 5613)

So I have a question and a proposition.

1. Is it possible to combine the best of NOV 29 and JAN 18 releases, when it comes to Exporting scenes with trees and keep the export intact?

In reference to the above mentioned project with 4 trees only:

NOV 29 release used Trees Instancing. Take a look at the SCREENSHOT1. Each frame scene is 1.3 Mb
The texture in Resources however is extracted for each tree (SCREENSHOT 2)

I have opened the same project in JAN 18 and again exported 3 frames. Trees geometry is NOT getting instanced in this case.
Each frame export size is 5.3 Mb (1.3x4) SCREENSHOT 3
Instead, the texture in Resources is getting instanced. One set of texture for ALL trees.
(I still see the same images are extracted, so even this one have some room for optimization) (see SCREENSHOT 4)

So again, I wish RL could figure out the way to Instance both geometry and texture for the same type of trees.

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2. Regardless whether or not 1 is fixed/optimized, users should have an option to exclude trees and grass from animation.
As of now (JAN 18), it is simply not possible. There is no way to include trees into AOL (those you with to animate and exclude the rest).

ALL Trees are getting animated (exported for each frame) regardless.

Being that much expensive (geometry and texture vise), it is not possible to build a distant grove, or even a set of random standalone trees.

Excluding certain trees (those you do not wish to be affected by a wind) from animation and referencing them once
would free up an export form unnecessary mesh which is taking forever to export.