ELLENSBURG, WA – It is the holiday season and many families have a tradition of getting a Christmas tree and decorating it together, but this year there might not be enough trees for every family.
“Some of the growers suffered as much as 50% or some of them 100% losses in their plantings this year” said Dr. Donald Chance, Owner of Badger Pocket Christmas Tree Farm.
This is all because of the massive heat wave that swept across the Pacific Northwest this summer.
“The heat wave this summer both on the west side and the east side really did effect particularly the young Christmas trees the seedlings” said Chance. “They weren’t settled in yet didn’t have strong enough root systems so a lot of them got burned pretty badly.”
Many trees that had been growing over 6 years or more were largely affected.
“When you travel on the westside now you can see older pine trees and fur trees and they all show brown tips on the end, these trees simply just weren’t used to hitting 115 degrees” said Chance.
This effects Christmas tree farms harshly depending on the type of tree, because it could take 6 to 10 years to grow to a full grown commercial size tree.
With many newly planted trees dying due to the heat, there’s a good chance that there will be a shortage of trees within the next 6 to 7 years from now just because of the heat wave we had this summer.
“Sometimes the seedling would completely fry out it would be completely dead. even irrigating and putting a lot of water on them wasn’t enough for a lot of the young trees” said Chance.
And that’s not all, because of the delays with deliveries in ports this year, artificial Christmas trees and décor have a shortage too.
Experts are recommending people start shopping early for Christmas related gifts and décor before places run out.
