Resilience, thy name is farmer. The twin calamities of COVID-19 and climate events have made a mess of moving products to market for nearly any supplier of nearly any kind of goods. But for farmers who grow real Christmas trees, a heatwave in the Pacific Northwest earlier this summer made some wonder if there would even be product to move. The answer after weeks of assessing, tending, and planning? YES. The industry expects plenty of trees to go around. Barring any new crises before harvest, this will not be Christmas without a real Christmas tree.
The artificial Christmas tree industry has stated publicly that supply chain snags are forcing a higher price tag on its product as well as shipping delays. Some shipments are unlikely to arrive before the Christmas shopping season. But the good news for consumers is that 100% of natural Christmas trees sold in the U.S. are grown in North America and don’t have oceans to cross in the first place. That’s not to say this season started out looking like smooth sailing.
In late June, temperatures in the Pacific Northwest Christmas-tree growing regions reached record-breaking highs. Many trees suffered burns, some irrevocably. Best guesses from major growers in the region were that between 10% and 20% of their supply was affected in some way by the heatwave. But those effects varied in intensity and from farm to farm, species to species, and even tree to tree.
While the heat damage in Oregon was unfortunately devastating for some small individual farmers, it was not debilitating for the industry as a whole.3 (Small operations, like many choose-and-cut businesses, tend to have all of their plantings in one area; they’re not decentralized like larger farms.) The industry is stronger than anyone grower or any one region.
