Trent Preszler is a Cornell University professor and the author of the new book “Evergreen: the Trees that Shaped America.” He said historically, the Christmas tree has been a symbol of resilience.
"There were Pagan rituals and rights where people brought them indoors and decorated them around the winter solstice, and because they stayed green year round, they were really a symbol for people of hope, that we can make it through the depths of winter," he said.
Preszler said the trees evolved to survive Ice Ages and volcanic winters thanks to a special waxy coating on their needles and their well-known conical shape that helps them thrive in extreme northern climates.
"A lot of times, in the winter, the sun is very low in the sky, so you're not necessarily getting overhead light, you're getting side light, and that pyramidal shape allows the trees to absorb a lot of light in the winter."
But Preszler said, now the Christmas trees are facing the destructive effects of climate change.
He said in the mid-1980s, there were about 22,000 Christmas tree farms across America, and today, there are only about 3,000 Christmas tree farms left.
In addition to farmers aging out of the business and dwindling profits, farms are facing an onslaught of pressures on the trees themselves.
Extended periods of drought and heat domes have killed millions of seedlings, while a rise in pest organisms hurts growth.
Preszler said one farmer in the Finger Lakes had to stop growing Douglas Fir trees because of a fungus.
"The list goes on,” he said. “There's a whole host of organisms and pressures that sort of relate to our warming climate that are just one more, sort of, nail in the coffin for our Christmas tree business."
Preszler expects the worst effects to start showing up a few years from now because the harvest cycle of a Christmas tree is about 8-10 years. But there are things that could help.
Some farmers are switching the varieties of trees they plant to ones that thrive better in the current climate. They’re also using marketing techniques like spray painting blemishes to help those less-than-perfect trees find a good home.
There’s also a program that allows people to cut down their own Christmas trees in a national forest, in areas where there may be too many.
"I think hope lives in the tiny evergreen promise of a seed, and if people can get behind tree planting efforts more robustly, I think that will help,” said Preszler. “For every tree that we harvest, we can plant another one. That can give us a lot of hope for a sustainable future."
