People all over the world deck out homes and businesses with festive holiday decorations, which usually means lots of Christmas trees on display. In the US, they appear everywhere from the average living room to the plaza at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan and the White House in Washington, DC.
But climate change threatens to complicate the tradition. Christmas trees, like any other crop, are affected by the general increase in temperature associated with global warming and the resulting extreme weather events.
“Earth’s climate is changing to a warmer one. And like most of society and the environment, Christmas trees are not adapting fast enough to these changes,” according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. web site.
Higher temperatures have led to warmer winters and longer growing seasons, which contribute to the prevalence of pests and diseases that damage trees commonly decorated for Christmas. Heavier rain and oversaturated soil also put trees at risk of contracting a notorious type of fungus-like organism that attacks them at the root, weakening and quickly killing them.
Extreme heat and prolonged drought making Christmas trees more vulnerable to these problems and a number of others, including needle gilt and stunting. Only unusual heat can cause trees to die prematurely.
In Oregon, where more than a third of the nation’s Christmas trees are grown, reported researchers at Oregon State University that record heat in the summer of 2021 destroyed approximately 70% of the Christmas tree seedlings planted that year and dried the needles of the most mature crops. Fewer viable trees could mean higher prices for consumers, although experts have largely attributed the steady rise in the cost of Christmas trees in recent decades. to a supply shortage dating back to the 2008 recessionin addition to losses due to extreme weather.
Extreme cold can be just as destructive to these trees, which are susceptible to frost damage, as can extreme rainfall. In North Carolina, the second largest producer of Christmas trees in the United States after Oregon, farmers struggled with the impacts of Hurricane Helene in September
Justin Whitehill, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University who directs the school’s Christmas tree genetics program, told CBS News that Helene’s landslides posed a particular threat to on the Christmas trees that grow on the sides of the mountains and completely removed a handful. of smaller growing operations, which likely cost the industry at least tens of millions.
North Carolina State Estimates suggests that more than 40,000 acres of land are devoted to Christmas tree production statewide, with 5 to 6 million trees harvested annually for a collective retail value of $250 million or more. Whitehill believes the industry remains strong overall because it has been forced to evolve and adapt to climate change.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
“Climate change is happening and has been happening for decades. And so the industry has evolved alongside it,” he said.
North Carolina State’s genetics program is one example. Researchers are studying the natural defense mechanisms of Christmas trees, focusing on a popular variety called Fraser fir, hoping to use genetics and molecular biology to help trees acclimate to climate change and increase their chances of survival.
“With our breeding work in the genetics program, we’re trying to identify trees that have a little more resilience to some of these changing climates,” Whitehill said. In addition to determining how genetics can help Christmas trees withstand warmer temperatures, he said his team is also working on strategies to protect trees from pests.
Rising temperatures are a major concern for Christmas tree growers. Even if his crops survive pests and diseases, Whitehill told CBS News that cosmetics are also a problem.
“The biggest thing, I think, with climate change and Christmas trees is going to be needle loss and retention,” he said.
Warmer conditions can cause Christmas trees to drop their needles too early, making them less attractive to people looking to buy one for the holidays.
Conifers, the mostly evergreen, conical plant species that are often marketed as Christmas trees for their classic appearance, must acclimate to near-freezing temperatures for several weeks to enter their “dormant” stage ” before being harvested. It’s not just people in general who buy Christmas trees at the beginning of the yearthe milder fall weather gives crops less time to reach this stage, where they effectively go into a deep sleep and are alive but no longer growing, or growing very little.
The transition to dormancy means different things to different trees as they slow down to prepare for winter. Some lose their leaves entirely, but Christmas trees use this time to absorb water and nutrients from their needles to conserve energy. A Christmas tree may drop its needles soon after being cut if it is harvested in the middle of this active transition.
“We’re basically stressing the trees to the limit,” Whitehill said. “They are being killed somehow.”